Just found out I'm pregnant and really worried about EVERYTHING

[Cosmogirl86]

For context, I tried to conceive for five years. I have had failed ICSI and heartache in the past and now I have managed to have successful ICSI treatment. My pregnancy was confirmed on 21st Dec by blood test and I'll go for a scan on 16th Jan.

I am so happy but I'm also so scared! I'm worried ill lose the baby. I'm worried my shampoo is toxic and the orange squash I like might be too full of artificial sweetener. I'm worried I've eaten too many take away pizzas and Indians instead of something nutritional. I'm worried I don't feel any nausea. I'm worried that I'm worried and my stress is damaging my baby.

At what point did you start to relax and enjoy your pregnancy? I'm roughly five weeks pregnant.

Firstly congratulations ❤️
Your worry is understandable with ttc for such a long time.
I am 39 weeks due any day now and for me the worry went away after 20 week scan. My pregnancy was not planned and the time in my life is relatively inconvenient so I had so much to worry about in relation to money and how it will all work out. I don’t know what happened after that scan but I just settled.

I can assure you that your orange juice is perfectly fine and so is your shampoo and your pizzas and curry’s too! When I was 5 weeks pregnant I was on holiday on Florida and didn’t know I was pregnant, I rode huge rollercoasters, waterslides, ate junk food for two weeks solid and drank ridiculously sugary drinks and even had cocktails most nights.
I won’t lie my diet is poor and I haven’t been as well behaved as I should in this pregnancy, i tried to eat well but I’m a fussy eater so decided that eating something was better than nothing to just ate whatever I wanted. I did try to make fruit a more active part of my diet that’s the only change really.
A healthy diet is much better for you of course but I’m just saying it’s done me no harm to eat normally.

Sickness often doesn’t come in until weeks 6/7 and even then I know plenty of women who haven’t had any (I wasn’t so lucky 😫).
The best advice I can give you is try really hard to occupy yourself until your scan, I found the first trimester exhausting so if your tired then sleep or at least rest.
Have you started taking any pregnancy vitamins? If not pop out and get some pregnacare or equivalent to give a boost of any vitamins you might be lacking.

Thank you for the reply! It's good to know that the stress does eventually leave! I have been taking pregnacare for quite a while so hopefully that will stop me becoming deficient in anything! My husband and I haven't told anyone yet as we are both worried. I'm planning on telling family once we hear a heartbeat.

I have never suffered anxiety in my life but pregnancy really brought it on. It’s a weird out of body feeling for me.
I ran off andrenaline from finding out at 8 weeks til my 20w scan it was all very surreal and at every appointment I was convinced I was going to be told I’d imagined it all and wasn’t pregnant at all! Pregnancy Hormones have a lot to answer for!
Try and enjoy it best you can though, I’ve not had a nice pregnancy and wish I’d been able to enjoy it a bit more xx

Congratulations! I felt like you when I first found out I was pregnant and I get calmer every day but I'm still on the anxious side!

Babies are incredibly resilient, people do some truly terrible things whilst pregnant and their babies come out fine! (Of course I'm not recommending you take up any bad habits - but I remember being told this and finding it reassuring).

You would have to be significantly stressed beyond your usual levels for a long period of time for it to affect your baby. Do speak to a midwife or your GP if you need some support though.

Things will get easier as time goes on. I found it much better after 12 weeks when we told everyone and even easier again once I started feeling movement around 20 weeks.

Also I haven't felt any nausea at all during this pregnancy - everyone is different.

By the way, in case it happens to you, I had tummy ache as if I was about to come on fairly regularly in the first few months of all three of my pregnancies. Totally normal too. All three babies were born healthy.

I'm at the end of my pregnancy now and have been like you all the way through. However, you get used to being worried, and you get better at it. You stop letting the small things (ingredients of your squash) bother you as much. You learn to rest and relax because it's better for your baby so you just practice and get on with it. It's a learning process, preparing you for motherhood i guess

Thank you so much ladies! It's good to hear that I'm not alone. Congratulations on everyone's pregnancy and healthy babies

I had some orange squash today, and I've put my pregnancy books back on the shelf. Hopefully I can enjoy this as it's likely to be an only child!

Posted too soon
I took up yoga, meditation apps, hypo birthing, cut out toxic people and things (even work). Did everything I could to keep calm because I knew it was the right thing for me and my baby.
My pregnancy has turned out to be quite difficult but I've been fine through it. Dh seems surprised when he tells me he's proud of how I'm coping We tried for 8 or so years for a family. Do what you need to, I can recommend putting yourself first

As you can see by my username I suffer from anxiety.

I hated being pregnant. I found the whole thing stressful. I didn’t tell anyone until I was 20 weeks both times. I paid for two extra scans for my piece of mind, one in the middle of 12 and 20 weeks and one at around 32 weeks. This made me feel better.

Following guidelines to the letter made me feel better as I knew I was doing everything I could to have a positive outcome.

It’s lovely when they arrive though and I felt far more in control when my children were physically with me and haven’t really had much more anxiety than is normal around them since.

I absolutely could have written this - we've had failed IVF this year but discovered just before Christmas that I'm pregnant by some miracle. I already have some mental health issues but this has really kicked them into overdrive. I'm worrying every minute of the day. I see a psychiatrist already and I said to him yesterday that I've no idea how people manage this for 9 months. No advice really from me but a handhold for sure. My psych said just to take it one day at a time which is what I'm trying to do but it seems an eternity until the early scan I've booked (18th Jan).

Agree with anxious, I worried throughout (got pregnant quickly twice in a row but miscarried the first which triggered it I think) but it had peaks and troughs. I avoided medication but felt really awful at times, just couldnt imagine I’d actually have a live baby at the end and convinced things would go wrong. They didn’t! I was much better when my baby was born. Things that helped me: reading only the nhs pregnancy book my midwife gave me, trying not to google anything, doing the mind the bump app, puzzles and podcasts to keep my mind busy. by the way I tentatively mentioned this to a mum’s group and they all said they had been paranoid during pregnancy too (to varying degrees) but felt like it wasn’t to be spoken about. I think it’s very common, particularly with infertility or previous loss, but we suffer in silence a bit as not socially acceptable to discuss. Big focus on PND but not ante-natal. Congratulations and good luck x

Congratulations!

I found counselling specifically about fertility/pregnancy anxiety helpful.

Anxiety/stress/food choices don’t cause miscarriage.

I think that trying for so long it's hard to get your head around it all and for me I feel like if I start to relax and accept it and not worry about each action, food choice or germ that I may be exposed to then I'm tempting fate.
Although I realise how crazy that is!
I'm about 7 weeks and each day I think I might not actually be pregnant (did 2 tests - both strong positives) and that I'll get laughed at when I go to my first scan as there won't be anything there!

Regarding health, I've been struggling too. I found smoothies are a great way of getting more veg and vitamins into your diet. You can put pretty much anything in, things like ground seed mix and kale don't impact flavor but are very healthy. I don't like almond butter generally, but it tastes lovely in a smoothie.

Don't eat food you hate, moral is important too. I'm sure you'll find a good compromise!
Diet isn't a deal breaker, my mum didn't know any of this stuff and I turned out fine!
You're doing a great job and making a human is hard work so be kind to yourself :)

Congratulations!

I'm currently 12+5 and have my dating scan tomorrow. I didn't have any sickness until 8 weeks, then it was horrendous. Must people I've spoken to in RL have said they didn't have any sickness at all! Enjoy this time as sickness maybe just round the corner

I have heard that strong nausea is also a sign of a strong pregnancy with a reduced risk of miscarriage so I guess I would feel a bit better if I was ill, as strange as it sounds!

I guess I'm scared my baby will stop growing and won't show up on the scan on 16th Jan.

@Cosmogirl86 I was scared throughout my whole pregnancy! I never even took the tags of the clothes or got rid of the receipt because i just didn't think i would end up with a healthy baby! Try to relax, I personally got myself one of those heartbeat things BUT i don't recommend doing that because I couldn't find a heartbeat until 10 weeks, congratulations and try not to worry i think its normal for a lot of us xx

@Cosmogirl86 i didn't get many symptoms until 16 weeks then i was gagging every day till the end! great... not

The good news is that I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy the bad news is the worry never really goes.

Or at least for me it didn’t. But as baby grows and you have scans it will become reassuring. You’ll replace one worry for another- have I got enough baby clothes etc.

Fingers crossed everything is fine at your scan.

Most people’s sickness doesn’t kick in until the 6-7 week mark. I had severe sickness until 20 weeks with this one but it didn’t start until 7 weeks. HCG levels are still fairly low at 5 weeks.

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who is a scared basket case. I do think it would be helpful for women if we talked about the negative emotions around pregnancy more
Of course I'm joyful, but the sense of responsibility and anxiety is almost overwhelming. It's good to hear that I'm not alone in feeling this way

@cosmogirl86 - I can imagine feeling sick will help you feel like the pregnancy is strong but just to say not everyone experiences this. For me, my temperature was boiling all the time I felt like a furnace, sore boobs and headaches all the time but not very bad sickness.

Hope you can find some relaxation, perhaps lots of gentle walks and nice (not too hot baths 😂)

Xxxxxx

I had virtually no symptoms other than a bump (appeared at 8 weeks) until 25 weeks.

Only time will tell, and waiting can be very hard.

Some anxiety is rational. Many of us have, sadly, experienced bad news at scans and had miscarriage(s). If the anxiety negatively affects you in being OK and doing things day to day suggest seeking support, I did, from a counsellor, and it helped.

There’s nothing we can do to change the outcome of a pregnancy.