New here and needing a friendly face and abit of support. Worried about stress from family conflict and feeling pretty alone.

[Dawnlouise06]

Hi guys, you seem like a really friendly bunch and I don't really know where else to turn, so I thought I would show my face and hopefully get some kind words and reassurance from you all.

I'm 9 weeks 5 days pregnant, due on the 22nd December. I found out really early which I found pretty stressful, as I am quite a anxious person and it has given me alot of time to worry that something will go wrong. To make things worse due to the nature of my job (low secure forensic mental health hospital) I had to tell my employer from 5 weeks, so I've been put on admin since then, meaning I have 8 hours a day Sat at a computer, doing a job that's unfamiliar and with lots of time to sit and think. My anxiety got progressively worse so myself and my Husband paid for a early scan, saw a baby with a heart beat at 8 weeks. Reassurance was short lived and I've since gone back to worrying something will go wrong (along with a sudden loss of symptoms at 9 weeks) . To make matters worse I have been having alot of conflict with my family recently, resulting in alot of sobbing, shouting and making myself feel generally unwell. In short my sister and my female best friend started seeing each other behind my back, I felt really uncomfortable with it, that it put me in a really awkward position in terms with the individual relationships I have with each of them and it upset me that they lied to me and went behind my back in the first place. As a result of my feelings I have been subject to alot of abuse from my mum and sister, it's caused a massive rift in my family and I have had to deal with constant messages, phone calls and people turning up at my door. My sister has said that unless I see my friend and apologise for wanting abit of space (I said I didn't want to get involved in it) that she will never speak to me again and wants nothing to do with my "sprog". I feel alone, incredibly hurt and frightened that such severe stress is going to make something go wrong with my pregnancy. I appreciate that I sound like a right barrell of laughs so I apologise for all the negativity. Believe it or not im useally a pretty happy person.

Just feel like life has taken a pretty stressful turn at a time when I need people the most, and I'm sat here with not really anyone.

Dawn

Hi @Dawnlouise06 I'm sorry to hear you're having a tough time. I'm due two days after you and work in a similar role

Sounds like this was a massive shock for you, perhaps they were worried about telling you in case there was a negative reaction?

Is your partner supporting you well?

You need to be able to relax as much as possible, is there any chance of building bridges? Xx

Sorry but you need to grow up and apologise in relation to your sister. You don’t own people and you can’t control them. What you’ve done is self centred and unreasonable.

As for the pregnancy anxiety that is really hard, have you tried looking into mindfulness or cbt techniques? Anxiety is a horrible thing to deal with but there is absolutely nothing you can do except try and retrain your mind.

Bless you, that all sounds bloody stressful.
Firstly, anxiety in pregnancy is very common, probably all of us feel worried and afraid of something going wrong 90% of the time but try to focus on what you know - you’ve seen the heartbeat and you know baby is OK right now. You cannot predict the future and we have very little control but knowing that chances of something going very wrong after you’ve seen the heartbeat are pretty low. When you start to panic and have these negative thoughts you have to tell yourself you are doing everything you can for your baby and that there’s a very high chance all will be well. It’s hard to do but the anxiety does lessen somewhat as you progress.

In terms of your family....sheesh! Why families think they have the right to act like arseholes and expect the world in return I do not know!!!

It’s completely reasonable that you’ve felt surprised and a bit disappointed over the lying from your sister and best friend. And it’s totally reasonable you wanted to distance yourself from all the arguments and bad feelings!

Right now you need to prioritise yourself and your baby. If that means your sister will sulk the let her crack on. You’re not in the wrong to feel the way you feel and she hasn’t got any place to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do in relation to your relationship with your best friend! It’s actually none of her business.

Personally I’d make it clear that I wished no one any bad feelings but I’m removing myself from the situation and arguments and you don’t want to hear anymore about it! This doesn’t mean you’re going no contact or divorcing your family, it just means that you have other shit to deal with and they will have to sort themselves out.

If your friend is a good friend then she should completely understand that you feel a bit weirded out by her relationship with your sister. If you feel you can, reach out to her (without sister being involved), smooth over your friendship to the degree your happy with and then back off from all of the drama.

I feel for you! My family are a pain in the arse a lot of the time and I’ve had to become quite good at saying “I’m not in the middle of this, so you’ll have to resolve your issues between yourselves”!