Feeling like I don’t want my baby

[Donoteatthekittens]

31 weeks and can’t stop crying. I’m not sleeping at all due to pregnancy rhinitis and waking myself up as I can’t breathe through my blocked nose. I’ve had numerous hospital admissions due to hyperemesis gravidarum. I have pelvic girdle pain and my gums bleed when I brush them. I’ve had to go to the MAU twice after routine midwife appointments when they were worried about baby.

I feel like I don’t want her, that I don’t want to be a mother and that I can’t cope. I have no history of mental illness so I don’t know why I feel like this. I hate my changing body and stretch marks and the fact that I can’t walk upstairs without getting breathless when I used to be really fit and active.

My husband is really supportive but he’s really stressed at work and busy, we both lie in bed not sleeping.

Is it normal to feel like that? We’ve not really started doing the nursery yet but I’ve had to close the door on it as the clothes and baby stuff made me feel really sad.

There’s nobody in real life I can talk to due to lockdown.

Bless you, you've had a shocker of a pregnancy. If it helps, I went into hospital to have DD telling my husband that I didn't want a baby. She came out and I clung to her like my life depended on it. I did have prenatal depression in my pregnancy and was assigned a HV who had been a MH nurse previously - she was excellent and saw me before the birth as well as after, and I got way more support than my friends (but in a very quiet way, it was not intrusive or judgemental at all). Do you feel you could confide to your midwives how awful you are finding pregnancy at present, to see of they can suggest anything to make life easier for the next few weeks?

Oh lovely pregnancy is just horrendous isn't it? I have HG too and gestational diabetes, I can't remember a day where I felt well! I can definitely sympathise with chronic sufferers of illness. And all those hormones, all that ill feeling is bound to have a huge impact on your mental well-being.

In terms of the HG and your other physical ailments I promise you the second you give birth it's gone! I couldn't believe how sick I felt and how it disappeared in a matter of hours. And your body does do that convenient thing of forgetting, otherwise people wouldn't have a second one!

In terms of your feelings, it's largely hormonal which isn't easy and it takes time for those hormones to ease. Also you have a big change ahead of you- and it's a wonderful change but nevertheless it's a change to your life. Those hormones do eventually subside, don't make any judgment based on your feelings now because it isn't the true you if you understand me. Try and stay in the moment, take in some mindfulness techniques such as seven eleven breathing and meditation, I have something called an insight timer on my phone. It's a great app has music and meditation for any issue. I personally just listen to waves as water calms me for 15 mins before I go to bed. I know these aren't quick fixes but it does train your brain to focus on the here and now and not worry.

Really hope it all works out for you xx