Early Pregnancy anxiety

[OEB]

hello all .

I found out I was pregnant on 12/6 and didn’t quite believe it until end of this week 19/06 after testing everyday. From my calculations I am 5+3 today.

The only symptoms I’ve really had are menstrual like cramps and dry mouth. I haven t really had any nausea or any changes to my breasts.

I have an early scan booked for 6th July when I should be about 7+4.

I just feel like I cannot get excited as I am so sure something will go wrong. My anxiety is is bad, I just keep thinking why would I be so lucky that this pregnancy will go smoothly and that my first pregnancy would have no issues. Also with the lack of symptoms I’m thinking something isn’t right but then again I am only really early.

how did yous all deal with this anxiety it’s driving me insane!

I was anxious throughout my full pregnancy and in particular, the first 12 weeks. My best friend had a miscarriage the month before I conceived so I was all too aware of what could happen.
My advice is to stay positive. Easier said than done I know. But stress isn't good for you or the baby. I found concentrating on my diet and water intake allowed me to feel like I had some control. Again, I know this is easier said than done if you feel sick.
My symptoms started around week 6. I also have friends who had no symptoms at all and sailed through pregnancy. Everybody is different so try not to compare.
My final tip is to only get advice and information from the NHS website or your community midwife. Google will have you on American websites convinced your totally normal symptoms are something sinister.
I hope it all goes well and try your best to enjoy your pregnancy. It's a very special time

How do you deal with your anxiety day to day? You can speak to your GP / midwife and access the perinatal mental health support.

You’re still very early on and symptoms can come and go. At that stage I’d feel fine one day then very sick the next.

If you can, delay that scan for as long as you can. If you get any bleeding or pain you can access a scan via a&e and your hospital’s Early Pregnancy Unity.

Having a scan early can be anything but reassuring. Dates can be off and early pregnancy hard to date. At 7 weeks you might not see anything as it’s still a bit too early.

Hey there! I totally understand your anxiety. It's so hard to have faith in something you can't actually see, something you can't actually control, and it's hard to imagine it'll go right. I am good at giving advice, totally hypocritical though because I'm one of the most anxious people there is! Distraction is important, try not to focus too much on the pregnancy and keep busy. The level of symptoms doesn't tell you anything one way or another, but if you get bad cramping along with bleeding, get in touch with your EPU. Is this your first pregnancy?

Yeah it is my first pregnancy! So it’s hard to believe it’s truly happening really. I generally don’t suffer from anxiety or when I do it’s very mild .

I understand the tests can be more of a hinderance than a help especially if they’re unclear but I think I would still rather go incase it helps reassure me and if there’s some sort of issue then I guess I’ll get referred or have to go for further scans but at least I’d know. I’ve heard that from 7 weeks onwards they tend to be better at seeing things? Anyway I just feel it would help me .

@OEB yep clinics recommend 7+ weeks as it's out of a grey area where you may/may not see a heartbeat. At that stage (unless you've got irregular periods so your dates could be out by more than a week) you get a much more definitive answer. Please bear in mind though that a positive scan at that stage only gives reassurance that everything is ok at that time - it doesn't predict what may happen after (sadly I have a negative experience of this, scan at 7 weeks absolutely fine, but at 10+4 I found out I'd had a missed miscarriage).

Best to take things one day at a time - I suffer from severe anxiety quite frequently and have done for 20+ years, so the feeling isn't new to me, but the fact the outcome is outside of my control is hard for sure.

@moosey89 thank you! Yeah the same thing happened to my friend, healthy early scan then MM at 12 week appointment so I understand it could still go either way but in my head I feel it would help reassure me even just for the time being to bridge me to 12 weeks then do it all again 🙈 I honestly don’t know how I’ll cope this whole pregnancy if I am like this now! It’s hard work on your emotions!

@OEB yeah absolutely - I'm going for at least 2 early scans this pregnancy, even if it's just a snapshot in time it tells me where I'm at! The emotions are crazy and made worse by the damn hormones 😂

@moosey89 what dates are you going to go for your scan? Do you think 7+4 is far enough on? I guess they could only tell me to come back the week after if it wasn’t. And congratulations fingers crossed for you 🤞🏼✨✨

@OEB I'm going at 7+4, next Thursday ☺️ last time round it was clear with a transvaginal scan at that stage, so I thought I'd go for the same again.

Yeah I’ll listen to what the women recommends but also happy with a transactional. Guess I just can’t believe my luck and just feel something must go wrong somewhere . We fell on our only second month of trying but I have been tracking ovulation and periods for a while. Just praying all goes well. You form an attachment from when you find out don’t you! I’m also on holiday at the moment so not drinking/ can’t do certain things so I’m constantly reminded I’m pregnant so it’s tricky to forget about it! Just going to try to relax x

*transvaginal

@OEB you never know.... statistically the odds are in your favour. Hope you have a great holiday! Are you anywhere nice?x

We are in Rhodes! I kept it a secret from my other half this week that we were pregnant too until we got here and he was over the moon! Was a nice surprise for him. So fingers crossed I can relax and scan goes okay on 6th July! Is yours 29th ? Hope all goes well x

Aw that's lovely! If it all works out well it'll be a really lovely memory for you both.

Yeah my scan is the 29th, 5.30pm which isn't ideal to wait all day but didn't want to leave work and have to make excuses! 😂X

@moosey89 best of luck! Ours is 19.30 too so going to have the same issues 🙈 x

I know this thread is a few months old. But I'm feeling the exact same feelings. I just can't feel excited, I just don't feel like a deserve to be pregnant. I'm a STM so this is baffling to me as I've been through this already, first time I had barely any symptoms, where as now I do... I've just convinced myself it's going to be a MMC ☹️

How are you finding things now @OEB

Awh bless you @Pambeezley . I felt loads better after 12 week scan . I’m 17 weeks tomorrow and counting down the days until my 20 week scan which I’ll be having on the 22nd sep. I just wish I could feel them kicking and I’d be happy 🤣 I have relaxed abit more and feel more ‘pregnant’ now I’m getting some sort of a bump. I think it’s easy to convince yourself that something is going to go wrong in the early days but try look past that xx