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Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Pregnant and Underwhelmed

5 replies

Charleighb90 · 05/06/2021 02:48

Dear Mumsnet,
I am 31 years old pregnant with first baby, currently 16+4/40.
I have known since I was 5 weeks pregnant when I first told my partner he was devastated and didn't talk to me for a week.
Now he is okay re the news.
I started off feeling happy but due to his reaction I have stifled my feelings of happiness.
I now feel constantly stressed, I feel like the baby is a burden and will just effect my quality of life.
When I go to scans etc I don't get any joy I just feel emotionless. I don't feel movements of the baby yet.
All of my family seems happy re the news but they are far away from me so cannot help with a baby.

I live in a 1 bedroom flat in London I am scared about whether my housing is adequate.
Am I freak for feeling like this?

OP posts:
RainingZen · 05/06/2021 03:36

Congratulations on your pregnancy FlowersNo of course you aren't a freak! Even when you have planned a pregnancy, believe me, early pregnancy often leaves you feeling very detached, and very anxious. Hormones are wild and it still doesnt feel real. Personally I also resisted feeling anything much until I got past 20 weeks, I was terrified of wanting the baby too much. The scans were no help, I couldn't relate that fuzzy black and white blob to the idea of an actual human growing inside me. When the baby moved I was even more freaked out to be honest, it was only with my second child I actually enjoyed feeling the baby move.

And every mum-to-be worries that their quality of life will suffer. And it will! You will feel poorer, tired, your body changes shape, you lose your sense of being completely free, etc. But motherhood is also amazing, it is breathtakingly amazing. So it's a trade-off really.

I found it very reassuring to join a mums-to-be forum online as there will be loads of mums due to give birth same time as you with similar worries (and new ones you never even dreamed of) and they can offer lots of advice too. Also those cute little emails telling you about the development of your baby, and go shopping for a few things - I was in TK Maxx last week and the baby clothes were so cute (although i thoroughly recommend eBay used clothes, fabulous bargains as baby stuff especially newborn is barely used).

Also connect with the excited family members more often, get some positive vibes in your life.

Now alongside this you have a wobbly partner. That definitely does not help.
Do you live with your partner and why exactly did he freak out? I mean, an unplanned pregnancy can be quite a shock so there's that. Maybe it never struck him that birth control can fail. Maybe he didn't think of you as a forever-partner, and so he needed to get some space to reconcile himself with the idea you are now connected, forever. Or maybe the idea of having a child just wasnt on his radar and that alone sent him spinning. If you live together, not speaking to you for a week is pretty hostile, but if you don't live together I would view that week as his time to adjust to a HUGE piece of news. And I do think you need to forgive him either way.

It is very, very, very common for men to not appear even vaguely interested in their partner's pregnancy. The baby isn't real to them yet. My DH was hopeless while i was pregnant, did very few of the nice things you expect, like feeling the bump kick or offering to massage my feet, or even asking how I felt. But he has been an absolutely fantastic dad from the moment the baby arrived. So don't draw conclusions about whether your partner genuinely changed his mind and is now ok, it might be hard for him to be really excited or even really comprehend he is going to be a dad. That will change when a small red screaming child, his child, is in his arms..

If you haven't already, explore with your partner some of the more practical plans. Is there space in your bedroom for a bedside crib? You can have the baby in your room for a year, easily. So you don't need to rush discussions about bigger housing. Will you get any maternity pay, and if so how much? How long can you afford to be on maternity leave? Is your flat on the ground floor, where will you keep a pram? Sometimes men find it easier to relate to the practical problems they can address, and that helps them feel involved.

Finally just watch out for pre natal depression, in case you really start to spiral down.

sarah13xx · 05/06/2021 06:29

Reach out and tell someone in person how you’re feeling if it’s worrying you. I totally get the thing about scans, I don’t get ‘that’ feeling at scans either. For me when he started kicking it felt a bit more real and I knew he was a real person in there and now I’m in my third trimester he moves and bits stick up and I can almost feel his body if I touch it, I think when you feel that it will help and you’ll feel way more connected to him! Hope it goes well for you

georgarina · 05/06/2021 08:17

OP I live in a one bedroom, so on that front I can reassure you it's possible :)

I never bonded until after baby was born. There's this thing inside you but I've never been able to feel much (besides obviously the usual worries/wanting everything to be ok!)

Even after the birth it's kind of a shock and it took a bit of time which surprised me - because when my siblings were born in my teens I felt this immediate overwhelming love for them, so I fully expected to feel that again - I think it's just the realisation that you are in charge of this new life, it's overwhelming.

But it does happen and now they're my world.

Charleighb90 · 05/06/2021 09:20

Thank you so much for this. I don't feel like I'm such an anomaly now.
In terms of my partner we do love together and he is great 99% of the time. He already has a 5 year old girl from previous relationship and he just didn't want anymore children right now. And instead of talking about it he just ignored me for a week until his sister came round and told him to get a grip.

Obviously hard for him to process as well as me.

OP posts:
Mncrmum · 05/06/2021 10:32

I’m 34 weeks with baby #2, very much a surprise baby. Baby #1 was a surprise baby too. I found out when my #1 was 18 months and I just thought “oh, shit”, my mind raced with all the things I wasn’t prepared for, extra nursery costs, bigger car, bigger house… wondered how I’d cope as I had just got back into the swing of things with work.
Fast forward to today and I’m really excited, but it did take me a long time to come round to the fact.
With baby#1 I was terrified of how it would change my life, and that’s really normal OP.
Don’t worry xxx

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