Emetophobia and tokophobia....can I still be a mum?

[Em1224]

Hi everyone,
I wasn't sure where to even begin. I'm looking for answers to this I guess, so wondered if there was anyone with the same combination of issues as me.

Please bear with me!
For as long as can remember I have never wanted kids. Partly because I like my life as it is. I have always been honest about this but recently my husband has gone from being ambivalent to really wanting kids and it's made me re-evaluate the "why" I don't want kids. I am 33 and my husband is 35. We wouldn't be TTTC for another 18 months or so yet as we are not in a place in our jobs where it would be possible.

The being selfish thing is easy for me to get over as I know my husband would more than pull his weight and we have great support and I know I would still be able to have some me time if I needed it....

But I have had emetophobia for as long as I can remember. How do I put myself in a situation where I may get morning sickness....or even worse deal with a child who has a sickness bug that I might catch. To clarify, if i think I'm going to be sick i have huge panic attacks causing hyperventilating, and violent shaking which results in me not being able to feel my hands and feet. I'm better than I was but after trying hypnotherapy and CBT I don't think I can improve much more.

I also have tokophobia, the thought of being pregnant and childbirth horrifies me. I've never been a "cooing" type person when I see babies or pregnant women. I don't view pregnancy as a magical and beautiful thing and thought that made me some sort of freak and I would be a bad mum.

Is it even possible to have a child with these sorts of issues? I don't know where to turn. I know some of my friends have had similar thoughts re pregnancy etc so I know I'm not some sort of horrible person for having these thoughts.

I just need some thoughts on it all 😪

If your DH really wants kids, you're in a bit of a situation. I had to look up tokophobia, but if you've got a morbid fear of pregnancy and childbirth, having a baby is going to cause you a lot of problems. I'd guess that most women who have this condition, would never have children.

Same with emetophobia , really. You might possibly be fortunate and have an emesis-free pregnancy, but for many women vomiting goes on for months, every day, often to the extent that they are hospitalised. And even if you got through without any vomiting, believe me there is no way that you'd end up with a non-vomiting baby or child. Sorry but it's just part of life when you have children.

Of course you know all this. I can only suggest that a counsellor might be able to help , if you want to progress with TTC.

I think for you the very realistic reality is that adoption is the only route possible. Certainly if you had an older child (3+) the risk of them catching a sickness bug drops hugely and is no more risky than your DH getting a sickness bug and passing it to you

My children are now 3, 5 and 7 and past the "catch all the bugs" stage of tiny toddlers with weak immune systems.

Agree with the PP. I also think you need to try and work out why you have not wanted kids in the past. Is it the phobias or do you not actually want kids?

If it's the phobia, then maybe with the right support, counselling, advice etc you can get through that. But can you imagine yourself with a 5 year old or 10 year old?

I'm not someone who particularly coos over babies but I am looking forward to having children and growing up a little person - although I think it'll be hard work.

If you do want kids and the phobias are getting in the way then I hope you can find some more specialist support to help you with them.

Good luck!

Alot of women who dont want kids or dont feel the aww factor when they see a newborn baby etc often find having their own their views change but.... the conditions you have i honestly think you will struggle like mad.. even once children are out of the baby/toddler stage i can tell you them being sick as they get older is alot worse.. (for me anyway id prefer to clean up after my 3 yr old than my 9 year old after them being sick). Getting time to yourself im afraid is also really a no go once you become a mum no matter what support/help you get 🙈 i cant remember the last time i had an hour to myself.

As for pregnancy its so unpredictable i went through my first pregnancy with not one bit of sickness/symptoms it was a breeze my 2nd and this one have heen awfull, the toll it takes on you is unbearable at times and i dont have any of the conditions you have and have struggled.

I just want to be perfectly honest with you and not sugar coat things i think you may need to get some sort of counceling or speak with a gp etc before you go into ttc. The other option as pp has said is adobtion so you dont have to go through the pregnancy side of things. X

Thank you for the responses.

It's really hard to explain things I guess and get them straight in my head. My tokophobia is less prevalent than the emetophobia and I think with help I could probably get over this as long as people didn't get all fussy over me. My friends who have had kids over the last few years were similar to me in this respect, they didn't want kids and didn't want to be pregnant one had a really simple easy pregnancy and birth and the other not so much so I've seen both sides.

It's the emetophobia I struggle with most. I would love to have a little me or husband running round and think we would be pretty good when we got the hang of things!

I guess I was just wondering if anyone with the same issues had successfully got through it and how they cope.

Xx

I suffer very badly with emetophobia. When I was pregnant I felt sick from 4 weeks until 7 months. I think if I could have left the house in the early weeks I would have had a termination. I suffered very badly with antenatal depression because of the sickness (and other issues) and felt suicidal as I approached the birth as I was terrified of being sick in labour. Perinatal mental health team supported a c section request which helped a lot.
If your DH can agree to take sole charge of any sickness (including being the one to leave work and collect sick child from school) then it could work.
I would also investigate EMDR which is the only therapy which has even slightly helped.

I’m just addressing the phobias here, not the wider issue of why you don’t want kids (some people just dont! And that’s ok). I have emetophobia (it was severe pre therapy, it’s now moderate) and mild tokophobia, and now I have a 10 month old.

RE vomiting - exposure therapy is the most effective way of tackling phobias and to be frank, pregnancy and having a child is the most effective form of exposure therapy. I used to avoid leaving the house, wouldn’t touch anything in public with my bare hands, the list goes on. I had extensive therapy for it and it reduced a bit, but being confronted with morning sickness and a child with a stomach bug has helped a lot. It’s actually transformed my life, I even eat in public now and I don’t obsessively check all my food. My DH deals with the clean up if he’s here and my DS is sick, but I can actually stand to be in the room with him and comfort him during and afterwards.

RE tokophobia - didn’t actually develop this until I was pregnant. In the first trimester I was convinced 100% that I was going to die. I was also investigated for pregnancy caused breast cancer in the second trimester so I was further convinced I was going to die as a direct result of the pregnancy (results were clear). I was fast tracked into therapy, had a weekly appointment throughout the entire pregnancy, and that helped me get through it.

Everyone is different, but this is my experience in dealing with these specific phobias. It is possible to come out of the other side if you put the very hard work into it, and have the right support. You should find out what help is available in your area and have a very honest conversation with your DH about what you need from him to support you (I couldn’t have gone through it all without the help of my DH). However, that’s not to say you will be the same or that pregnancy and having a child will definitely be a transformative experience. Things would get much worse before they got better, and only you know if you can cope with that level of stress while pregnant. I just thought it would be helpful to hear from someone on the other side of it all with a positive story.

Thank you,

He has already agreed that this would be the case with regards looking after and would be changing his shifts so he would be the 9-5 monday to friday worker who could leave work more easily than me.

I've never heard of EMDR so will try and look into it to see if I could get some help with it

Thanks again xx

I think you would struggle to be approved as an adoptor with these conditions to be honest if you did want to take that route. I think the fact that you could not care for a sick child would be a huge issue .
I agree that lots of people who aren't particularly maternal turn out to be great mum's so I wouldn't let that put you off . If I was you I would explore other ways of dealing with your fears and then see how I felt about it all. Good luck .

I understand how you feel. I am an emetophobe myself, and the thought of childbirth....

I am on my third pregnancy and have never had morning sickness. I mean, as an emetophobe I haven't actually been sick since I was 10 years old, so I'll never know why I'm so convinced I'm actually going to be sick. Us emetophobes generally have stomachs of steel. So far this pregnancy I've not even had a hint of nausea.

Baby sick I can deal with, child sick is for Daddy and that's the agreement.

As for childbirth...its not fun, but your body just takes over. I had panic attacks both times my waters broke (worse the second time as I knew what was coming!) but I did both births naturally and with no pain relief but a tens machine. I'm looking into hypnobirthing this time round as it sounds like something I'd really benefit from.

Stay off google or only read positive stories if you're anxious. Trust your body.

I have emetophobia and I was terrified when I got pregnant. However I was one of the lucky ones and didn’t get morning sickness for any of my kids. I literally know how lucky I am it was a fluke.
However sending them to school/ nursery is a constant anxiety for me. I don’t cope at all when they are ill. My dp seals with all of it but even then it is horrible when it happens. I wouldn’t change anything but the constant fear of one of them getting ill is awful. Pregnancy was fine but if I had been ill with my first then I would have seriously questioned having another I think
I love having children though. I wouldn’t change it. I’m sorry you’re sufffering with emetophobia it’s a horrible thing to have

Hi! I also have emetophobia and a certain degree of tokophobia that's related to emet (eg. being sick and out of control during labour). I was also never the baby-cooing type and always refused to hold friends or relatives baby in cause they'd spit up on me. However I did have a biological urge to be a mum and I did Rob Kelly's Thrive Program 4-5 years ago. I wasn't "cured" completely but my phobia improved to the point where I could face the idea of being pregnant.

I had mild-moderate morning sickness and never threw up but just felt very queasy from weeks 6-8, and then mildly ill from 8-14. Not going to lie, my anxiety did go up throughout pregnancy but I learned to cope with it. I was only housebound for the two weeks when I felt very sick, and was fine working, socialising, travelling for the remaining months. I always carried crackers/crisps/water with me, and in the final trimester I was forced onto a low-carb diet due to gestational diabetes. However that incredibly fixed a lot of GI issues so I had no heartburn, sickness or nausea in the final weeks at all.

Regarding tokophobia, I went for an elective csection and it was fantastic. I was approved for other reasons (lupus = high-risk pregnancy although nothing did go wrong in the end). The small risk of being sick during the section was outweighed by the larger unpredictability of being sick before/during labour. As it turned out, I felt perfectly fine during the section and pain was very manageable afterwards. There was no anxiety at all, and I was high on happy endorphins the entire time I was in hospital.

Caring for a baby was my second worry but I was surprised to find that it really is different if it's your own. Babies do spit up but in the beginning it's not gross since it's just milk. And they tend to do it just after drinking so it's not as triggering for some reason...it basically looks like they just had the milk in their mouth and spat it out again. You also get de-sensitised to it all. When starting solids I was anxious about the idea of her gagging/choking but I've seen her do it often enough that it doesn't stress me that much not.

Looking back I'm actually incredibly proud of how I coped throughout pregnancy and post partum with emetophobia. Having a baby turns your life completely upside-down but it also has advantages. There are days where I'm so tired/hungry/thirsty/in need of a break that I don't have the energy to produce emetophobic thoughts and that in itself is quite nice. I used to have "panic attack days" where I think I feel sick and end up in bed for the entire day but as a mum you literally don't have that luxury anymore. There are few times I feel off but I get distracted doing something else and the I realise the feeling has just passed.

If you need a place to start, I would recommend the Thrive book by Rob Kelly in conjunction with a Skype consultant. I also tried EMDR & CBT but found both less effective, and a lot more expensive, than Thrive. Good luck!

I really understand you. I suffer with Emetophobia and currently undergoing CBT for it. I have also done the Thrive Programme book. I am not over it by all means, but this was a big reason why I was scared about trying for a baby.

I am now 32+3 weeks pregnant with our first baby. When I got pregnant anxiety really took over. I was happy as we had decided we wanted to start a family, but at the same time I didn't want to be excited as I felt like if I did I was sort of asking for morning sickness. I didn't want to go out, plan anything like outings, didn't want to go to work, didn't want to go to our couple of days break we had already booked (we were going 4 days after confirming I was pregnant), but I didn't cancel anything and didn't take time off work. I felt sick a few times but I think this was more anxiety rather than pregnancy, but I was having some kind of anxiety attack at least daily.
My biggest fear now is nausea and vomiting in labour. I haven't had the birth plan discussion with midwives yet but one option I have contemplated is an elective c section to reduce the risk of nausea and vomiting, but making sure they give me a load of anti-emetics as well as the epidural, even sedate me if needed. I briefly mentioned this to my midwife at my GP practice and she pulled a face. I am low risk so I know they will discourage me, but I will try. I fear pain relief as it can make you sick (in the middle of the night last night/this morning I was imagining gas and air and me refusing it as it would make me sick).
Yes, I am not as bad as I was in the first trimester and getting better in that sense, and I know it is normal to feel nervous and anxious about labour, but I feel that people need to look at the bigger picture and look at reasons why people may want certain birth options. I understand there are risks, and I understand that recovery can be longer with a c section but when someone has it noted about anxiety and the reasons why I feel this should be taken in consideration and that people don't make these decisions lightly. Do what you feel is right for you, your circumstances and your baby. My Husband is not happy with me having a c section (by choice) as it can be risky, but also understands that if it was needed medically it is the best thing for me and the baby, and I respect that, but at the same time child birth is what the woman goes through and it is you that has to do what you have to do. I know that sounds selfish but it's true. I know that there will be about 6 weeks where I can't do a lot such as heavy lifting, driving, etc, and will be in pain, but I am prepared for that, but I would rather that than nausea and vomiting.
I am sure you will be a fantastic Mom. It is a difficult decision to make with a phobia that takes over so much of your life. You won't get any judgement from me, as I am sure you wont with others on here either, but you are not alone with your thoughts and I do recommend speaking with your GP about referrals for help such as counselling or CBT.

I guess you could be lucky with the sickness- I wasn't sick at all on either pregnancy. But that's a bit of a risk, as a lot of people are. As for the pregnancy and labour, there's no easy way with either in my experience