Anxiety in early pregnancy

[HP07]

Hi,

I wondered if anyone could give me some advice about how to manage the anxiety of early pregnancy. My husband and I have been struggling with infertility for 2 years now and we're just about to be referred for Ivf (tomorrow) when I found out that I was pregnant on Thursday of this week! I am now constantly fretting about the pregnancy and everything that can go wrong. I think it is made worse by the struggles we have had so far and the fear of miscarriage is so emense. It feels like such an achievement to have fallen pregnant to me. I have also been having some brown spotting but I know this can be common in early pregnancy and I have seen my GP about it, she wasn't overly concerned, and am waiting for the result of my HCG blood test to come back tomorrow. I spot every cycle for a large amount of days so it isn't uncommon for me either. Does anyone have some advice for me please? Thanks.

Hi HP07. I'm currently 33 weeks pregnant. I too had a small amount of brown spotting at about 5 weeks. With regards to your anxiety is this a normal issue for you or just recently started due to pregnancy? I suffer from long term anxiety including OCD and just general anxiety which actually has a major effect on my daily life including my relationship. My DH is so incredibly supportive but if this is a long standing issue please get is sorted. I'm receiving CBT which is helping. All of my HCP are aware of my anxiety including my HV and Midwife. I wanted to make sure everyone was aware so I could get the most support available if and when I need it. That is all I would suggest don't be afraid to tell people how you feel, nobody is going to judge you and you will be glad of the support later on.

Good luck with the pregnancy and with your anxiety x

No I do not normally suffer with anxiety at all. I am just very worried about anything going wrong with the pregnancy and keep thinking about it all the time. I just wondered if anyone had any good techniques for taking their mind off it/relaxing. Maybe anxiety was the wrong word to use? But I do feel very anxious. I'm glad you have such a good support network around you and I wish you the best of luck. X

I suffered from anxiety before I got pregnant and trying to control it now I am. I'm focussing on each day and not getting too ahead of myself as that's when it all goes wrong! I just say to myself each day "today I'm pregnant" and focus on the weekly milestones.
Also, step away from Google as that does you no good and makes the anxiety worse.

Congratulations! And I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people experience anxiety in those difficult early weeks, especially if you were TTC for long time as well. The amazing part of this is - you were able to get pregnant without IVF! That is really something to celebrate as presumably it is something you didn't know was possible up until now. Anyway I just wanted to recommend a great book that instead called mindful pregnancy by Andy puddicombe, I didn't read it until Christmas when I was about 20 weeks and my anxiety had calmed down a lot, but it still really helped. I'm not saying it will make it go away entirely but mindfulness techniques as explained very simply in this book are definitely worth a try.

I was awfully anxious in my first pregnancy. I was a complete wreck on the morning in my scan to be point where I was in tears. The best advice I could give you is stay offline and distract yourself as much as possible. I spent hours googling all the things that could go wrong and it was ridiculous! I'm hoping to conceive again this year and I'll really try and follow my own advice!

Definitely look into hynobirthing. Really helps not only with delivery but coming from years and years of infertility I really had a hard time in my first pregnancy and it calmed me down practicing the CD.

Thank you all for the advice. We have been to see the fertility consultant today and she was very pleased that we have manged to fall pregnant naturally. She said the hcg level was good and there are no greater risks for complications or abnormalities with the baby than any other expectant mother so that was quite reassuring. She has booked me for an early pregnancy scan on 1st Feb so are least we have something set up to look forward to. I will look into that book too.

You sound similar to me - my husband and I had been trying for two years, had just had all of our investigations done (I have PCOS that they gave me metformin for, and hypothyroidism that got levothyroxine). The day before seeing the consultant to discuss fertility treatment, I had a positive test.

I spent the first trimester panicking, but the 12 week scan last week was a huge relief (I burst into tears when the sonographer switched the screen on, made her job a bit more difficult as I was shaking!).

I think brown spotting is fairly common in the first trimester. I can't really offer too much advice, as I was fairly nuts until the scan (was doing tests at least once a week, was paranoid due to the lack of morning sickness until week 8, etc). Good luck though, hope it all goes smoothly for you!