I regret getting pregnant - so scared

[AprilBaby2025]

I have high blood pressure. I have no idea why. I am only 30 and a healthy weight. My dad has hypertension, but only developed it in his early 50s. I have had this issue since I was a kid. I was told it was white coat hypertension and I had bad anxiety (which is very true).

When I am at the doctors, my BP is sky high. Like, severe hypertension range. Almost hypertension crisis level. When I am home, it is nowhere near that. But it is still high. Usually 125-135/85-95. Although I can and have gotten in lower. But it's higher on days when I am even more stressed. My mom, best friend and husband say it is because of my severe anxiety. I don't know. I do catastrophize and ALWAYS think of the worst. All day everyday. But there are other people with severe anxiety who have normal blood pressure all the time.

Only 1% of pregnant women have chronic hypertension. And most of them likely have lifestyle factors (i.e., overweight). Why does this have to happen to me?! I am healthy.

I am worried I will be sent to the hospital all the time because of my anxiety spikes in BP. And I read so much scary research. 30% of women with chronic hypertension get pre-e and 15% of babies are born before 35 weeks! And 6% are born before 31 weeks!! Those are huge numbers compared to pregnancies without chronic hypertension. Even gestational hypertension has much much lower rates. And I know preemies do well nowadays, but the earlier they are born the bigger the risks of physical and mental impairments.

I REALLY want my little girl to be ok. And I really want to be pregnant and carry her. But I also regret it so much because of this stupid blood pressure and the risks. All I want is a low risk pregnancy. I am so scared.

I am almost 14 weeks pregnant.

Please speak to your midwife about this. Are you booked in yet?

Yes. I am seeing her on Monday for the first time. I am terrified there will be nothing they can do and I will be SOL :(

The percentages you’ve quoted are actually small and you’ve said your BP is higher at GP. You googling and getting stressed is only heightening your BP. If you’re super worried address your anxiety and in turn your BP will fall

In addition to the advice above consider
what makes you feel relaxed and calm? Do more of that. Find a pregnancy yoga class maybe (tell your teacher about your condition). Look at finding hypnotherapy and/or meditation stuff to listen to.

This.
Op, I think you may be the person who posted regarding this last week, so please speak to your midwife about your anxiety levels. It's fine to be concerned and to put things in place to help keep your BP under control, but you can't keep spiralling like this all pregnancy otherwise it's going to be truly miserable for you.

I genuinely don't know what makes me feel relaxed or calm. The last time I had a moment of relaxation was February of 2021. It was Valentine's Day. Since then, I have gotten married, travelled the world with my husband, bought a beautiful house, had tons of amazing moments in my life. But not ONCE was I relaxed. I don't know what that feels like or how to do it.

I watch TV a lot, which I think I like. I enjoy comedies. But I always do something (like go on my phone, doom scroll) while watching TV. So it's not relaxing. And if I just sit and watch TV I get kind of bored. I use to be really into video games when I was younger, and my husband and I use to play a lot together, but I also get bored and my mind gets stressed because I feel like I need to be googling my worries and doing something else takes me away from that. So it stresses me out. I am into lego and have so many of the Harry Potter lego sets (including Hogwarts) that need to be built. I have 7 waiting to be built! I build them with my husband. But again, when I do build them I get stressed because I am being taken away from google, doomscrolling, etc. My husband tries. He made us take a bath last night together. I didn't like it. The temp had to stay at 100F because I am pregnant and I normally like laval-level hot baths lol. And all I was thinking about during it was my anxieties. He even lit candles and turned off the lights and rubbed my back in the bath. I don't know what it's like to be calm.

Hiya!

I also have white coat syndrome and gave birth 6 months ago. It's particularly when they put the cuff on because I have an intrusive thought about it not turning off and breaking my arm. I normally explain, then get them to do it once and then take a few deep breaths and they do it again.

At the hospital just after I'd been induced I managed to get mine down from 150 (top number) to 90 within about 2 minutes. The midwife couldn't believe it and was telling everyone.

I think yours sounds more severe than mine, but just wanted you to know that they do understand and do it twice if you explain. When I try to calm myself down I either imagine a calm place or say the Litany Against Fear from Dune in my head, haha.

You need therapy, OP, possibly with a good somatic therapist who will work on the way you hold stress in your body, breathing, grounding etc. Do you understand what causes you to be so anxious? Have you always been this way? Regardless of your BP or the fact that it sounds a miserable way to live, you need to sort it out before it starts to impact on your child. I have a catastrophising, chronically anxious mother, and by the time I was seven or eight, I’d learned I could never go to her with my problems because I then had to manage her added anxiety about them.

I have had anxiety my entire life. My mom said I started showing signs when I was as young as 3 as I would calm myself by counting repetitively really fast to 3. I have had a great childhood. Don’t know where it came from. But at this point, my brain is wired this way and it sucks. I need to unwire it :( but my health anxiety popped up when I was 9. And I do remember I had just found out that when you go to the doctors, there’s a chance they will tell you something is wrong with you. I had a doctors appointment the next day and was terrified to go. My BP was high, which reinforced my fears. I went to a specialist at the time who concluded I had bad anxiety. But I think since I was so young, that moment really stuck with me and I have had debilitating health anxiety ever since.

I have white coat hypertension and have had 2 babies now. I found midwives tended to panic about blood pressure readings and when I was sent to the consultant they were much more chilled out. I was put on a low dose of medication about 30 weeks pregnant with my first when I reported that my home readings averaged higher than 150/100. Caused me no issues, BP was fine til I was induced at 39 weeks. Baby born healthy and I weaned off the tablets over 6 weeks and was fine after that.

Second pregnancy the same thing happened, but I was out on aspirin from 12 weeks to birth, which I believed helped keep my BP lower overall and I only needed medication from 36-39 weeks pregnant. Weaned off over a month and again everything was fine after that.

I think you have an undiagnosed mental health condition and also maybe ND.

can you see a psychiatrists privately and be assessed for ocd/asd/adhd?

Maybe do a tech detox. I'm sure that the doom scrolling increases anxiety. That constant looking for something to hold your attention. Try a week of no TV, just radio and set a limit of an hour a day on your phone.

See if it helps you learn to chill a bit more. Also my friend has OMG you're about to die, get to hospital BP. Hers is secondary to another condition she has but she has had 3 perfectly natural full term births.

What is ND?

I do have OCD and was diagnosed when I was 13. That I do know, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I don't think I have ASD as I don't meet any of the criteria. However, I might have ADHD and a therapist once suggested it a couple of years ago. It does make sense - I hate watching movies because they are too long, I hate reading and have only read HP and Hunger Games over the past 15 years (and academic books/papers but I need to for my job lol). I like the idea of reading though and I wish I did enjoy it. I just can't get through a book or even a few pages as I don't have the attention span for that. I find it stressful. Even when I watch TV, I usually can't finish a longer show. For example, my husband and I are watching Love is Blind during dinner time. Each episode is about 50-60 minutes. But I make us pause after about 20 minutes and finish it later. And I really enjoy that show! I have a very hard time focusing on one thing for a long time.

Honestly, a tech detox probably will help. I know at the height of COVID, Twitter was a huge source of my anxiety. Everyone was acting like the world was going to end. I deleted Twitter and haven't installed it since. That was almost 3 years ago and my fear of COVID went away in like 2 weeks.

Hearing about your friend helps calm me down, thank you :)

Nd is neurodiversity . ADHD is an nd . ASD and adhd

And ocd can overlap

neurodivergentinsights.com/misdiagnosis-monday/adhd-vs-autism-vs-ocd

Could you speak with your midwife about you taking your own blood pressure prior to the appointments?

Just to say, I had hypertension during my recent pregnancy, it didn't develop into preeclampsia, though I was at risk of that. I was induced at 40 weeks and gave birth on Saturday at 40+5, so baby doesn't necessarily have to be early!

Breathing really helps, so inhale to a count of 4 through your nose and exhale to a court of 8 (or as much as you can do) through your mouth. Kid your body into feeling calm!

I always had high blood pressure when at gps - in the end I bought my own mini wrist bp machine and measured at home when I was relaxed and recorded it. GP were well aware of white coat syndrome but they kept suggesting aspirin and I didn’t want to take medication. My bp also goes up when I’m anxious - particularly during pregnancies. I still have anxiety but I can control it most of the time.
i found knitting in front of the tele relaxing but mostly I walked a lot - I’m lucky to live in a beautiful area but walking really helped bp and anxiety (it still does). Stick a pod cast on and go for a walk - or even better just listen to music while you walls - Will keep you healthy in pregnancy too.

don’t be scared you’ll very likely be absolutely fine and once your baby is here it will alll be worth it. Just be aware though that even for those that aren’t prone to it, anxiety can increase after birth but recognise it for what it is and don’t worry about it - it’s a normal maternal thing, it does calm down.