Extreme stress in pregnancy - please help.

[clarebear111]

I’m hoping someone can help me as I’m really worried I’m unintentionally going to harm my unborn baby because of all the stress I’m under.

I am going through an extremely stressful property dispute. Nightmare tenants are refusing to leave my family home, it’s been going on for nearly 2 years now and we have our court date in the autumn. It’s my first time in this situation. My DP and mum are being great, and we have lawyers, but I have a toddler and we are currently living in a first floor flat which is just not suitable. These tenants came recommended through a friend of my mum’s of 60 years, she has sided with her son whose business partner is the tenant, so there’s been a huge fall out there too.

The business they work in together is property management. Their management agency is managing a flat of mine, which I have been trying to get back for over a year. Getting them to do anything without involving external agencies has been impossible. I have been completely polite and professional throughout, despite wanting to tear my hair out. They have now said their lawyers are going to liaise with me, but have accused me of threatening them in phone calls and emails. I haven’t spoken to anyone there in over a year as I prefer to keep things in writing with them, and I have been nothing but professional, so it’s another lie from them. One of the schemes asked them to pay me compensation because of failings in their service, so I don’t feel like I’m the one being unreasonable here. They have said they are going to tell other people about my behaviour, which feels to me like a threat and like libel/slander given it’s baseless, but I know nothing about this area.

I have quite a stressful job but it’s this housing situation that is really getting me down at the moment. I also have a MIL in Ireland who has alcohol related brain damage and is living in a care facility, which is putting more stress and pressure on our family unit.

Finally, our local authority has brought in low traffic neighbourhoods, which have had a catastrophic impact on our narrow, exclusively residential street. I can’t open the windows at the front of my own home and feel like a complete failure as a mother for being unable to protect my toddler or my unborn baby from the levels of pollution outside. I was looking for a parcel which had been left outside earlier and the fumes actually made me dizzy. Meanwhile surrounding streets, the same width as ours, are completely deserted. I’ve been writing to everyone I can think of, and am part of the neighbourhood group trying to get the council to recognise the situation is untenable, but in the meantime I feel very down about it.

I feel better having written this down. My DP is extremely supportive, does his share of nursery pick ups and drop offs etc, but it’s getting to me.

Can anyone help with tips for coping with the above whilst pregnant? I have my 20 week scan next week.

I don’t have much to offer but can you try to put your feet up and relax when you can.
I imagine once you get to court the tenants will have to leave. They will be expected to prove you sent abusive emails so assuming there aren’t any you have nothing to worry about. Hopefully it’s all over soon.

Hey OP, this does all sound stressful, no wonder your stress and anxiety is so high.

Unfortunately these situations are out of your control and you'll have to let them play out. Easier said than done. I'm not going to say "don't worry about it" as of course you're going to, I certainly would be worrying about all of those situations. It's so difficult with each of them, let alone all of them happening together.

PP's suggestions of trying to find ways to relax is a good idea. And that's within your control. Start off with building a healthy bed time routine (worked absolute wonders for me, when I was going through a stressful situation at start of the year). So no phone an hour before bed (set your alarm before this), do some pregnancy yoga (you could do some birth prep yoga), drink a herbal tea (if you can stand them during pregnancy) and read a book (allows for some escapism before sleep). If you can get a good night's sleep, then that's 8 hours for your body (and baby) to relax.

Give that a week to habit build that. Then consider another way to find you some "me time" to relax. If you can find ways to relax, then it will help manage the stress levels.

There's some great apps, like CALM, and Spotify relaxation playlists too, these are great for when you find you're stress spiralling. It helps break those thoughts and give you some relief.

I also suggest you talk to your MW and GP. There is medication you can take to help reduce stress.

These relaxation ideas won't help solve the problems causing your stress (as I think you'll have to let them play it out) but they will hopefully lower your stress levels and give you and baby some rest bite.

Hi OP,

I'm so sorry for what you're going through. It's so crap to be dealing with these things anytime, especially whilst you're pregnant.

I spoke to my midwife about stress as I was concerned about stresses in my life impacting my baby or even causing miscarriage. Firstly, she said re the latter concern that stress doesn't cause loss - it can make conceiving harder but it does not cause loss. She also said At there is much that can be done after birth to negate any effects of stress on the baby including lots of skin to skin contact in the first days, breastfeeding, eye contact.

In addition to the great suggestions from Kalodin and SomewhereOverTheRainbow - I'd suggest talking to your midwife and seeing if there are any referrals you could have made to a counsellor, or if you can afford to find yourself a private therapist that might be an idea. You could have a dedicated space once a week to talk about these things - you said you found writing it all down helpful and talking about it in a dedicated space might help you too. It obviously won't solve any of these issues but could support your resilience, self-worth and mental health whilst these highly stressful things are occuring. And I'd say you need to be selfish too - listen to what it is you need (within what is possible) and as far as you can go with that. Don't martyr yourself.

Sending you love and strength.

So sorry for your situation. It sounds really stressful.
On a side note, I am angry about the traffic light and traffic heavy streets. Our Lib Dem Council has done just this and it's a nightmare. Our residential street has been chosen by the Council as the working street for the neighbourhood. It is very popular with local voters because most of them have quiet streets. The .Green Party Councillor told me that they choose roads with social housing because social housing tenants are less likely to complain about busy roads.
It has not been decided on any reasonable element but on which roads are more likely to accept without complaint being the busy roads.
Lib Dem's have this pretence about being green but it just isn't true. They go for policies which are popular with rich, affluent roads and less affluent roads are treated so badly in terms of resources. Richer roads have pavements with paving stones. We have tarmac on the pavement. It is rubbish. I loathe the hypocrisy of our local Lib Dem Council.
So sorry OP for your situation. I hope it gets resolved to your satisfaction.

Thank you for your kind replies, everyone. It is much appreciated.

I will try some of these tips. I hadn't thought about things from a control perspective before, and find that helpful - I can see there is no point in over worrying about things that are not in my control. I do feel pretty overwhelmed at the moment and just hope it will pass.

I have my 20 week scan on Wednesday so I'll pick this up with the midwife then.

@Wildlog so sorry to hear about your local traffic issues too, and how irritating to hear how calculated it all is. I find it all ludicrous and completely unsustainable. I hope the review that has been recently announced will bring some respite for those whose lives have been so detrimentally affected so that a narrow category can reap benefits.

How are you doing @clarebear111?

Hi OP, I just wanted to drop in and say I’ve been through VERY similar. I also had a nightmare property dispute throughout most of my second and third trimester that left me barely able to function, not sleeping etc. I thought at the time I could lose pretty much everything finance and housing wise so I didn’t cope well.

Before that I had (undiagnosed) perinatal anxiety as well and would spend whole days convinced I was about to miscarry and that it was my fault for being a bad mother etc etc. This put massive strain on my relationship. Oh and ALSO I work an extremely stressful job in the mental health sector.

Long story short, I’m 36 weeks and baby is doing well as far as anyone can tell. Growth looks good and everything.

Its so hard go through this stuff and everyone tells you to remember to ‘take care of yourself’. And you’re like when and how??!!

In the end, I started spending an hour or so a day in the park writing in my journal. As you mentioned, writing things down can help.

Hi Rhubarb, thank you for thinking of me. I’m feeling a bit better, I had my 20 week scan last week and so far, so good. I’m on annual leave at the moment which is also helping as it feels like a bit of a break (even with a toddler charging around the place).

I’m trying to stay calm and be as objective as I can, and just let the emotions roll.

I hope all is well with you x

I’m so sorry AI, this sounds horrendous. I’m very glad that baby is doing well, and I hope it’s all resolved by the time your little one arrives.

It does make me cross that the delays in the courts mean these disputes can drag on and that innocent people are left in limbo because of it. I find it hard to keep a sense of perspective sometimes, I think because of the hormones.

If you don’t mind my asking, what process led to you being diagnosed with perinatal anxiety and, looking back, what were the symptoms? X