Feeling trapped by pregnancy and don't want to give birth

[Anon646743]

I've had to name change for this obviously as I feel like a terrible person. Please try hard not to judge me too harshly, I don't think I can take it.

I'm 36 weeks pregnant with first baby and I am feeling trapped, tired and terrified. I don't want to give birth to this baby and I don't think I want to be a mum anymore. I've been googling adoption all morning. If my DH knew this he'd be horrified and so upset.

Pregnancy was unplanned, we were shocked but I thought I'd got used to the idea I was going to be a parent. Have been excited before, DH is very happy to become a father. Family and friends are all excited for us. On the outside I portray this happy glowy mum to be, but on the inside I am screaming.

I can't pinpoint when I started feeling this bad but it seems to have intensified in the past couple of weeks as I realised my due date is getting nearer and nearer. I have 2 days of work left before maternity leave, so suddenly it's all becoming very very real and the terror and worry has been pushed up to the max, so bad that I just don't want any of this anymore.

I want my old life back before I got pregnant, with my hopes and plans for the future left intact and unchanged by the prospect of incoming parenthood.

I want my body back, I am sick of everything hurting all the time and having to lug this baby around everywhere. I'm sick of people telling me how big I am.

I don't want to give birth and ruin my body and have to recover from it all. I don't want to go through the pain of it. I'm terrified of going into labour. Everyone says it's worth it but I don't feel excited at all. I don't want to meet my baby. I want to go back in time before I conceived.

I feel like I'm going crazy, I feel like a horrible horrible woman who doesn't deserve this pregnancy when so many people struggle to conceive who would make much better parents than me.

I don't know what I was aiming for when typing this out. I just need to get it out somewhere.

You're not alone in how you're feeling; I can relate to everything you've written. I hated being pregnant but also didn't want to actually have the baby either. Like you, I wanted my life (and body) back. I'm not going to tell you that it will all be worth it because I don't honestly feel that way (yet) but DS is nearly 5 weeks and it's been much better than I anticipated. I had an ELCS for various reasons (including the fact that I didn't want to go into labour or give birth) and I recovered well. I also - after discussion with various health professionals - switched from BF to FF after a week or so. I'm still carrying some baby weight but I honestly don't feel like a I had a baby just over a month ago which is massive for me. We've also sort of made DS fit into our lives and whatever we're doing so it doesn't feel like life has changed as much as I thought it would. Basically we just do what we did before but with a baby tagging along.

All of which is to say that I don't think what you're feeling is unusual. It might be worth chatting to your midwife; mine was very helpful and the fact that I got to make a lot of choices around the kind of birth I wanted (including things like how long I was kept in hospital) made it manageable for me. I basically told myself that I wasn't going to like it but I just had to get through it and make whatever choices I needed to in order to do that.

Wishing you the very best of luck. Things will be okay, I promise.

Oh OP don't beat yourself up. It's the single biggest most life changing thing you can ever go through. It wouldn't be normal if you weren't a bit terrified!

That said, it sounds like you're struggling with anxieties around the whole situation so it's probably worth a chat with your midwife or GP. They'll have heard it all before and worse so don't worry about any judgement.

I can tell you that I was utterly terrified too. I couldn't see past the birth and couldn't imagine me still being me afterwards, IYSWIM. But we did it. Didn't go at all to plan but it's just a thing you get through - but make sure you get support afterwards if you feel you need it (women are too often treated as a bit of an afterthought in the whole process in my experience).

I can also tell you the first few weeks with DD were, for me, my DP and several mums I know who had babies around the same time, stressful and hellish. We wondered what the he'll we'd done to our lovely life. It was like a bomb going off. I didn't think I'd ever feel normal again.

A few months down the line and I am honestly loving it. DD is amazing, she's cute and funny and I adore her. And you will with your baby too - just don't feel pressure to feel all the hearts and flowers straight away.

In short, chat it through with someone but DO NOT give yourself a hard time. In a few months everything will feel so different, I promise. You've got this