Looking for positive stories :-)

[WorryMcGee]

Hi everyone. I’m an anxious person that tends to focus on the negative, especially when things are about to change…and things are about to change because I’m 5 weeks pregnant! I know I am lucky, my husband is over the moon, I should be too but my main emotion right now is fear. All I can think of is that my life is gone forever (illogical) and I am fixating on every single post/story/anecdote I come across about how terrible having children is. Logical me (and the me that wanted to get pregnant) knows that this cannot be the case 24/7 because no one would ever do it and no one would ever have more than one. I also know that people don’t tend to take to the internet when things are rosy, which means a lot of what you see is negative.

So I was wondering - can you tell me some stories about how wonderful it is 🧡 how your life is better, how it brought you and and your partner closer together, how you’re a different person but you actually like that person more, etc?

(Please don’t be mean or tell me I obviously don’t want this pregnancy enough. Obviously I know it’s the hardest thing I’ll ever do and it’s not all rainbows. I’m just searching for a little balance because I’m in a negative thought spiral, and also I thought it might be a nice thing for others to read )

OP, I felt exactly the same way as you but it's the best thing I've ever done and the happiest I've ever been. Don't worry too much about not liking early mornings, you'll find your own routine and your body prepares you when you get closer to your due date.

@WorryMcGee

These three new posts this morning have brought me to tears! Happy ones though haha. It’s nice to feel excitement rather than constant anxiety about the unknown. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences xx

@TashAnonymous123 the Googling…oh the Googling. I want Google to ban me hahaha. Your post was so lovely, and it is reassuring to know I’m not the only one like this!!! Good luck with your pregnancy ❤️

@Summerlovin24 no one really talks about fun do they! I read your post to my husband and he said “see it IS going to be fun, if there was no fun involved ever for the rest of your days no one would ever have more than one would they” haha. Love “embrace the madness”, might stick that on the fridge!

@ForPingsSake thank you for reassuring me that starting this thread was a good idea! Good luck today ❤️

Bless your naive husband... People have more than one because they want a new born baby, not the screaming toddler, moody teeenager etc. Havibg kids is something you won't understand until they're here. They are so so hard. It's nearly torn me and my marriage apart and today when he is throwing a tantrum and chucking anything he can get his hands on in the house, I sit back and feel it's a thankless job.

I’m really sorry to hear that @theworldishard, but - respectfully because it’s obvious from your post that you’re having a hard time - I had asked for positive stories. The internet is full of posts like yours and I was looking for a bit of balance, some stories about the good times as well as the bad. I hope things improve for you.

how your life is better, how it brought you and and your partner closer together, how you’re a different person but you actually like that person more, etc?

None of this applies to me.

But I love my DD, the person my she is and will be, and I get to have her in my life. She outweighs the negatives (which are many!)

@WorryMcGee

I’m really sorry to hear that *@theworldishard*, but - respectfully because it’s obvious from your post that you’re having a hard time - I had asked for positive stories. The internet is full of posts like yours and I was looking for a bit of balance, some stories about the good times as well as the bad. I hope things improve for you.

Every parent I know feels like me. I was so naive and went into parenthood imagining it was like the adverts etc. It is not and I wish I had been warned beforehand. Of course there are good times, but 80% of it is stress, worry, guilt etc.

Best description I have ever read, have you ever seen the film the Wizard of Oz? The original, Judy Garland?
Well becoming a parent is like the scene when Dorothy steps out of the black & white and into the colour.
That’s how life changes. For the better.

Best thing is sitting with tiny toddler after bath time reading the Gruffalo to them smelling their sleepy little head snuggled up. My favourite time.
That’s after a day of tantrums and unreasonable behaviour!
There are so SO many bloody brilliant things, best thing that I never wanted to do!

@Theworldishard I guess I’m the opposite in that I worry it will be nothing but hard. That’s why I started the thread, because I had gone too far down the other end of the scale and I needed to get some perspective and balance. We’ve had a tough time recently (husband had a brain tumour) and it was us facing the prospect of him dying that pushed us off the fence into “let’s give it a go”.

Your 80/20 sounds better than what I had swirling around in my brain a few weeks ago! Thank you for adding to your original post.

Its perfectly normal to have the 'ooohh
Shit' reaction when you fall pregnant. Even when it is much longed for. You know your life is going to change hugely but you can't quite imagine how.

If it was that bad people wouldn't have multiple-is a really good basic principle.

Babies are unpredictable and don't come with a handbook so it is great to have your anxiety as under control as you can before they come. Is it worth revisiting counselling/cbt/medication before baby comes?

Life does change. But like everything. Some of those changes are wonderful and others are more challenging but it balances out.

Great communication and shared workload with partner helps enormously.

For me pregnancy, birth and the baby part were hard but after that it was fine and I could be a parent, work and have my social life and a hobby. With my second baby she is so much easy I'm not even sleep deprived this time :)

I love this thread and all the positive stories! OP, having kids is wonderful and I'm sure you'll be a great mum! It's totally normal to feel anxious, and from your posts it seems you know that being anxious is very normal for you and your personality. You're doing the right thing to address it and it seems like you are aware of how hard it can and will be.

I wasn't really fussed about having kids, but eventually we felt ready for one and I can honestly say it's the best thing I ever did. I know I'm very lucky, but my maternity leave was the best year of my life and I felt happy and content 99% of the time. My DC makes me laugh and smile a million times a day, even when the terrible twos kick in. My advice to you is to join some classes like prenatal yoga or NCT (even if you're not that into the subject) because having a good group of mum friends is also great for keeping you sane and bouncing things off of. They also help you feel like your old self (girly wine nights) while understanding the limitations of being a mum.

Sorry if I've just repeated what everyone else has said, admittedly I've not read the full thread. Good luck and congratulations! X

10 weeks after having my son my husband kicked us out.
We lived in a bed sit.
He has severe autism, anxiety, demand avoidance. Was kicked out of school at 5 years old. Really hard work. He is THE BEST THING that ever happened to me.

He’s my best friend. As a toddler it’s so much fun to play and teach and know that you’re the entire world to this little person.
As they get older it’s lovely to see them develop their own personalities and they teach you about what is important to them.
You get to share your hobbies and passions.
My son is 11 now, hopefully starting school soon. 24/7 with him is intense but I wouldn’t change him for the world.

I’ve found that since becoming a parent every day is equally the most shit and best day ever at the same time. I’ll probably have to explain with an example from just now: we have a 15.5m old boy and a 3 day old baby and 15.5m old hasn’t taken well in some respects crying and whining A LOT since bringing the baby home which is quite a lot to take in when you’re sleep deprived, sore from CS and emotional from the raging hormones…. then 15.5m old DS picks up DS2s dummy from the changing mat walks over to DS2 kisses the dummy and gives it to him gently. I cried it was so adorable.

Everyday is filled with moments like that.

Me and DP are much stronger as a team now and we communicate better. It’s like we’re a united front now.

@isitweds9thseptyet this all sounds reassuring :-) I am confident my husband will share the load, as he already does. In fact, he probably does more than I do now he’s recovered which I feel bad about sometimes but he just says doing things for me/us is how he shows he cares and it makes him feel good about himself. I work more hours than he does and he feels bad about that! He is considering moving to compressed hours and a shorter week when I go back to work. If he wasn’t the person he is I don’t think I’d have moved off my previously comfortable seat on the fence haha 😆

You make a great point re getting the anxiety under control. I have taken medication alongside CBT before and it worked incredibly well, to the point that I was able to stop the medication last year and still coped well with my husband’s brain surgery and recovery, just by using the techniques I learned in CBT. That made me feel a lot more confident, like I could get through anything - but I have noticed I am feeling a bit more anxious again now. I’m hoping to keep a lid on it without meds as much as I can - I’m reluctant to take them while pregnant although I know many women do, I had a bit of a rough ride getting used to them the first time round! - but I wouldn’t hesitate to go on them afterwards if I felt I needed them.

We have a really weird thing as a society where the only acceptable script for talking about children is to go on about how exhausting and boring and hard it is but then brightly say 'but I wouldn't be without them!' at the end. I've heard women complain about how taboo it is to say you regret having children and I have sympathy for that, but it also seems taboo to say that you really enjoy having children. I imagine some of my friends think I enjoy motherhood much less than I do because I'm so aware of not becoming 'smug' and not seeming like I'm 'just a mum' now (especially around friends without children). It's also just so much easier to describe the downsides because they're so tangible - everyone understands what you mean if you say 'I slept for five broken hours last night and that was a good night'. The good bits - the joy, the fun, the wonder - are mostly intangible which makes them hard to describe, and you sound like a twat if you try. It doesn't mean they're not there.

And contrary to a previous poster I very much didn't want a newborn baby when I had my second child - that was the stage I'd have chosen to skip if I could! By the time I had my second I knew that I found the newborn bit hard going but I found having a toddler so bloody brilliant that it was worth it.

@coles85 you haven’t repeated anything on the thread but even if you had it wouldn’t matter to me because reading lovely positive things is helping me so much - I’ve actually opened and reread it all a few times since I originally posted it last month! ❤️

@Mymapuddlington you are absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing and I hope your son loves school ❤️

@FTEngineerM that IS adorable 🥰 congratulations on your new baby ❤️

Hi OP
You remind me of me. We were trying to get pregnant for a while and part of me never really believed it would happen. Then when it did, I really freaked out and was so very anxious about all the change/ losing my job and independence/ not being able to cope with a child.

I'm now 3 years down the line from that. Honestly, it has been the hardest 3 years of my life as I struggled with PND. But I wouldn't roll the clock back even if I could. Now when I look ahead to my future all I see is fun and love and new experiences with my family. My son has changed my life for the better- I was motivated to get into a better, more flexible job, and we do all sorts of fun things together.
I hope I don't put you off by saying how tough it was. The one thing I wished I did when I was pregnant was that I had had some sort of therapy to address the anxiety I had then, it would have saved me a lot of MH trauma later on I think.
But no, babies aren't all rainbows of course they're not. But I never thought I would ever love motherhood, I'd written myself off from the moment I got pregnant to be honest.
But now my life is funner, more rounded, and more full of love- and now he's 3 I have time for hobbies (pub) and even weekends away. Life is good. It will be for you

Motherhood is the most magical magical journey. It never stops filling your heart with joy. Yes it’s hard, yes you will cry buckets. But my goodness the LOVE you will feel. Forever too. My children are adults now and and the love and pride I feel in them is like nothing else. It’s also so lovely to sit back sometimes when they are just being awesome humans and thinks ‘I made her/him’.

Buckle up, you are going to love it ❤️

I absolutley adore being a parent, I have 3 sons and they are the light of my life! They are so funny and bring so much adventure to everything. They have actually made me a warmer, stronger and more tactile person. For me my life would not have the same meaning without them. The see the world in such a refreshing way.
I loved being pregnant, fab births and no issues breasfeeding. In fact when I gave birth to each baby it was like a glimpse of heaven when they were passed into my arms and I'll remember and cherish that moment until my dying day.
Also my kids are v v v physically active which is v tiring tbh BUT im the fittest ive ever been, at 37 I'm a size 6 with a flat stomach so the horror stories re birth and bodies arent always true. Also just on that note its I know when a woman is pregnant they never want to hear anything negative but tbh op it really is no harm to hear of some reality. I had two out of three terrible sleepers, i had always been told this was rare after 6 months,.bad parenting, unusual etc, my kids regularly woke until 3/4 years old and we are firm, consistent parents. I honestly wish someone had told me that as I had unrealistic expectations. Parents arent always being negative, just honest. Me and my dh adore our lives with kids but we have no family support at all and thats been tough but also made us stronger too.
Also cliche but all our christmas's have been absolute magic, the stuff of dreams. Children make Christmas imo.
I loved the newborn stage with each one and found it a v gentle introduction to parenting i massively struggled with toddlers though
Our youngest is 4 and life is v sweet. I look at them every night and thank my lucky stars.

I felt the same as you and put off having a baby for years because I was scared of losing my independence, ruining my relationship, ruining my body, and so many other things. I think all those articles about how awful being a mother is really do a disservice to many women, no it's not for everyone, but lots of people do it and really love it.

My baby is 7 months old now and I have never felt joy like this in my life. It feels like time is racing by and I can never spend enough of it with her. It's like falling in love, totally engrossing, all encompassing and overwhelming. She is just my treasure and I delight in her. I have so much hope for the future now, so many things I am excited about to look forward to, and I feel more hopeful about the state of the world. The world seems so beautiful to me and I am so excited to get to experience it with her.

My husband is a great dad, I love watching them play together and I love to see her excitement when he gets home from work. When he's home he does more than his share of childcare and is glad to do it because he loves her. I'm so proud of him and so happy he's my husband. Equally he says he's proud of me and thinks I'm a great mom.

I got super healthy during my pregnancy and weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant, I feel good about myself! I do have postpartum SPD but it's manageable and I don't truly mind.

I don't say all this to be braggy, I never effuse this much when talking about my experience in real life, but I think if you're anxious, it's important to know that life can be really really beautiful after you have a child.

Hi OP. I had PN anxiety and had councilling for it. It was tough at times but I want to tell you about how having my son 18months ago has been the best things thats ever happened to me -

• I get SO MUCH joy from him. From seeing his developments, no matter how small. I get to teach him about the world and see the absolute wonder in things thats totally lost on adults. Today we ate some blackberries from a bush and he thought it was hilarious. Stuff like that.

• Ive totally re-evaluated my life. I left my old job and found something else im totally happy in and will send my career in a direction I want it to go. Ive moved house to a new town to achieve this. My life was stagnant before, but its defo not now.

• I genuinely think im a better person. Im much more patient and kind. Thats totally down to motherhood.

• Having my son has bought our family together in a way that probably wouldnt have happened otherwise.

So, all in all, my life has totally changed and there has been some tough times, but its so much better now than it was before.

Every single one of these responses is amazing, I’m so grateful to all of you it’s making me teary! @Hardbackwriter you are spot on with the “it’s insert words for how awful it is BUT I wouldn’t be without them!!!” I wonder if it’s because, as women, we are so often conditioned into feeling we have to respond a certain way to be accepted? There have been a couple of posts on here with lovely stories, told in a really beautiful way, and then a “I don’t mean to brag” as if it’s somehow wrong to tell a stranger that you feel happy 😢

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP.

I have a 14 month old and she is just great.
Yes it’s hard and there are afternoons that feel like they go on for about a month before she’s in bed but the good outweighs the bad easily.
I agree everyone tells you how hard it is (and it is hard!) and that you’ll never sleep again (currently still true in my case) but I think you can’t appreciate the love you’ll have for them once they’re here. Watching her discover the world for the first time and work things out is wonderful.
Seeing the absolute trust she has in me is humbling and it makes me try to be a better person.
I can honestly say I really love being a mum (although I hated being pregnant) and it’s shifted my world view more than I thought it would.

Congratulations! I have two primary aged boys.

It's cheesy as anything, but my children filled a huge, gaping hole in my life that I never even knew was there (get ready for it) - they completed me.

I wasn't particularly maternal, I hadn't been around babies a lot, but I had a strong urge to have children of our own.

Days are long, you're tired & they are relentless, but it's not hard like paid work is hard. You're doing it for little people who need you. It's hard in the most primal way - you need a rest & 5 minutes peace!

As mine have got older, I'm less tired, and while they're not cute babies anymore, they are witty and clever. They are whole people in their own right and so much more confident than I ever was and that makes me so proud.

Your heart bursts a thousand times a day, it breaks fairly often too. But I wouldn't swap it for the world.

Oh and I knew I wanted a second one when my first was 3 days old. That's how amazing he was, and I hadn't really bonded with him yet.

It's glorious. All the best for a happy, healthy pregnancy.

“Having children” is completely different from actually being with your own child. Which, while sometimes challenging/unglamorous/not conducive to a good night’s sleep, is the most amazing experience in the world. Congratulations!