Sad about being pregnant

[aax125]

I feel so guilty but Im really sad and disappointed about being pregnant at this moment in time and it's for stupid superficial reasons.

I've never wanted kids, I'm not keen on them and I feel like they'll just change my life in a way I can never reverse. With my husband, I grew to the idea of kids because he's such an amazing person, he's amazing with children and I love my husband so much that I warmed to the idea of us having a baby, to give him a "mini me". However, I kinda had it planned of when I wanted us to fall pregnant, which was around October/November this year (2025). Much to my surprise, I'm pregnant right now (August 2025), even though we were using the pull out method, and this method worked for our whole 2 year relationship as we both thought we had fertility issues, with both of us going to our GP's to get checks etc.

In June and July we had to be be extra careful not to get pregnant as I was on Mounjaro for weight loss. I then decided to come off Mounjaro for August and September as it needs at least one month to come out of your system before you get pregnant. We are going abroad in September, and I really wanted to go to a water park and have a nice little holiday before we started planning for kids. So you can imagine our surprise when we found out I was pregnant (which I only did a test because I was having period-like cramps and spotting which was odd for me). I honestly think the weight loss helped in us conceiving so quickly.

But I'm just sad that I probably can't do the plans I had, I'd personally still go to the water park but I feel like I'd be judged, especially if anything was to happen. I feel no attachment to this pregnancy, even though I'm literally only a few weeks pregnant, and I still want to do the things I wanted to do, like the water park, and gym and working out etc, but I don't want to look like I'm a heartless cow 😭💔

I'm just so confused and emotional and sad cus I thought I'd be happy, but now I'm just scared of the future and my life

So if you never wanted kids and not keen on them why did you say yes to trying for a child? How far gone are you? If it’s early days then consider an abortion if you really don’t want kids because yes they will get in the way of your plans like wanting to go to a water park.

You can go to the gym and waterpark and rides you're barely pregnant just things like saunas to avoid.

You don’t have to have a baby if you don’t want to, but the only thing you couldn’t do is go to the waterpark this one time. You can go next year. You can absolutely continue the gym & training- I’m 7 months pregnant with my second child and still in my usual running/gym routine.

Hi, thanks for the reply
I started to warm to the idea of them and having them with my husband. But I wanted us to start properly trying in October or November and because I thought we were having fertility issues I presumed it would take us a bit of time to actually fall pregnant and I thought by having this plan it would help prepare me for everything and accept the changes that will be happening in my life.

So I did a clear blue test and it states 1-2 weeks, however after some research online I found out that this is from the date that we conceived? Whereas to measure how far along you are, you count from the first day of your last period. If that's the case then I'm roughly 5-6 weeks?

I can't have an abortion, that's out of the question for multiple reasons, and also my husband would never look at me the same and I love him too much to put him through me making a decision like that.

I did say it sounded superficial but it's just that certain things I'll never be able to do after we have kids, and it'll never just be us 2 again, and I just wanted to enjoy that time and really take it in before we went ahead with my plans x

How can I go next year with a baby?

I do want to go gym but my husband is kind of against it as his family are very much like when a woman is pregnant; she does nothing. No cleaning, no lifting, nothing that causes extra strain etc . Which I love that for them, the men really step up but I'm so used to being independent and doing what I want and I just don't personally agree with doing nothing

How can’t you? My daughter was born last April, we were on holiday and did go to a waterpark in the July, we then did another 2 holidays last year. Your baby has two parents, you just take turns.

If you want to go to the gym, go to the gym. It really doesn’t matter what your husband or his family think. It’s your body and your baby- if you want to go to the gym, go to the gym.

As an aside though if you don’t feel like you can express your own thoughts about your own body to your husband then you really shouldn’t be married
to him!

It's normal to be anxious about the changes having a baby will bring to your life and relationship, even when you've planned the baby.

What I would say isn't okay is you feeling like you can't carry on with your normal life because your partner and their family are against you doing normal things when pregnant, like working out (which is actually very good for both you and baby). You need to sit down with your partner and discuss this and how you feel, because 9 months is VERY long to do nothing for and you'll likely grow resentful.

You can go to a waterpark once you have a baby by either going with your husband and you both taking turns watching the baby, or you leave them with family, friends or a babysitter for a day.

Life doesn't end when you have a baby, they arent little for long. Tell your DH that it is good to stay fit when you're pregnant, you can try swimming/walking/yoga as well as the gym.

I hope you can get excited soon. August isn't that much earlier than you'd planned after all?

Being pregnant doesn’t mean you need to become a 1950s house wife. Your husband doesn’t get a say in what you do with your body, and he’s not even correct. If it’s safe for you to go to the gym then that’s the best thing to do, labour is easier if you are fitter! If you don’t want to be a mug to your husband then don’t be, pregnancy or no pregnancy.

I think you’re conflating things a bit here OP and then catastrophising. Slow down, breathe, you sound like you’re working yourself into panic mode and you really don’t need to be.
Step back and take stock - this is a shock, for sure. But it’s only a couple of months off when you were planning it anyway - so it’s really not the end of the world. It’ll be fine. It’s pretty normal to think ‘oh my god what have I done, I’ve ruined my life’ when you first get pregnant and it goes from theory to reality. Just sit with it, don’t beat yourself up over it, and remind yourself of the nice things about having a baby. Time will help.
Yes, your life will change. It’s pretty inevitable. You’re no longer only going to be answerable to yourself - you’ll have a whole other person to think about, and not only that, but you have to put them before yourself. But that doesn’t mean your life has to totally stop. You’re going to be mum, but you’re also still a person in your own right and there’s no need to give that up. Keep going to the gym, keep up your hobbies, keep doing the things that make you feel like yourself and make you happy. Maybe give the water slides a swerve this time - but it’s one holiday, you can still swim and explore and do everything else you normally do on holiday - and next year (or the year after at a push) you’ll be back as a family - you can do all the water slides again, but have a little sidekick to share it all with.
Babysitters are a thing - you’ll have time for yourself and time for your relationship again. The baby stage is hard but it’s short and you get your life back before you know it.

You can go to a waterpark when pregnant, also the gym, obviously. If your husband is absurd, anxious, and controlling, that is a problem.

Whether or not you want a baby only you can decide, but life doesn’t stop when you’re pregnant. During the first trimester I would carry on as normal (apart from no alcohol, smoking, NHS guidance on foods to avoid). I exercised until giving birth. You can adapt your routines or even do classes designed for pregnancy. I started to really enjoy these btw and made lovely friends, I worked out more during pregnancy and in this first year after my baby was born than ever before in my life.

Hi all,
First of I'd like to say my husband is not at all controlling or abusive; he's an amazing man and I'm insanely lucky to be with him, everyday I thank god for bringing him into my life, and EVERYONE around me says he's an incredible man. He's just worried and I guess has fed off what others have said about their experiences with miscarriage:
For example; my SIL lifted a heavy amount of dishes after a party and she blamed that on her miscarriage.
My other SIL picked up a multipack of big Colas and carried them up the stairs and she said that was the cause of her miscarriage.
A friend of ours went on holiday, someone bumped into her belly and she ended up having a ruptured sac(?) but she thought she was having a miscarriage. But because of this she refused afterwards to go on a girls holiday that we had planned and had paid for. (DW, baby is fine and healthy and she's due in a couple months).

So I think all of this makes my husband think that anything and everything will be of harm to the baby.

Thank you to the person who said that I just need to stop and breathe and that I'm just catastrophising, I think I'm working myself into a downward spiral and don't want to tell my feelings to anyone in my life in case they judge me

Re waterparks
Honestly...they likely had miscarriages because the pregnancy wasnt viable.
I went to water parks in both pregnancies and was absolutely fine

Much more critically is this....
I've never wanted kids, I'm not keen on them and I feel like they'll just change my life in a way I can never reverse.

My children have changed my life irrevocably and if I hadn't "wanted this" I cant imagine HOW much I would struggle. Because I struggle...

Its normal to be a bit stunned when you find out you are pregnant but you sound like you really really think about whether you want this baby because your husband is NOT going to be doing 50/50... not because he isnt a nice guy or a good dad but because you are the mother.
You body your mind and your life will change beyond recognition and some of it will be amazing and a lot of it will be hard. You have to want it

Is it worth trying to get some counselling solo?

Do YOU want a baby, or do you just want one for your husband? Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited to see my DH become a Dad and I know he's going to be amazing, but there's nothing like the primal yearning for motherhood that I feel. It's such a powerful feeling.

I'm only 26 weeks pregnant and my body has gone through so many changes. I know that some of these changes would bother and upset me if I wasn't sure about this baby. Just something to think about.

Im not saying too much here as it's outing but my sister did this. Agreed to have a kid despite never wanting them because her husband wanted it.

It caused a lot of heartache when she had the baby and realised how life changing it was and she hated it. Resented her husband they ended up divorced etc

It's interesting you didnt want kids but werent using contraception. As you've noticed the withdrawal method doesnt work.

Your husband is a capable adult so he can use Google and do his own research and see how silly that logic is. Then you can carry on doing the activities you want to do in a safe way and your husband can unclench. Good luck with the pregnancy OP

@ToKittyornottoKitty

"Being pregnant doesn’t mean you need to become a 1950s house wife."

Pregnant women in the 1950's continued to bring in the coal bucket and get the fire going first thing in the morning, heaved heavy groceries home on the bus (few had cars), boiled and handwashed the household laundry and often cleaned floors on their hands and knees. There was no special treatment from your husband for being pregnant back then and generally not much from female relatives either.

You can go to a water park. No one will judge you as you won’t be showing. It’s well known that Mounjaro increases fertility - I’ve seen a lot about it. It’s only 2 months earlier than planned. The real reason you’re feeling sad is most probably because you’re not being true to yourself - you actually dont want kids.

You had warmed to the idea of having a baby and were going to start trying in October? And instead you are pregnant in July/August. If you had said you were planning to try in two years I can see that getting pregnant now would make a huge difference as you would be losing couple of years of children freedom. But if you were planning from October, in reality you are only losing a couple of months of child free time as you would know that it would be possible to get pregnant straight away.
I think it's the sudden shock of it happening before you had actually got your mind around what you had agreed to. Even when babies are fully planned some people have a bit of a wobble when the reality appears on the near horizon and people suddenly start adding up what will be lost without yet having the experience of the lovely gains. There is still a lot you can do during pregnancy op. I would try for a last only us holiday and I hope it all goes well for you 💐

Your husband may be an incredible man but he was still relying on the withdrawal method as a form of contraception with a partner who wasn’t sure about children. He was risking your body and health with an unplanned pregnancy (that suited him) which is manipulative. Don’t you think there was a part of him that wanted to risk you getting pregnant knowing you’d never abort and he’d get what he wanted. Your marriage would have changed irrevocably if you had gotten pregnant during those 2 years so it’s good it only happened once you were more comfortable with it. Though I would still urge solo counselling as you’re in this situation because you don’t have control over your own body - the withdrawal method puts all the control in a man’s body and even then it’s things he can’t fully control. It’s the only form of contraception where a woman has no control. Even now you’re more focused on soothing his worries and anxieties over your body than listening to science and doing what’s right for you.

Pregnancy will change your body as will having a child but you won’t stand a chance of getting comfortable with it unless you take back autonomy and control of your body and choices. You are very concerned and understandably so about having a child - what is your husband doing to soothe you and make the journey easier (e.g not guilting you with ridicule my stories of what caused his sister’s miscarriage). In case something awful does happen and you miscarry is he going to blame you for following medical advice and exercising, going to a water park etc or blame you. Will he blame you if this child isn’t perfect? If you suffer PND will he support you or blame you. If you don’t want a second or third child will he support you or blame you. These are important questions as it doesn’t just matter what sort of father he’ll be but what sort of life partner he’ll be when children are involved - will you still remain a person or become a womb for his children. This is why solo counselling will help you free up emotional space to make your choices and decisions.

We were BOTH relying on the withdrawal method; so no it wasn't a manipulative move on his part; if I wasn't comfortable with that method alone, I would have used another method, especially if I had known that taking Mounjaro would increase my fertility. He never pressured me for a child, and has always said it's my call. We were both under the impression that it would take us longer to conceive due to fertility issues hence why we were comfortable with the withdrawal method

My husband cares deeply for me and doesn't want any harm to come to me or the pregnancy, but this is our first pregnancy so naturally we haven't done much research on what is true or untrue. To him, his sister's miscarriage isn't ridiculous, if she says that's what caused it and that's what she's blaming it on, why would he assume any different? I have explained to him that even if I did cut out lifting items/gym/even intercourse etc that I still work, I still do the household chores so there could ALWAYS be something to blame a miscarriage on. He's just asked for me to minimise the risk. But he's said that we can get some peace of mind when we have our first midwife appointment and she can answer our 1000 questions and if she approves everything then his mind will be at ease. To him, I'm not just his baby oven; I am his wife and his love and his world, he would do anything and everything for me and yes he would be upset over a miscarriage but he would not blame me for it

Ah apologies - you said you’ve been using the pull out method for your whole 2 year relationship so I assumed that means since you started dating….? I assumed you didn’t know him well enough at the start of a relationship to risk your body on the pull out method and based your joint decision on fertility issues he told you he had - hence it feeling manipulative. That’s a lot of trust to place in anyone at the start of a relationship! But it’s also why he didn’t need to pressure you, because you’ve never used contraception with him (pull out method isn’t contraception even with fertility issues). I can see you blaming yourself that the Mounjaro is what caused it when it could equally be he was less careful this one time or something slipped through accidentally. Your weight loss wouldn’t have just negated his fertility issues so you can’t say for sure.

The point of this is to show you that knowledge is power and the more you read up on medical and scientific advice on pregnancy and miscarriage, the more in touch with your body you’ll be. And can make more informed choices. That also means pointing him to scientific resources and away from his sister or any well meaning family and friends (extends to birth and being a parent too). The NHS website, Miscarriage Association, Tommys are all good starting points. Miscarriage is most often caused by chromosomal abnormalities not by lifting or the gym. There will be many other changes and given it is your body, it isn’t for him to protect it and decide what’s best for it or even get a say, but you. You’re having a child to give him a mini me not yourself a mini you - so pregnancy will take some getting used to. To give yourself the best to chance take advice and guidance from experts and spend less time convincing him what you can and can’t do - and time with yourself figuring out what’s best for you. Also it’s not something to think about now but post partum, use proper contraception like condoms (if you don’t like hormonal birth control) as you could end up pregnant again sooner than you’d like. Good luck with your pregnancy and remember to ask for help and support from the midwives with whatever you’re feeling, they’re there to support you, confidentially.