Hi,
I know these discussions have gone round a million times - I think I've searched and read every one on the subject but still feel lost!
In a few weeks time my partner and I are due to go on holiday for one week to Cape Verde. We managed to get a very good deal last year because the hotel we booked hadn't been built.
My little girl will be 6.5 months when we go. She will be staying with my mum and dad.
She has stayed with them overnight many times, the first time she was only 10 weeks old.
Because I have had troubled mental health since I was a child I was determined when pregnant that I would lead a life that confronted my fears and protected my girl from my anxieties - the alternative being that I became an agorophobic mess again and stayed in with her all the time! So instead I made a point of doing the opposite. We were out and about everyday from her being 4 days old and went on holiday to France with my family when she was 6 weeks old. The most I have been away from her though is 2 nights in a row but I have had plenty of nights away and she even started nursery one day a week from 3 months old so I can continue my degree. Everything has gone so well and she is just the most beautifully happy content little girl and without meaning to gloat she has made being a new mum so easy.
On the other hand, my pregnancy and birth were absolutely horrific. Among the many many problems, the most difficult was the fact that I was physically sick every day of my pregnancy from week 7 right up to the day I went into labour. I had to leave work very early and spent months in between bed and the bathroom. My partners boys live with us half the week, they are 6 and 11, and my partner had to do absolute everything for months and found it very hard because we had gone from being in such a happy place to me suddenly not being able to really cuddle or kiss or even talk half the time because I was just so sick! We cancelled all our plans we had pre made , missed family get togethers and weddings and cancelled a holiday etc. I was 8 months pregnant when we booked the holiday to Cape Verde with the idea that it would give us a chance to just get back to us. I was so scared that a baby would put a strain on our relationship after such a long worrying pregnancy.
Anyway we are now a few weeks away from holiday and I just can't stop crying about the holiday. I'm not worried at all about leaving her, my mum is a recently retired nurse as well as bring up me and my brother, I watched her being up my younger brother and sister when I was in my teens. I trust her implicitly and know my daughter will be so safe and loved. I'm just petrified of the flight and the thought of something happening to us, I'm completely consumed by thoughts of being in a crash and those last moments knowing I'll never see her face again. I know it's so dark and morbid but I can't stop the panic washing over me - I just keep crying and feel everyday is one of my last few with her because I'm going to go on this holiday and never come back :(
I know logically this makes no sense, statistically there is more chance of something happening to us when we are popping to the shops on the motorway but I just feel petrified.
We will lose all the money if we cancel as it's too late now, about £1500 which is a lot of money for us , but I don't know if I'm just giving into irrational fears.. I know a lot of people wouldn't even contemplate leaving their 6 month old but for me it could escalate to the point of fearing everything and going out at all which is how I used to be in my early 20s. A lot of me forcing myself to go do things is because I missed out on so much in my 20s because of being so mentally unwell. When I turned 30 I promised myself I would make my 30s a chance to do all the things I had said I would do growing up but I fell pregnant 6 months later, despite being on the pill!
I just feel so consumed by grief and nothing has happened yet. Sorry this is so long! I'm just trying to figure out my thoughts on it!
Any thoughts and advice would be amazing xx