Overwhelming fear something is wrong with planned third pregnancy

[Randomusename]

Hello all,

TW: Before you read I do apologise if this triggers anyone who is trying to get pregnant, I know it may sound ungrateful but I cannot stop how I feel. I also apologise if this sounds ableist. I have grown up around disabilities and I have seen the struggles.

Me and my partner have two amazing DC, I love the pants off them. We decided to go for a third, very planned, very wanted. However, since finding out I was pregnant I have only had a week of being happy. Every other waking second has been devoted to firmly believing there is something wrong with the baby.

All I do is go onto threads that say intuition was right. I look at statistics of severe disabilities and I 100% believe the baby will be severely disabled. All the tests so far, including private ones, have come back low risk or negative but I still don't want to continue the pregnancy because of this fear. In the private scan I was disappointed it had a heartbeat. My partner says he won't stop a termination but because it was a planned baby he doesn't think he would forgive me, so I'm stuck in this horrible pit where I firmly believe this will destroy the lives of my DC but I have to carry it on otherwise our family will be destroyed.

I told my midwife I'm worried about it having severe issues but she wrote down she wasn't worried. I had antenatal anxiety with my first and couldn't talk about the baby for 9 months, but it was different fears.

I feel like because I know so firmly it must be true, an intuition thing, and if I stop believing it's true and start to bond then it will happen because I was stupid enough to believe different. That having three children is greedy anyway and because of my greed I will be punished, that I can't possibly have a happy ending.

I know in my head, if someone was telling me this, I would know it's bonkers. But cannot stop myself from believing it.

I don't know why I'm posting this really. Maybe to hear of similar stories and how it turned out? My midwife wasn't interested and my partner just gets angry now because he is being stopped from being happy. I'm on my own with Google.

I get where you are coming from. It’s ultimately why we didn’t go for a third, but I would be 42 when potential baby would be born.

Just wanted to say, I’m sure there are lots of women out there who feel this. Hormones are a crazy thing too, pregnancy hormones and the added anxiety you generally get once you have kids as you are their protector, you know that ‘always on high alert for potential dangers’ feeling. I would ask your midwife for a referral to a perinatal mental health team to help you with coping mechanisms as you are going to drive yourself crazy. Be reassured that nothing has been found to be wrong yet and there is no reason to be, you already have two healthy children so why would the third be any different? You are prob just thinking it more as you are a little older and as you get older I think you just become more Aware of things. Be kind to yourself and take it one day at a time x

This is MH related, not intuition OP.
A family member has mental health issues (ocd) and some of the thought processes are familiar.

A friend was absolutely certain her baby was going to be a girl btw. Intuition. Bought everything in pink. He was a boy.

Step away from google.

I’m sorry your midwife didn’t help you.
I would try again to get help via your GP perhaps.

You poor thing, it sounds exhausting to be carrying around such a huge amount of worry. I agree that it sounds like OCD, or anxiety, I would push to try and get some antenatal mental health support, especially given that you had antenatal anxiety in a previous pregnancy. Sending hugs.

This group might be able to offer some support OP?
https://pandasfoundation.org.uk/
Please reach out to someone for help.
Lots of women have issues like this during pregnancy, it’s not unusual and you deserve help. Please mind yourself OP 💐

Good morning, OP.

Sorry to hear that you're experiencing these feelings. We thought it was worth linking to our Mental Health web guide , as there are so many organisations listed there who might be able to help you get through this anxious period.

Wishing you all the best for your pregnancy.

Seconding this, you can WhatsApp them, they are excellent. Sending lots of love, OP x

Please, please go and see your GP to ask for help with your mental health. This is anxiety, likely exacerbated by pregnancy hormones, and you will probably come to hugely regret it if you terminate a much wanted pregnancy based on a feeling there is a problem.

Sending lots of love.

How many weeks pregnant are you? I think it’s natural to worry about this especially you grew up around disabilities. My sister and grandfather have the same genetic psychiatric condition and I really worry about my own children having this (pregnant with my first currently).

I think everyone’s advice here to seek support here for your mental health is spot on. It’s a known psychological phenomena that our brains imagine the worst case scenario to try (unsuccessfully) to prepare us for the blow. It is more likely this than intuition. Both of your DC are fine - look at the evidence there. All tests are fine. You might be older than when you had your other DC, but my sister in law just had her first baby at 42 and he’s perfect

btw also on intuition, I was absolutely certain we wouldn’t see a heartbeat on the first scan. Certain. I’d had a loss earlier this year. But there it was

Thank you everyone for your responses. I know I need help but my midwife dismissed me. I will look at pandas instead, I've never heard of them before.

It's so difficult to know what is ridiculous and what is sensible at the moment. Rationally I know what is nonsense, but if I ever tell myself 'don't be silly the chance is so low' then I immediately think I've jynxed it now so it has to happen. So I either believe it or I don't believe and it happens because I didn't believe it. It's a horrible loop.

I'm 12 weeks pregnant so very tired and suffering in these heatwaves which probably doesn't help. I've also worried about the heatwaves warming me up too much so it is making the baby disabled.

I felt very similarly, and every woman worries about their baby. If 90 percent of woman are worried about abnormalities, even if 1 percent of babies go on to have them then 9 in 10 woman who have these babies will have had an intuition, but 99 percent of women with an intuition will still be wrong. It's a confirmation bias. I don't know if that helps, but it helped me.

Thinking you have the power to jinx something with your thoughts is a type of ‘magical thinking’ that occurs in conditions like OCD, OP.
https://mytherapist.ie/ocd-recovery/ocd-magical-thinking/
Your midwife was wrong not to help you. That was a mistake on her part. Please reach out again and ensure you receive the support you need at this time. These sorts of thoughts are more common before and after pregnancy than they are in the general population.

Remember that women living in the Sahara with no air conditioning give birth - a British summer isn’t going to do any harm 😅

would it help you to look at statistics? I was so certain and arguing with my DH that we would lose this pregnancy and that he was being too optimistic. And I didn’t want to move before the anatomy scan in case the worst happened. When he started reading out statistics and I could see how low the odds were it made it not only read hard to keep arguing back (!) but it did also start to make me realise I was being irrational

I can’t offer a lot of advice as I am going through a similar thing, but a bit less severe. I am 16 weeks pregnant and feel almost certain I will not be taking a live baby home. That it won’t work out. It’s my third too and I never felt this with the other two, so I can totally understand your feeling of intuition.
Thing is I didn’t think the pregnancy would even get this far and it has so I keep trying to remind myself that my intuition has been wrong already. I also have asked ChatGPT about statistics of miscarriage etc and try and focus on that being so small and booking lots of scans. I don’t know if any of these things are actually helping but I am trying.
I am hoping when the anatomy scan comes around and she starts moving something in my head might change.
i hope you get to talk to someone understanding and it helps. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and take it day by day rather than imagining the future possibilities. X