Severe stress in pregnancy

[bbypinkluffie]

I was a victim of sexual abuse in childhood, by my aunts partner, I didn’t tell until about two years ago. We’ve been going through the process with the police, who arrested him and searched his house, found evidence, interviewed me twice and put the decision to CPS (crown prosecution) I’d pretty much recovered from the trauma. I’m 15 weeks and 3 days pregnant with my first. We’re awaiting CPS decision on my case. If they take the case he’s pretty much going to prison, if they don’t take the case nothing will be done. My aunt is still together with him and they live a 13 minute drive from where I live now (at my parents house) and although me and my partner are moving out before baby is born we won’t be moving much further away. We find out baby’s gender on Sunday. My entire pregnancy I have pretty much told myself I’m having a boy, no clue why I just felt like I’m having a boy, pretty much all my partners family/siblings are/have boys and every scan has looked “like a boy”. I’m so scared it’ll be a girl, I recovered from my trauma as the victim but now my trauma has been brought back up reframed, I’m not a little girl being abused anymore I’m going to be a mother. My trauma has been reframed and I feel ever so protective over my unborn baby. The thought of me having to take my little girl home around the corner from the man who sexually abused me when I was a little girl makes me so distressed. I have two aunts on my mothers side, one who is with him and one who is not with him but has believed him regardless of us telling her the police found evidence at his address, when this aunt found out I was having a baby she messaged my mum saying her friend had congratulated her on becoming a great aunt (my mum posted a facebook announcement) and if a present for the baby would be welcome, she also said she was upset she “may not get to be a great aunt” to my baby, she’s said a couple things before and after the abuse came out that are very suspicious, sympathising with paedos/child abusers. My aunt that is with him is so weak that she wouldn’t have stopped the abuse had she known it was happening. I’ve of course said none of that part of my family will ever be welcome around my baby. I was brought up to A&E with asthma attack last week, then caught a bug from being up at A&E for 12+ hours. I’m mentally and physically not coping. I’m so stressed and feel absolutely awful that my baby can feel my stress while in the womb. Has anyone else been through anything similar with family? Or been through severe stress while pregnant? Thank you if you’ve read all of this xx and sorry if it was hard to understand xx

I'm so, so sorry to hear what you're going through. Although I cannot relate to your story, I can understand how triggering this must all be for you. Not only just the dealings with the police, but as you say, the potential of having a daughter.
Although I cannot relate to your situation, I can relate to extreme stress in pregnancy for different reasons. We unfortunately lost our first child when I was 33 weeks pregnant (due to a very rare genetic condition). Six months later, we found out I was pregnant again. I can't put into words how stressed I was throughout the entire nine months. Everyday I was convinced she was going to die. I had numerous panic attacks, my blood pressure measured high at every appointment (due to fear of bad news), and at one point I had to go through several tests due to my heart rate being constantly sky high (again, through fear of losing her).
I ended up getting referred to the perinatal mental health team, though this was towards the end of the pregnancy. It helped sharing my stress and worries, is this something that you could potentially do too?
Alongside worrying I would lose my baby, I also panicked that if she did survive, I would have 'damaged' her from the stress.
She's now a perfectly healthy 10 month old who is thriving! She is on track/ahead for every milestone. She's almost walking, she can say mama, Dada, Baba, cat. She even recognises her big brothers (who passed away) photo and name! And she is the happiest, bubbliest, most sociable little baby you could wish to meet. So as far as I'm concerned from my own experience, the stress I felt didn't harm her one bit.
Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy, and if you can get professional help it really is useful! Xx

I'm so sorry you're going through this. Are your parents able to stand up to the other branch of your family, or are they all enmeshed? If the latter, maybe it would be better to move a bit further away, and create some distance from these people.

Having children can bring trauma back up again. Are you able to access therapy? (As long as it wouldn't interfere with the trial).

Hi op. That sounds like a very tough situation for you and I can really understand how stressful it must be. I don't have experience of that but I was in a very stressful time with DC2.

My ex left me out of the blue for his OW with my 2 year old DD and whilst I was very early stages of pregnancy. It was a huge shock. I couldn't face eating, sleeping, leaning the house - anything - I was a complete mess for months. I also found out there was a 1:2 chance of Down's syndrome at the 2nd scan. It was probably the most stressful 9 months of my life. I really worried about how it would affect the baby.

He came along and was completely chilled from day 1. Eating, feeding, sleeping. Just easy and chilled. Unlike my DD - who had been Been much planned, ex H had bought me all the right vitamins and made me smoothies every day, made sure I relaxed - she was far far harder by comparison and more stressed and stressful . By rights it should have definitely been the other way round.

Thank you, I'm so so sorry for your loss ʚ♡ɞ. I've been told to call perinatal mental health although have been too ashamed/anxious to as I used to suffer awfully with mental illness (due to the PTSD) and as worried if they saw me struggling again, even just with stress, that they'd take my baby away, but I think that won't be the case at all and will call them tomorrow. So so glad to hear she's happy and healthy, Thank you so much xx

My parents both believed me as soon as I told them, paid for my private therapy which was how I recovered from the PTSD and have been by my side the entire time, from the beginning they said the family (him and my aunts) wouldnt be welcome back into the family, they are as protective over my baby as me. I don't think we'll move much further away as my partner works about 15 mins from my parents house, also due to the PTSD they almost lost me and to get pegnant and move very far away I would feel cruel as they helped me so much, I also will probably "need" my mum, first baby and still quite young. I did have private therapy which helped an awful lot but was paid. I'm sure my mum would pay for another session or I could save up myself if necessary but I'm going to try accessing the midwife mental health team first, CPS allow therapy now xx

Thank you, I'm sorry you went through that but glad to hear baby was completely fine <3 I've been stressed about vitamins too, was taking folic acid from 4 weeks until 12ish when I attempted pregnacare but awful at taking it as it makes me quite poorly so thats very comforting to know <3