Can't bear this anymore, is termination at 15 16 weeks just going to make it all worse?

[Sleeplessinnorthlondon]

I'm going to delete my profile soon as so ashamed of all of what's happened but desperate for any advice anyone can offer. In summary, conceived when thought couldn't, just about to start ivf, and didn't know. Had two different due dates from different scans but looks like could have drunk heavily 16, 17 and 18 dpo. Stopped as soon as found out but can't shake the guilt despite doctors all telling me it would probably be fine. Would never have terminated for downs or any condition the child was going to have anyway, but cannot bear idea of having spoilt life chances of child that would have been healthy through stupidity. Tried counselling, midwife, friends, all been so kind but can't shake terror and guilt and suspect will never shift and will be terrible mother when born as so anxious and guilty. Just can't bear any of this any more, none of the help I've tried to access is working and Marie stopes have said they can organise an abortion this week. Will mean hurting friends, family and above all darling darling husband but he has said will support me if it's the only way forward. So so desolate and terrified, everyone around me saying this is mental health issue not physical and probably right but in no state to bring child into the world like this anyway. Has anyone been in the same boat? Did the termination help or make it worse? Please help me.

However many scans you have, you will never know exactly when you ovulated/when implantation occurred. And as duplodon says, it's a red herring. Hope you get through today ok and that your appointments go well.

STOP

duplodon and RJnomore I suffer from intrusive thoughts, (although not to the extent the OP does) and I do find it helpful to tell myself to get a grip sometimes.

It was meant kindly.

The intrusive thoughts are not her and if she's to get through this she needs to find a way to manage them. A hug is great, and yes she needs lots of those too of course.

Intrusive thoughts are an awful mental battle, and IME it helps enormously if you can recognise them for what they are and face them. That's what I meant. I wouldn't say "get a grip" to someone who was suffering depression, for example, but with intrusive thoughts you do literally need to get to grips with them IME.

I accept though that it's a phrase that's often used unkindly on here, and it would have perhaps been wise to use different words to express what I meant.

You poor love. Nothing in this world is certain.

I would print out these and give to the mental,health team so they can see how bad you are feeling.

If we search long enough we can all find bad information - you are not being rational. You are ignoring all the "good" information and focussing on "bad" info.

I totally understand wiggly lines, and probably if we were all together in person it would be obvious you were being kind and caring in saying it, I suppose it just is hard to get that across through words on a screen.

I think there isn't really much of a difference between depression and OCD or intrusive thoughts though, they're all just unhelpful thought patterns arising out of distress. I think in the last year or so I've really come to think that love and kindness and meeting people where they are right now are the most important things to support steps to recovery from mental distress, much more so than the thought stuff.

Be kind to yourself wiggly! And if you are taking a grip, make sure it's a bright blingy shiny one!

Sleepless you are doing so well, try and give yourself the space to take this one step at a time. Duplondon is right, you need to step away from the science - those papers are written for an audience of technical researchers with years of knowledge and experience, and you don't have that.

History revision sounds way more fun than what I'll be doing this morning, try and deal with what's in front of you right now. You've got your appointments booked with people who can help, and who've experience of lots of pregnancies - give them the opportunity to offer their expertise.

At the end of the day, the decision you make needs to be right for you - whatever it is. Give yourself the opportunity to really work that through with proper support and knowledge -it's not about shame, it's not about what other people think, it's about you

Haven't read the whole thread as no time, but ask your midwife to refer you to the perinatal mental health team. I felt exactly like you do- much wanted baby, incredible anxiety. I had the baby 5 years ago and they helped me through it.

Here are some grips for wiggly, sleepless and anyone else who needs one today:

You might never have another baby. If you go through with this termination you will be in a worse position, and totally traumatised.

If you do that and go on to be pregnant again, that pregnancy will not be perfect either because none is. What if everything is going perfect and then you have a car accident at 16 weeks and decide to terminate then too because the baby got a fright. No pregnancy is perfect, and even near perfect ones are no guarantee. I know its scary. I KNOW you are terrified. You just need some help.

Why are you so hard on yourself? If you heard someone was drinking when they didn't know they were pregnant, what would you say to them?
You really need a lot of help to stabilise your thoughts and I hope you get it. Best wishes to you and your family.

Please read the thread! The OP is seeking mental health support today at 5.30.

Sleepless can you ask MNHQ to move your thread and/or edit the title so you don't get comments that don't reflect how things have moved on?

FFS worldgone RTFT.
And if you don't have anything helpful to say, don't bother.

It hasn't moved on.

duplodon thanks for your posts, you are very kind. They made me and brought tears to my eyes at the same time!

I don't usually admit to intrusive thoughts to anyone, it's not even something I talk about on MN usually. It feels very odd to have anyone say nice things to me about it - or anything at all about it even!

I think sleepless is being amazingly brave.

Don't mind do appreciate all support and no idea how to do that so don't worry! Students working so well, managing to do impression of sane person helping a lot x

I agree with wiggly, it is terrifying to seek help for these problems, sleepless is being very brave in doing it, and has my biggest sympathies.

It has moved on, OP is seeking support in RL. She has told people who love her what she is thinking. She has sought professional mental health intervention. She has an appointment for assessment today.

Amazingly however her symptoms of distress haven't resolved over the course of an Internet thread!! Which you wouldn't expect them to.

OP, I haven't anything as eloquent to say as others have already said but please, please, cancel your appointment. It sounds like you want to punish yourself for "harming" your baby. Please, please don't do this. Your baby will be fine and so, so loved. But even the most loved, most cherished baby does not have the perfect environment all the time. My dm smoked and drank while pregnant with me - I am sure a lot of women of her generation did.

I am pregnant at the moment with gestational diabetes. have breathed in pollution, toxic fumes, eaten things I shouldn't have, drunk too much coffee, been bumped in the car, am carrying too much weight for the optimum antenatal environment. I am still bloody proud of the care I have taken to look after my unborn child. The guidelines are about doing your best to reduce risk while sharing your body with another - not black and white rules that enable you to give your baby the perfect surroundings. And it's the same after they're born. Not everything you do is ideal (she is watching crap on the telly as I type) but it's good enough. Honestly it is.

Sleepless things will turn a corner for you too! Just have a little hope. We are all here supporting you. x

Duplodon thank you for the grips!

Well done on the steps you're taking OP

Sleepless, please try and access some mental health support. The baby will not have been affected by your drinking, it does not share your blood supply until 5/6 weeks and even after that plenty of women still don't know they are pregnant at that stage.

You have to drink a lot of alcohol, sustained over your whole pregnancy to cause an issue.

Sleepless, I suffered terrible depression while pregnant and considered termination. So I understand the horrible roller coaster of emotions, dread, fear, and sadness. Pregnancy hormones exacerbate it all too, and make it so much worse. I'm so so proud of you for seeking out help.

I sought help too. I can honestly say terminating would've been the worst thing I could have done, because the guilt once it was over would have been unbearable. I'm pro choice, but am so worried about you making this decision. You are clearly a caring person who wants to cause no harm to your child - I wish you could see that you are so fixated on the unlikely harm you may have done, when terminating is a far worse, definite, harm. Children don't need a perfect pregnancy or a perfect mother. They just need love, and I believe you're absolutely capable of that.

Good luck with your first appointment. I hope you see someone who can truly help you.

OP, just another thought to add into this. You obviously want a baby very, very much to be considering IVF. You are pregnant. You are scared that you have damaged your baby and are beating yourself up about this, although your healthcare providers are all assuring you that you won't have harmed your baby.

If you terminate this pregnancy and do not get pregnant again, you will have an even bigger pile of "what ifs" to deal with. IVF is not a guarantee - and I say this as one who has gone through 4 failed cycles in the last year. This may be your chance. If you are giving yourself this much grief now, how will you feel if, five years down the line, you still don't have a child?

There are so many things that happen in the course of a pregnancy that we would change if we could - alcohol before we know we are pregnant - environmental pollutants that we don't even know we have been exposed to. And nearly all pregnancies turn out absolutely fine. I am certain yours will. xxx

Hi Sleepless. I've namechanged for this, but am a regular poster

I'm responding to your comment upthread about people saying they drank in the first 2 weeks of pregnancy not helping you because you drank a bit later in your pregnancy than that.

I come from a family of alcoholics/drug addicts. My mother and aunt both drank massively more than you right throughout their 6 pregnancies. Think having a bottle of vodka for breakfast and carrying on drinking until they passed out in their own vomit, every day. They used to regularly attempt suicide and were also on heavy-duty medication for their various mental health problems. My mother deliberately went on a diet and therefore lost weight each time she was pregnant, because she didn't want to look fat. This was way back in the day when smoking throughout pregnancy was normal; no-one took folic acid; there were no scans etc.

None of the 6 of us has FAS or any physical/mental problems related to the massive amounts of alcohol we were exposed to in utero; in fact two of us ended up at Oxbridge and the other 4 are all in professional jobs.

I'm not a scientist, but I can only assume that the placenta does a brilliant job of filtering what is passed on to the foetus. The body does everything it can to protect the growing baby, often at the expense of the mother. Some people get dreadful sickness; others have hair/teeth problems; others get massive anxiety as a result of the pregnancy hormones which flood your body. It's all because of biology protecting the foetus, even though it's not great for the mother!

I'm really glad you are going to get some medical help about the anxiety you feel and hope that the doctor can help you soon. Your DH sounds amazing and you will both be fantastic parents, I'm sure.

If you feel wobbly, just remember there is a whole army of us standing behind you, willing you on.

Such wonderful , eloquent and moving posts from women who have have smilar problems and one out the other side. Please read them and belive them , sleepless

I developed thyroid disease during my first pregnancy , it wasn't properly diagnosed until aftre the baby was born , as the symptoms are hard to distinguish from normal pregnancy stuff ( tired, anxious, weight changes, aches and pains ) .

The doctor said I'd probably been prone to it all my life but it was the pregnancy that triggered it. For others it could be a severe illness or accident.

Now with the proper treatment I'm completely fine . And I'm guessing it's the same with your illness - that the stress has triggered something you were perhaps always vulnerable to . No doubt exacerbated by the normal pregnancy hormones and at first it's hard to tell the difference from the normal worries about the baby and the birth .

It's not my fault I got thyroid disease , it's just a malfunction of one organ and as a result all the chemical get out of balance . And it can make you feel a bit crazy . But it's not you, it's the illness .

And I'm guessimg it's the same for you , it's NOT YOUR FAULT you feel like this . It's just the bloody hormones,stress and your genetic vulnerability interacting . It's not a moral failing , you've done nothing wrong and you don't need to apologise to anyone .

If you had high blood pressure, or gestational diabetes , your Dh woudl be worried but you wouldn't feel the need to Apologise to him or feel sorry for him . Am I right in thinking he's in the armed forces ?if so, he has come through much worse than a pregnancy related illness , he will be fine .

There is help out there , you can access it and you will feel normal again . Read what hippy mama said . Then read it again . Maybe print it out.