Unplanned 4th pregnancy following traumatic pregnancy

[Tinks177]

I have recently found out contraception has failed and I am pregnant with our 4th child. Our other children were very much planned for so this is a huge shock to us and something I am struggling to get my head around, mostly to do with the circumstances.

5 years ago I had our youngest child. We had always planned for 4 children and never went into that pregnancy thinking it would be our last. The pregnancy was hugely traumatic from start to finish. We had a threatened miscarriage and I had HG. Towards the end of the pregnancy my sickness did start to ease but my iron levels were on the floor which left me unable to function.

The main trauma was due to circumstances going on outside of the pregnancy. My Mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was in my final trimester, given a year to live and then passed away unexpectedly a couple of weeks after my baby was born. She was my best friend and I can never put into words how difficult I found this whole experience, having to continue with a pregnancy and then look after a newborn, while my world fell apart around me. Having what was supposed to be the happiest of times, colliding with the worst time of my life, was absolute hell.

To compound the situation further, a week after her death we discovered a huge issue in our home and to cut a long story short we ended up having to move out for 7 months so this could be put right by our home insurance company.

I have come to terms with the whole situation as best as I can, but I do struggle with anxiety after everything that happened, something I working on.

For a couple of years now, we have discussed whether or not we feel our family is complete. I still feel completely devastated about my 3rd postpartum experience. I have few memories of my youngest up until she was around 2 years old. I lived on autopilot. I guess we have hoped that we wouldn't end our 'baby years' like that. We have always felt we would have one final child, but the time hasn't felt right so far. We're in the middle of huge house renovations following a move and life is full on with work and kids.

The discovery of this pregnancy, which we were actively avoiding, is a huge shock. The thing that I'm struggling to get my head around the most is that the dates would mirror my previous pregnancy pretty much to the day - the due date is only a few days after my youngest's birthday. I feel like the whole pregnancy would be extremely triggering after everything that happened. I am very dates orientated anyway, if that's a thing, and remember every date every different thing happened with Mum, from diagnosis to appointments etc. I worry my anxiety would be uncontrollable and I would just be on edge, waiting for something awful to happen the entire time.

In terms of my own health, I always planned to try and get myself into the best of health possible, physically and mentally, prior to trying for a 4th to avoid, or minimise if possible, the issues I had last time around. Obviously I've not had that opportunity.

A termination frightens me. I feel like it takes away the right for me to choose to have a baby in the future.

My head is a mess. The only person who knows about this is my husband and I just really feel like I need some space to air my thoughts and advice if possible.

Hi thank you for sharing. Let me tell you this, I too suffered through HG and other health complications throughout my 3 pregnancies. It’s hard giving advice because you don’t know how someone is going to react to an experience, we are not all the same. As someone who recently aborted their 4th, you don’t know grief until you have an abortion. Once you become pregnant motherhood takes over, you officially feel like a mom. I had a surgical abortion 5-6weeks, and it was VERY quick, 5 mins tops. It’s almost unbelievable it’s that quick, but you feel the suction pull at your uterus. Because of the high anxiety, a lot of people including myself totally block out the experience until you get to the recovery room and think, what the hell did I just do. Your body as a woman knows there is something missing. I remember the following day, my hormones were looking for something to support, to support my baby because I felt the rush of hormones nausea in the morning but there was nothing there to support. Its biological. You instantly feel the loss. You don’t know regret until you had an abortion. Every day you are missing that baby, which too was an organism living inside of you with potential of their own life no matter the circumstances. It has its own life to live up to as well. During pregnancy emotions are running high and everything feels impossible. Once the pregnancy hormones settle you see things in a different light, a more reasonable light, where things seem more doable and manageable. Please please please breathe and take some more time to think this through. And if you decide on abortion just know it was the only decision your mind supported at the time, slowly you will see that it is the only option you felt safe with at the time and learn to grieve the loss and accept your decision. All the best, we only regret the decisions we didn’t make, not the ones we made. Children grow into their own despite sometimes have a crappy childhood but they learn to love their own life on their own when they get older. We just do the best we can as their parents giving them life.