Denial/uncertainty

[kitkat321]

I'm currently just under 10 weeks pregnant.

While I'm very calm about the whole thing - and really not enjoying the symptoms, I'm also feeling strangely detached from the whole thing.

This is my 3rd pregnancy after 2 early miscarriages and I'm just struggling to conceptualize the idea that I have a baby growing in side me or get my head round the idea of being a parent.

I just have this awful feeling that life as I know it is over and once the baby comes, I won't be able to enjoy the things that I enjoy now(in fact it's started already due to pregnancy symptoms)! This makes me feel resentful towards the baby and as much as I hate to admit it, part of me thinks I wouldn't be devastated if this pregnancy was also not viable.

Does this make me a horrible person? Or is this a normal reaction/adjustment?

I'm not excited about the idea of telling anyone - I'm dreading telling my mother as she'll be full of lectures of what I shouldn't be doing any more (I have a horse who is the love of my life and enjoy riding regularly and will absolutely not be stopping until I have to!!!)

I told a close friend the other day (she's also a horse owner and was full of positivity about how you can make it work - she certainly hasn't had to cut down her riding post baby but she doesn't seem to get much sleep).

I don't deal well with change and I think that's part of the problem - I love my life the way it is - no commitments, no hassle, no real stress and I know that will change.

Please someone reassure me that this will all change when the baby comes - I'm worried that I'll be an awful mother who resents her baby!

I may not be much help, but I also have a horse and up until I got pregnant thought I would carry on riding regardless. My boy is my life and I have always had horses from my first Shetland when I was 3!

I was very lucky early pregnancy and didn't get any MS or other major symptoms. The worst was a bit of bloating. I didn't even feel pregnant really and even after the 12 week scan it didn't seem real.

But I stopped riding as soon as I got my BFP as my boy was on boxrest and being rehabbed for a ligament injury. He is also a purebred Arab so the result was basically a Rodeo Stunt Show every day. He really is a horror! I would never forgive myself if something happened as it's not just me, I have to think of my OH and the grandparents too.

I carried on walking him in hand but he was just as bad and had 2 very nasty accidents whilst misbehaving; hurting himself and causing me alot of worry, so I told the vet to sedate him and we've turned him out.

I'm now 23 weeks and back walking him in hand (as he can behave when he's been out in the field, just). He is 18 on May 22nd and i've resigned myself to the fact that we probably wont compete again (I was a member of BD and seriously into my Dressage). I've been a bit jealous of everyone else and been a bit down about it, but in the last few weeks as my bump has grown, having a good 20 weeks scan, finding out im having a little girl and feeling her move about, something has clicked and I now cannot wait and i'm soo excited to be a mum!

I can't wait for my boy to meet her and I am actaully very glad now that he will have wound down and we will be out of the 'competing zone'. I'm looking forward to lots of hacking and doing things at my own pace. I'll probably have the odd lesson here and there but i'm enjoying the freedom of not having my weekend revolving around shows and lessons.

Everyone is different but if your horse is young, i'd say enjoy the first few months with your baby and let your horse have a break - my boy is certainly enjoying his and i've promised him he can live out over the Summer x

I get where you are coming from, I'm on my 3rd pregnancy as well but this is the first one to make it past 12 weeks (currently 21 weeks). It's only since the scan last week I've felt that the baby is real, up to that point I didn't want to get too attached in case it all went wrong again. Also lots of exciting things are happening that I can't join in with that are annoying me (for example a gin distillery has just opened near us which does gin tours - my dream day out! Also had to quit half marathon training as I was struggling to even do 5k.)

I'll probably get shot down for being naive but I think your life will change the amount you want it to; I'm certainly not planning to spend the next 5 years stuck at home or in soft play. We spent our last holiday traveling around Japan so I don't think a trip to Spain with a baby will be that much harder! If your horse is a priority then you will make time for it.

I had some similar thoughts myself- this is pregnancy number 2 or 3 (may have had an early mc in December but I never tested even though I was 3 days late as I wasn't 100% sure on cycle length so was waiting an extra week) and baby number 1 for me, so similar to you.

I am now 13 + 6 and very excited, I enjoy listening to baby on my doppler every day :p

But after the initial bfp excitment and even now occasionally, I had thoughts about how monumental this was as it was actually happening to me- I thought about how difficult certain things were going to be and how I would never get to do certain things (like go on a romantic holiday- have never had one and probably wouldn't have been able to anyway due to dsd and money) without leaving my baby out. Having a baby is a massive massive thing, and I think it was easy to forget about those things that you would have dealt with in your mind before hand if you'd had the chance. I don't know about you but my situation meant I was always too focused on wanting a baby and being desperate for it to happen without mc, so I didn't think about the potential negatives as I wanted a child more than I wanted those things, once I had the chance of a baby, I could think about the other things and suddenly the how will I cope thoughts and what about the house work when I'm breast feeding thoughts appeared...

But I've settled down a bit now, I've seen my baby at the scan which was amazing- my first pregnancy was an mmc discovered at the scan, so I was terrified, but equally estatic that things were all good :) I am excited, if a bit impatient and I can't wait to hold my baby- those other things don't matter as much as my baby does, and I'm sure I somehow manage with the house work :P

You'll be ok too- to have mcs then have a viable pregnancy is a massive shock because part of you feels like it will never happen, so when it does you are almost unprepared for the reality of it! But when you start feeling it's real, when you have a scan, feel movement, have a bump... it will start being much more important than anything else!

If you want some "ammo" for mum-lectures, order Miscarriage What Every Woman Should Know by Lesley Regan. :) Good reliable book for sorting the facts from the hocus pocus.

I read a novel (Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult) with a line in it about motherhood that keeps coming back to me:

"That's the strange thing about being a mother: Until you have a baby, you don't even realise how much you were missing one"

I read this book long before we started 'trying' yet this sentence pops into my head every time I have doubts about whether I'm ready to sacrifice everything to have a baby. The truth is, 99% of me is certain I'm ready but like you, every now and then I just think about the freedom I have right now. Our lives will look very different. But, having discussed this at length with friends and family, they've all said that the pay-off will be better than anything we can imagine right now. Apparently, once that baby is in your arms, nothing is more important and you simply don't want it to be.