Postpartum experience and worries

[jmrpinkie]

I have a 5 year old son and I’m 22 weeks pregnant. I’m excited to be pregnant (for the most part) but the gap is largely down to my PP experience.

i had a really healthy pregnancy and and uncomplicated delivery, one night in hospital then home.

my worries! I felt incredible in my first pregnancy (which was during Covid) and tbh I feel even better now as I can still do all the normal things we couldn’t during Covid and I’m still exercising. When my son was born naturally I felt totally overwhelmed, exhausted, nauseous, anxious and it completely consumed me for several weeks. I know it’s completely normal to feel these things but I felt and feel that so many women cope with this transition more easily. I felt like I went from a superwoman (because I felt so great when pregnant) to someone totally out of control. Does anyone have any tips/advice on how I can give myself the best chance of even a slightly more positive experience?

I thinkthe main thing is that you know how
you reacted last time. It must have been a shock out of the blue.
Be prepared....line up relatives, friends etc to help out in the early days. Pre prep a load of meals in the freezer. Make sure that there is very little left to chance so that you are not so overwhelmed.
Try not to do it all...just relax with the baby and let the others take the strain.

If you're on instagram I recommend following mental health midwife, her name is Tessa and she has lots of great advice and resources for mental health support pre and post birth. It might be there's some more formal support you could get from your midwife, but also lining up friends and family to help is a great idea!

I have a 5 year age gap from similar reasons. We had a difficult time after my daughter was born with my mood and my daughter having reflux and allergies.
I had some counselling before trying to conceive.
My second is now 2 weeks and my mood is dipping. I've been under the perinatal team since pregnancy seeing them regularly and had access to her mental health midwives.

Like previous poster said, I think there’s a chance now you know what to expect, you will be better prepared for it.
i was the same OP with my first - and in hindsight if I could have changed anything I would have just told myself to relax post partum. I was that caught up in trying to make the most of DH’s paternity leave, trying to do things I thought I ‘should’ do like going out for walks etc that I put pressure on myself when I should have just chilled on the sofa and made the most of the newborn bubble and put on a good boxset! Sending positive vibes your way - you can do this!

Thanks for all the messages! These are super helpful. I’m going to follow the mental health midwife. And yes I’m an anxious person anyways and thankfully am under a special midwife team who specialise with mental health pregnancies which is awesome as it means I see familiar faces and they check in more directly - do I need perinatal mental health support. At the moment I don’t - I continued to do CBT with my therapist I had been seeing for health anxiety and that has helped. But I do think if I feel the way I did before I’m going to go straight for it. It definitely improved for me after 3/4 weeks but it’s just even a bit more scary this time around with my son as I want to be his mummy! No issues sitting on the sofa and watching loads of movies with him but I feel I would have struggled to even enjoy that I was an anxious mess.

part of me feels if I can be more prepared - which I am because I’ve been through it - and take care of my mind a bit more maybe it’ll be better. But I suppose who truly knows!