Hellobee Boards

I absolutely understand your fears and anxiety. When I was pregnant both times with my daughters, I was incredibly nervous and anxious about each and every cramp, spotting, each ultrasound and appointment... I googled countless things and was terrified before every appointment. And that was before I had ever lost a pregnancy! You have the right to feel these things, so first of all, don’t beat yourself up for having the anxiety and worry that you have.

That being said, finding something to distract you and bring joy to your life in some other way would be helpful. Maybe start a prenatal yoga or barre class? Maybe start knitting or some other time consuming, hands-on and rewarding project?

You might also consider seeing a therapist. I know I’m going to when I get pregnant again. There’s no way I can handle the worry after losing my last pregnancy. I’ll be terrified again and I know I’ll need help.

Anyway, I hope this helps in some way.

Hugs!

I had such a hard time after my MMC. It did get a little better after the NIPT results. Agree with distraction and one day at a time. Also mention it to your providers - my ob gave me a quick extra scan when I did my NIPT bloodwork because it was right around the time of my last loss and she knew I was nervous. I also found journaling really helpful - I just made entries in a private blog. Writing freely about my worries helped them seem less important I think. Hang in there!!

Sending you so much sticky vibes

I'm sorry you are going through this again. We were in the same October 2016 birth group and I remember you going through a similar stressful situation. I have had 3 miscarriages (2 before my 2nd child and 1 after) and all I really could do was focus on keeping busy. There is nothing you can do to change the outcome other than what you are likely already doing (taking good care of your body by eating well, etc.). Are you able to walk or do yoga or meditation? I've also used acupuncture to help me manage anxiety, which was also really helpful to me. Try to think positively and keep putting one foot in front of the other. You've got this!

So sorry you're going through this! Pregnancy after loss is so hard. I'm 15 weeks right now with my fourth pregnancy (still working on baby #1) and also on restricted activity due to bleeding and a short cervix. The things that have helped me are having a doppler at home (not recommended by doctors since you can't consistently find the heartbeat until ~12 weeks, but worked for me at 9 weeks) and talking about the things I'm worried about with a few close friends. It's hard to talk about it with DH because he's just as scared as I am, but having others that I can really vent to is super helpful. I'm not sure if you've told anyone about the pregnancy, but if you haven't it might help.

Also, for what it's worth, about 1% of the time NIPT doesn't work. It was not anything I'd heard of until it happened to me, and sent me into a little bit of a tail spin. The doctors were pushing to just redraw my blood, but I read that if it fails once there's a decent chance (at least 10%, possibly as high as 50%) that it will fail again, so I pushed for nuchal translucency instead because that would definitely give an answer even if it was a risk pool rather than a yes/no. Yours will probably be fine--like I said, only a 1% chance of failure--but I didn't want you to be blind sided like I was because it sounds like you're hanging a lot on the NIPT.

I know that time is probably moving really slowly for you right now (it is for me, too), but I really hope that you get a happy, healthy baby at the end of this process. If you've seen a heartbeat you've already made it over one of the biggest hurdles!

@jaguar: I'm so glad that your doctor will give an extra scan for peace of mind.

Am I remembering right that you are in Australia? How long will the NIPT take to come back? Will you be able to get your draw when they do the ultrasound?

I've only had one loss but I've really struggled with anxiety/fear this pregnancy. I'm 38 weeks pregnant and I don't think my fear will completely go away until baby is safely in my arms. I don't have any great ideas but sending good thoughts your way

@jaguar: Jaguar, I have been following you for so long. Congratulations on number 3!! so happy for you. I also had a similar issue with HCG which really set my pregnancy off to be full of anxiety...you can actually dig that back and find my post if you're interested.
It seems for me the more pregnancies, the more stress! I even go to a therapist because the anxiety was all-consuming. She basically told me, accept the anxiety. How could you not feel unbelievably stressed!? She encouraged me to just embrace it and understand it's normal. She was basically like, just get through these weeks. It made me feel a lot better. Sometimes traumatic events like yours can set it off even worse. But hang in there. Stay busy and resign yourself to it if that makes sense..., there's really nothing you can do which also was a solace to me. I hope this helps!