I just want to talk about this but, newborn related but dh doesn't really understand

[Pinkflipflop]

Mumsnet has been my solace since my ds arrived just over 2 weeks ago.

I'm so happy that he is here and even though it is early days, I'm enjoying being a mum way more than I thought I would. Tbh I found being pregnant fine, once I got over the sickness, but I always felt a little detached. People would say "you must be over the moon" and I never really felt like I was. I was pleased enough to be pregnant but never jumping with joy. I had never held or fed a baby until my ds arrived, so I'm not really a typical baby person.

Anyway the point of my post. I didn't know I was pregnant until I was about 9/10 weeks. I have very irregular periods, sometimes 80-90 days but he's we were trying so I suppose I can't really use this as an excuse. In that first trimester I drank wine, maybe a couple of glasses 2-3 times a week and I remember once getting drunk with friends. Probably had at least a bottle of wine. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I stopped drinking and didn't have another until I was about 25+ weeks as I couldn't face it or stomach it. Throughout the last part of my pregnancy I maybe had 1 glass a week possibly 2 and I never gave it a thought.

Now that my ds is here, I feel incredibly guilty about drinking at all. I can't really explain it but I love him to bits now that I can see him and care for him but we he was inside as I said I felt sort of detatched from him. I sound lovely don't I? . I have tried talking to my dh about how I feel but he just says pink, we have a lovely healthy boy, what are you stressing for?

My ds is healthy, but I am worried that I may have caused damage to do with his neurological development. I have been reading the pregnancy and alcohol thread and it has made me worry more. This thread is not the source of my worry as he wasn't born very long before these thoughts came into my head.

I'm not looking for sympathy, but I just want to express here how guilty I feel.

I don't know what I expect anyone to say but it helps to write it down.

For a start stop reading that thread, it wont help.

I had DS when I was 17 and didnt know I was pg until I was 6 months. I smoked and drank until then, and yes I did feel terribly about it but as the consultant said to me, whats done is done and there are far worse things than a few glasses of wine when you didnt even know you were pg. An odd glass later on in PG will be neither here nor there as long as you werent necking it by the bottle and you werent.

Be careful, because these feelings could be masking something a bit more serious like PND, so if you find yourself fixating on it to the point of tears, anger or depression then get to the doctors. In fact, it might be good to talk to your HV or GP about how you feel so they can reassure you.

At two weeks post-partum, you will feel rubbish about many things. It's hormones and exhaustion and shock all rolled into one. If it hadn't been the alcohol, it would have been something else you would be worrying about.

Please mention this to your HV when you see her though, there's absolutely no shame in feeling down after the birth - expectations are so high during pregnancy.

^that. If you feel you might be depressed, it is so, so important to seek help as soon as you can, because your baby is only a baby once and for such a short time.

But otherwise, try to focus on the positives. Your baby is healthy, you're healthy (I assume). You did the best you could and you can't change any of it now, and lots of people do a lot worse. I don't think you even need to feel like you "got away with it," because the amounts you were drinking would be very unlikely to do any damage whatsoever anyway. Enjoy your baby and try not to stress :)

Awwww. I will say to you what my BF's doctor said to her when she went to the doctor with exactly the same worries - she was three months pregnant at the time ....

He said (I'm paraphrasing) ... Welcome to the club. First you feel guilty about what you eat and drink in pregnancy, then you feel guilty about what milk you give them, whether you're stimulating them enough, what foods you introduce, whether they get on with their friends, whether they're hitting their milestones, whether you're reading enough, whether they play a musical instrument, what clothes they wear, whether you listened to them enough, whether you shout at them too much and now whether you can afford the right university for them. Well that one's me at the moment anyway.

I don't want to minimise your worries but being a parent does bring out levels of guilt that you never experience before - the time to worry, as Bogey rightly points out, if you are obsessing about it - I think a chat with your HV is a really good idea - they will be able to provide you with reassurance, will have come across this worry before (many of us were young and didn't know we were pregnant with our first the moment we conceived) and will help if this anxiety is masking PND - which is really common too and very easily treatable.

Congratulations. I would love a new baby to sniff and hug.

Yes, stop reading that thread.

I felt the exact same as you during pregnancy and mine was planned! I wasn't really over the moon and the movement were nice and all but used to annoy me as they hurt, plus I was in a lot of pain during the end so definitely didn't bond with my belly.

But, now my ds (7 weeks) is here I'm over the moon.

Don't feel guilty, your ds is perfect and healthy and has a mother who obviously loves him very much x

I know what you mean about feeling detached from the bump.

In my 3 pregnancies the idea of a real baby always seemed kind of abstract.

And then suddenly there was a real baby once she was born.

I know other women who feel just the same. It's entirely normal.

pp is right. 2 weeks in is a tough time.

And please stop reading that thread.

Congratulations on your little boy :)

Thanks for all the advice and taking the time to post. I really don't think I have PND, I definitely had the blues about 3/4 days after the baby came as I was bursting into tears at the most bizarre things. I actually had to leave the room because I almost starting sobbing uncontrollably because my MIL and FIL were talking too noisily and cleaning my sink.

I'm not going to read that pregnancy alcohol thread again. I suppose as some of you say, guilt is part and parcel of parenting. I really hope there is no long term damage; im going to try to reason with myself and get some perspective.

Congratulations on your lovely baby boy.

The thing is that we all identify the baby blues with depression; you're sitting there crying and sobbing and are clearly depressed.

I found PND to be unlike depression as I'd thought of it. I felt angry all the time. I felt some things were just beyond me. I remember dropping a knife on the floor and thinking "What more can happen to me today?" I would watch my husband reading the newspaper and think, "Just wait. Just you fucking wait. I'm ready for you." He hadn't done anything! I also worried constantly that my child would die. I was obsessed with it. I didn't think it was depression because I wasn't crying and feeling fed up.

Anti-depressants really helped me and it was only when I was back to normal that I realised I'd had PND.

There will be no long term damage. Women used to be told to drink Guinness in pregnancy for the iron. If small amounts of alcohol like that could cause long term damage it would have been very evident from that generation of children. Were there loads of neurologically damaged children in your school? No? But I expect most of their mothers drank in pregnancy. The danger is from drinking really heavily.

Dont worry about long term damage. Foetal Alcohol Syndrome present with physical characteristics too, that would have been spotted well before now. You really have nothing to worry about :)

Imperial my PND presented as obsessed with death, DD had almost died in birth and I lost her twin during pregnancy. A lot of people think that PND is when you dont care about your baby, but sometimes it can be totally the opposite, and that can mean that some women dont get help., I know I waited alot longer than I should have done.

Yes, I understand. I behaved in some very unhealthy and unsafe ways when I was pregnant with ds1 because I just didn't understand what the depth of my attachment would be. You haven't ever felt the true misery of love until you have a baby!

As your baby gets older, and is fine, you will be reassured that actually, you haven't done any harm.

I also had pnd after ds1 and it manifested as an unreasonable obsession with his safety.

It's normal to make sure their sleeping area is safe. It is NOT normal to drag a Moses basket along the floor in case the handle snaps and the baby plummets fourteen inches to his carpeted doom.

The vast majority (~70%) of alcoholic mothers, who drink heavily every day during pregnancy, go on to have babies without foetal alcohol syndrome.

You'd never guess that from the scare-mongering that goes on around maternal consumption of alcohol would you!

Your OP said that you have a healthy baby boy. Congratulations!

Your anxiety is not in any way a reflection of anything external therefore. It is internal. Try to hold on to that thought. At the moment you are projecting your anxieties onto your son though there is no need to do so.

Something else is making you anxious. Could it be that you're looking after a highly dependent new born and you'd never even held a baby before he come along... Just a guess

I'm sure that as your confidence in looking after your baby increases with time your anxieties won't be so prominent

I had PND with my youngest child too which also manifested as obsessed with death. It got to the point where I wouldn't let the kids go in a car if I wasn't going with them. I had this horrible theory that if we are going to die, we are all going together.

I also went over and over all the wrong things I did during pregnancy with DS1 - I worked in a rowdy bikers pub until I was 36 weeks (pre smoking ban) so I was inhaling smoke, having a drink after my shift, separating fights between punters at weekends etc. Didn't really think an awful lot of it until I held DS for the first time and then the guilt kicked in.

You do move on from it and two weeks after the baby is always a bit of a wobbly time. The midwife has discharged you, the health visitor has been round for the obligatory health and safety talk, your partner might have gone back to work and now the most perfect thing in the world is your sole responsibilty. It does get better xx

We are designed to feel anxious in those first early weeks. You no longer need to worry about an aunt in the troop dragging your baby off into the trees or the new dominant male trying to get you pregnant again right now. We have developed as humans but the basics are still there.

the true misery of loving your baby

You put it well, colditz. Mine are growing up now, but I still feel that visceral and wrenching dread of anything bad happening to them.