24 weeks pregnant and feeling panicky and scared

[chester21]

hi this is my first pregnancy and as the title suggest i am 24 weeks in a coule of days and the realisation that i am 'cooking a bun'as the saying goes has started to hit me and i am feeling a bit out of my depth. is this normal and if so how do u cope with it.

Yes it's normal and you get used to it. I had quite panicky feelings at the beginning of my first pregnancy because I had another person growing inside me. I was also terrified of labour which was daft because I wasn't in the least bit scared by the time it actually happened.

I couldn't imagine myself actually holding my baby right up until the midwife told DH to get some clothes for the baby as we were leaving the ward to go to the delivery suite.

All those feelings sort themselves out in time. Don't be hard on yourself if you have times when it feels a bit weird, scary or wrong. We've all been there I'm sure.

I found my first scan helped with the reality check a bit.

Totally normal I'd say. I went through it at about 22 weeks, and despite being pregnant with a much longed-for baby spent a few hours feeling very overwhelmed and terrified that I couldn't 'just get off' this particular ride (not that I wanted to, but not being able to was scary!). Those feelings then made me feel very guilty, like I was somehow being disloyal to my baby. My partner was brilliant - reassuring me that it was totally normal, and it passed very swiftly. Perhaps it was just hearing that it was normal to have these feelings helped. I hope it does for you too.

I'm on my 2nd pregnancy and I still get those feelings. It is like Laska saya- you are on a ride that you cannot get off. Plus the baby has to come out somehow! You do get used to it though and by the time your due date approaches you are feeling so uncomfortable, impatient and frustrated that you can't wait to meet your baby. It's a fear of the unknown but remember that nothing is as bad as we imagine it to be and we humans are marvellous at adjusting to changes. You'll be fine.

Hi chester, I'm 24+2 with my first and reality hasn't hit yet, but I'm sure it will sometime soon. Even knowing what we're having and buying some clothes hasn't really helped. DH is constantly having to remind me that I'm growing a whole new person when I dissolve into another puddle of tears over being too tired to do anything useful - I then end up crying in panic over how we're going to cope with a baby. Its reassuring to know its normal to feel a bit overwhelmed with the whole thing - thank you

This looks as if it could have been written by me! I'm 24+4 and in a continual panic/state of anxiety. I just can't visualise things in the future. Thankfully my midwife is great and has referred me to some nice mental health people (I have form). But it's good to see that I'm not the only one feeling out of my depth. That sounds wrong, sorry. Obviously I'm not glad that others are feeling like me, but it reassures me that I'm not alone in feeling this way. Even with the baby wriggling about, I just can't imagine everything going to plan. I just fear things are going to go wrong at some point. If it's not the baby's health, then it's money I worry about. I just can't win .

It's really, really normal, especially at this stage - you've just started to feel baby kick, baby is near or at viability, perhaps you have found out the gender which gives a bit more of an identity, and you realise the days left are getting perilously close to double digits.

I definitely went through this with my first at some point between 20-24 weeks. The whole thing seemed so enormous - I could not imagine anyone calling me "mummy" - that was crazy. And don't even get me started on the concept of breastfeeding.. that seemed utterly insane now that I'd thought about it logically as those things were for shoving in tight bras to get attention, right? Ironically I've actually been breastfeeding her or her younger sister for over 4 years now, aside from a few months off towards the end of my second pregnancy!

We started buying our first baby stuff eventually, and I vividly recall seeing the brightly coloured toy looking enormously out of place in our "adult" living room. Like somebody else's child had left it there. It always felt like it was going to be someone else's baby showing up at 40 weeks!

I felt like that throughout the rest of the pregnancy, especially when we started assembling the pram - that was a weird feeling. And then when DC1 showed up, very suddenly and quickly on the evening of 36w6d it is safe to say I was in shock! But that first night with just me and my baby and it just all changed, as if a switch had been flipped. She was mine, ours - not anyone else's who was visiting - this was the little girl who had been hanging out in my tummy for the last what seemed like forever. She belonged to us and no-one else. She didn't have a clue how to be brought up any more than we knew how to bring her up and so we would all muddle through together and so that's what we do!

Okay, so there were still moments in the first few months where I'd look behind me if someone said "DC's mum" and in fact I still sometimes feel that way.. but it does all come together for most of us. Promise!

And yep, totally normal to worry about the health of the baby. I have never stopped fretting although it doesn't help in my case that I have been high risk for this pregnancy and my last one - but I swear I worried just as much in my first one which was normal!

I had different doubts around the same time with DC2, along the lines of "TWO??!" and I'm 23 weeks now with DC3 and fully expecting them to hit any day now - I'm currently still in denial over having three, see

Sorry for the essay!!

Thanks Cheste for starting this thread, and thanks to all of you who are sharing your experiences - good to hear from those who've already been through all this, and also good to hear that lots of you are experiencing the same panic and anxieties.

Like Caringforpod, the OP could have been written by me - in fact, I came on to MN tonight with the sole purpose of either starting my own thread on the subject, or finding a thread that fitted with what I'm feeling right now - and there it was! :)

I'm 23 weeks with my first, and feeling suddenly overwhelmed by it all. Have just had a rubbish day, beginning with a meeting that didn't go well (or so it felt, in my over emotional state), compounded by not having much sleep last night (pregnancy insomnia and general discomfort has kicked in), and just feeling teary and out of my depth.... Started crying as soon as I got home tonight :(

i am so glad a friend suggested i join mumsnet when i told her i was pregnant many moons ago (feels like it lol) i have found that i am normal in all that i am feeling.

I couldnt bielieve that i woke up yesterday and cried about it. I do think that having a few bad days at work havent helped either.

i know all of u will be fantastic at this parenting malarchy and that we are all here to support each other.

My DM said these wobbles/feelings of utter panic are normal and the way you adjust to the fact it's real. It has to hit at some point or you just go through pregnancy in denial and then you're totally unprepared! Anything can make it real - for me it was buying bottles and a steriliser (I do plan to BF but want the safety net!) and feeling like I had to make this huge choice (between tommy tippee and avent!) that was going to affect a whole other person that was going to be my responsibility and for a selfish moment I really didn't want that.

I think 20-24 weeks is when it becomes really real. I know I floated around in hypothetical land for the first half and it's only the last month or so that I feel I've even vaguely bonded with the baby growing inside me. You feel it, you buy things for it, you start sorting out maternity leave, you're more confident having got through that terrifying first trimester and plus it's just around New Year and you realise that this year it's going to happen.

Utterly normal :)