Posifrickinspring thread for PG after MC!

[BertieBotts]

If we can't be positive about the weather what can we be?

Welcome posters new and old.

It has been a great week for scans! Long may it continue.

Welcome to all the new ladies. Fingers crossed for you. Time passes very slowly to begin with.

I've been having a lot of twinges the past few days. Is this normal? I'm 15+4 now. I keep trying to tell myself that it is probably just my ligaments but obviously worrying. I've got my private scan tomorrow evening so hopefully that'll be able to put my mind at rest. Then all being well midwife on Tuesday and antenatal clinic on Wednesday. Tomorrowis going to be a long day.

Hi all - I don’t think I’ve posted on this thread before, but I’m 6+3 after a missed miscarriage and ERPC on August bank holiday 2016. We didn’t try again until after Christmas just gone so it happened quickly, as it did the first time, which somehow makes me more worried!

I’ve been trying to stay positive whilst also not getting too excited, but this evening I had a tiny brown smear when wiping so now I’m convinced it’s all over.

Have my first GP appointment (for referral to midwife and first scan) a week on Monday - it was going to be later but I persuaded them to bring it forward because I was worrying about getting in the system in good time.

I feel like everything I do or don’t do will jinx things just now . Sorry this isn’t really in keeping with the positive theme!

Welcome and congratulations @CaptainWentworth! I had a MMC and ERPC just before August bank holiday last year. I have read a lot of posts on here recently about women having brown discharge at 6 weeks. I also did this time round, then started to bleed the same day! Long story short, I've just hit 20 weeks and had a healthy scan (touch wood a million times over) on Friday. I do wonder if something happens at 6 weeks that causes a bit of bleeding in some women.

@CaptainWentworth don't worry we are all trying to be posifrickentive while bricking it over every detail... it will never be straightforward to be pregnant after a loss.

I seem to have developed carpal tunnel, I have had swollen hands and feet the last couple of weeks and now have really unpleasant tingling and occasional shooting pains in the fingers of my right hand. Cutting my food today was agony. I am trying to embrace the last few weeks of being pregnant and focus on being thankful to have got so far (which I really am!) but my body seems to be conspiring against me.

That sounds horrible @MsJuniper Is there anything that helps?

My friend had that in her hands after she gave birth, but at least by then she could medicate it with whatever was safe while breast feeding, which I suspect is more than when you're pregnant. You poor thing

I've been feeling a bit wonky the last couple of days, mainly because I don't really feel anything about this pregnancy. Am I going mad or can anyone relate?

I feel really detached from the whole thing and it's not at all how I expected to feel at all. I've barely cried - I usually bawl at anything and everything - I POAS every couple of days as if that'll tell me anything, I don't want to tell anyone, not even my Mum.

My boobs hurt all the time and I've some bloating and mild cramping off and on, I'm a bit sleepier than usual, but otherwise I really feel pretty normal. I'm not consciously NOT attaching to the idea of being pregnant in case I have another mc, but having spent every day for over a year thinking of little else and being desperate for it to happen, I just feel a bit meh about it. Which I know sounds incredibly insensitive and ungrateful, it's baffling and I don't know what to make of it.

I've warned DH that if we get a good scan in a couple of weeks I'll probably lose my shit completely and fall apart. Maybe it'll feel more real then. But for now I'm not drinking and trying to eat more veg, and other than that it doesn't feel like much has changed. It makes me feel like an awful person. I'd have bet the house on no one in the world wanting a baby more then we did - I got into crystals, and acupuncture, reiki, I rubbed weird oil from a monastery on my belly, I started temping, and now here I am, just a bit unmoved by it all. I'll be devastated if anything happens and I lose it, but that's somehow not enough to make me fall in love with it for now.

It's only been a week and a bit since we found out, maybe it's still sinking in. But for an overly emotional person, my lack of feelings is weirding me out.

Sorry for the self indulgent essay.

Anne, I felt exactly the same! And frustratingly enough it doesn't seem to have changed yet. I am trying to psych myself up now by paying attention to random babies we see when out, imagining what ours might be like, buying tiny clothes etc but I'm still not as excited as everyone else and feel weirdly detached. I've got used to it now at least but it's so odd!

DH reckons maybe once we find out the sex and settle on a name it will feel more real? He's super excited especially since we had a very wiggly scan, but can't quite imagine the baby either.

Welcome and congratulations moomoo85 and captainwentworth! I hope the really anxious early days pass as quickly and as smoothly as possible for you.

That sounds horrible msjuniper - really sorry that you're having such a difficult time of it with symptoms and side effects at the moment.

Anne I completely relate to that. Every scan in this pregnancy (I've never had a good one before) I've felt like there's something wrong with me because I don't feel a sense of amazement or being overwhelmed that so many other people describe - I feel a bit numb and then, later, hugely relieved. I feel like I'm terrified of losing the pregnancy but not yet attached to the baby, if that makes sense? I still feel a bit funny about other people referring to it (him! A habit I need to break!) as a baby at all. DH and I had a really long chat about it over the weekend because we both thought the 20 week scan (and particularly finding out the sex) would be the moment where it felt 'real', but neither of us did find that - DH was actually quite upset about it, I think because he thought I'd be upset that he felt like that. I also find myself having what I know are totally normal worries, and especially first timer worries (about money, my job, whether DH and I's relationship will suffer), but then I feel so, so guilty for not feeling total joy and gratitude 100% of the time.

Hi, can I ask how people were referred for early scans? I'm 6 weeks and feeling way sicker than last time around which I'm hoping is positive but would like to arrange an early scan if possible - do you just speak to the GP? It's too early for my booking in appointment I think?

Thanks

See, now I want to cry! Thank you, so glad I'm not a heartless cow and you both get it - though it's a weird feeling and I'm obviously not happy you feel the same.

I AM happy, so grateful, relieved, but I keep waking up and forgetting I'm pregnant, then I think "oh yeah" not "OMG this is the most incredible feeling in the world, I am mother"

I was moaning about my boob pain the other night (fuck me, it's awful, I'd forgotten!), then remembered I'd said - literally 2 weeks ago when DH and I had a very long talk and were discussing IVF vs adoption with no clue I was up the duff - I'd never complain about a pregnancy symptom again as I'd be so over the moon to have the chance.

If anything, I feel really pleased for DH. And that's nice. I wish he'd stop trying to feed me. But I feel more thrilled for him than me, maybe because actually I don't want to attach too much then be let down.

A beautiful baby boy Lisa

When did you start shopping Bertie, and how long till you find out what flavour you're having?

Hi mogget - in my third pregnancy my GP booked me the early scan and then EPU told me if I got pregnant again to contact them directly (which is what I did in this pregnancy). In some areas it seems to be normal to go straight to EPU (and some of them run a walk-in service), in mine you're definitely supposed to be referred by the GP unless instructed otherwise. Unfortunately, the rules about whether you're 'entitled' to one if you don't have any bleeding also seem to vary massively - in my area they'll do it after two previous miscarriages, in some places the rule is three, and in others they seem to be willing to do it if you've had any history of miscarriage.

Feeling awful is a mixed blessing isn't it @TheMogget?! Reassuring but exhausting.

I know it would help your peace of mind, but I think you're unlikely to get an early scan on the NHS unless you have worrying symptoms like severe pain or bleeding, or you've been told in the past that they'd scan you early. You could pay for one privately, lots of places have good deals and flexible opening hours.

Thanks @AnneLovesGilbert, I will look into that.

The symptoms are so hard aren't they, on one hand I am so pleased because hopefully it's an indication all is well and I was beginning to think I wouldn't get pregnant at all and so shouldn't moan. But on the other hand I feel like crap and it's hard not to whinge a bit!

Anne I think what you are experiencing is very natural after several miscarriages and ttc for some time. The positive test is really only the first step on such a long road when you have been through loss(es). I felt very similar, and same as Lisa I did expect the feeling to lift when progressing through the first trimester, but well into the second, it has not. I can relate to us becoming a larger family in July/August, but it is more of a theoretical exercise if that make sense at all. Sometimes I wonder whether I am actually a bit depressed after the added stress of the miscarriage, ttc for almost a year, and finally IVF. Although compared to so many, we have been super lucky, and it does make me feel ungrateful thinking like that. I just feel so worn down, somehow, and the feeling is similar to what I have experienced previously throughout periods of depression. I do hope and believe that it will lift as the pregnancy progresses, and if not before, then at least after the baby if here (if we get that far). And it does feel different now at almost 19 weeks, that it did during those first few weeks. Anyway, while I'm not a psychologist, my best guess is that what many of us are experiencing, is more common than not after loss.

Mogget I'm not in the UK, so can't really answer your question accurately, but where I am (in Norway) the GP can refer to an early scan when you are pregnant after a loss.

MsJ So sorry to hear about more complications for you. The end of the third trimester is so hard (even when one is very happy to actually have gotten that far). Are you on leave yet? If not I hope you are soon, as it may help things a bit if you can relax more.

Welcome to captain and moomoo, and the best of luck for your pregnancies. Please do not feel that you have to be positive on this thread, we all freak out from time to time.

Anne I was exactly the same in fact I convinced myself I didn't want another baby so when we had a positive test I burst into tears and cried for about 2 weeks. Then I had my flu jab and the nurse congratulated me and I cried on her saying I didn't want it. She was amazing and had been through MMCs like me. She said it was 100% normal and it's your body going into self preservation mode. If you don't get excited, or in my case, tell yourself you don't want it then if the same happens again you'll be ok because you weren't that bothered - not that that would actually happen if the worst happens. You'd still be devastated.

I'm 21 weeks now and still feel pretty flat. I bought a babygrow at the weekend to see if that would make me more excited and it didn't. I think what we're feeling is ok and we need to try and just go with it a bit.

Just booked a scan for Wednesday because I'm batshit crazy starting to lose my mind. Sadly, it's the same place we went to where we got the bad news about our last bean (but everywhere else we can't really get to). Cue ready to tear up mode already.

I don't know whether anyone else relates to this, but I'm sat at my desk thinking about it now, and I think the thing is I have/had become so focused on 'keeping' a pregnancy that the baby almost feels like a separate, far less tangible thing, if that makes sense? Almost as if the 'goal' had become to be pregnant forever. I think I just reached such a bad place last summer - not that long before conceiving this pregnancy - that thinking about being pregnant was difficult, but thinking about actually having a baby felt absurd - like planning for winning the lottery or something. And as it looks increasingly likely (though so very far from certain!) that I'm going to have a baby, I can't shake that mindset of it as an impossible thing.

I definitely feel like that when I tell other people I'm pregnant - it feels like I'm making up a really weird lie, like a little girl who tells people she has fairies in the garden or something.

I absolutely can't imagine me having a baby or even getting to term. I'm constantly checking for bleeding (understandably given how many times I've bled this pregnancy) and I'm thinking very much in terms of weeks and making it to the next appointment. I didn't expect to get to the first scan.

I think it's also a more secure feeling to try and distance yourself from the pregnancy but that becomes increasingly difficult particularly if you do end up at the EPU. At 5 weeks I thought if it all went wrong I could probably do it again, by 12 weeks I couldn't imagine ever wanting to try again if it went wrong. Pregnancy is so far just an absolute headfuck where you can't let yourself get too relaxed (for me anyway). DP and I have agreed not to think 'baby' until after 20 weeks. I still feel like I'm tempting fate if I ever mention it or think about things like maternity clothes.

Yes Lisa! Absolutely to almost like wanting to be pregnant forever, even though I obviously don't :)

I decided we would buy one small thing after the 10 week scan. That's what I did with DS and it felt symbolic. So we each bought one thing as we couldn't agree! Then I'm very lucky to be part of an extremely supportive local expat group and they are all super excited and happy for us and keep offering me lots of things. That's been a bit overwhelming and I've said it's too early to most, but I did allow myself to pick up a changing table and baby bath because I'm not emotionally invested in those things and it was more that DH wanted them. Then the baby bath lady offered me some clothes, breastfeeding bits and a baby gym I'd wanted with DS but never got, so I picked those up. Now I'm dying to get a couple more clothing bits but do really need to save! And we've chosen the pram and car seat. But that is because I started looking at prams when we were pregnant the first time so it was half done and kept me busy in the early weeks. We won't buy any time soon but I wanted to get it narrowed down in case of sales, second hand offers, etc. Now I know what to look out for so we'll get that if we see a good price.

Oh and we might be able to find out the sex on Thursday but we might have to wait for the better scanner at the other doctors.

@UnicornsandRainbows1 not crazy at all! We've had scans at:

6+8 weeks (bleeding and subsequent viability. Both NHS)

10 weeks (private)

12 weeks (NHS)

14 weeks (private - got it half price due to previous booking)

17.5 weeks (private - gender scan. Luckily they had a 'sale' on when I booked, so took advantage!)

20 weeks (NHS)

If all continues to go well, we are going to have a 4D one too just before the 3rd trimester. All the private ones have been worth every penny, particularly for our sanity. Good luck!

@kirinm I'm going totally 'public' on Friday, as my bump is getting too tricky to hide from parents and children now (teacher here) so it's going in our school newsletter at the end of the week. Of course, even though our 20 week scan was ok, I have been thinking 'what if...' all day. I don't think that anxiety will ever leave. I was in the toilets at lunchtime checking my underwear! I still do this every day...

@annelovesgilbert I can really relate to your ambivalence and to what @Lisasimpsonsbff and others are saying about pregnancy and 'a baby' feeling like two very different things. I keep saying to my partner 'If we have a baby then...'. He's said before that I don't need to always cage everything in these terms but I can't help it. Another reason why this thread is a lifesaver, we can say that stuff freely.
I can't remember who said this earlier on this thread but I totally agree with it about the importance of not beating yourself up for whatever feelings you have. It just adds another layer of bad feeling!
Welcome new people and best of luck for your pregnancies!

Hi Mogget, you need to call your local Early Pregnancy unit and explain you had a previous loss. They should book you in for seven weeks. Good luck. X