The news of getting pregnant can be exciting, especially if it is after months and years of trying. You become more hopeful for the future than you have been in a long time.
However, this excitement is often accompanied by feelings of anxiety, worry, and fear. This is because you have more knowledge than most of what can go wrong during pregnancy.
Here are some of the emotional difficulties you might experience.
Pregnancy isn’t magic, a happy fix
It is quite normal to feel excited and nervous upon receiving the news of pregnancy. Women who have undergone the infertility struggle, more frequently face pregnancy and postpartum depression. This kind of depression does not imply that you are at fault.
To vent out your negative feelings, you can ask for help. Confide with a good friend or see a therapist. If you feel depressed, do talk to your obstetrician or gynaecologist.
Survivor’s guilt
Having fellow infertile friends who understand where you are coming from can be an immense comfort. They may be online friends or support group members, who have been with you for some time.
However, when you get pregnant, you may get worried about your still-infertile friends. There might be a feeling that you are “leaving them behind”. You may feel an urge to downplay your excitement or be overly aware of sharing pregnancy news and pictures on social media, as you don’t want to hurt them.
Share your good news with your still-infertile members in a sensitive way. With close friends, you can talk about your survivor’s guilt to clear the air. You can join or start a pregnancy/parenting after the Infertility support group. There is an option on Facebook to block certain people while sharing photos. This way you can avoid the guilt of sharing pictures, but it’s better to ask before blocking. What if they might wish to see it!
Denial
On getting a positive pregnancy test, you might not be convinced and may find yourself testing again to be sure, which will only cause unnecessary anxiety. You might have doubts whether you are pregnant until you hear the heartbeat or until you see the first ultrasound.
The darker side of denial is that you may worry about bonding with your unborn baby. The worry about losing the pregnancy might be so much that you resist emotionally connecting to the experience.
Not feeling like bonding with your unborn baby is okay as long as you eat and drink like you’re pregnant. If it causes worry, consider seeing a therapist who specializes in fertility or pregnancy-related anxiety.
Keep things that remind you of the pregnancy around you. You can put your first ultrasound picture on your refrigerator or keep the positive pregnancy test in your bedroom.
Leaving your fertility clinic can be disheartening
You must have been very busy with the process of getting pregnant, that involved blood tests, frequent ultrasounds, and trips to the fertility clinic. And then, at some point, you are passed on to a regular obstetrician/ gynaecologist.
It may be disheartening for you to suddenly switch to monthly appointments without frequent scans. In between these appointments, you may worry that something is wrong, even if signs are that everything is going well.
There are chances of a healthy, uneventful pregnancy after infertility. More monitoring might be needed if there are complications or if your pregnancy is classified as high-risk. But just because you have gone through infertility does not mean you need more monitoring. Your doctor is treating you as they do in any healthy pregnancy, which is a good thing.
You can talk to your obstetrician/gynaecologist about your discomfort so that they can see you slightly more often. You can call your doctor in between appointments if there are worrisome signs or symptoms of a problem. A quick walk-in appointment can also be scheduled.
Not so typical pregnancy
Statistically speaking, you may be at a higher risk for some pregnancy problems. These risks will depend on factors like reasons you couldn’t get pregnant, your previous pregnancy history, your current health and weight, and how you conceived.
Your risk of conceiving multiples is higher if you took fertility drugs. Even with one baby, the risk of premature labour is higher after infertility. You can talk to your doctor about the risks and ask how you can reduce them. Premature labour can be stopped if caught early enough. You also have to eat and drink right.
Worrying that you’ve made a mistake
All of a sudden you may have thoughts that people who told you that you are not meant to be a parent are right. This fear that whether they would be good parents is faced by even those who haven’t dealt with infertility.
You can get rid of these fears by talking about your worries to a friend or therapist. Also, you can learn more about parenting through books, articles, and videos or ask family, friends, your child’s paediatrician, and parenting experts for advice.
A tribe-less feeling
When you are struggling to conceive, you become a member of the infertility tribe through blogging, social media groups, or forums.
Then, when you get pregnant, you feel tribe-less. You may also feel out of place with newly pregnant and new parents. Though it’s normal to feel out of place at first, you still can connect with women who conceive quickly and easily. There are online and offline support groups for those pregnant or parenting after infertility.
The “extra fertile” moms might be sharing some common ground with you. Look for that whenever possible. For example, it could be your hobbies.
Goodwill IVF Center, the best infertility hospital offers all the assistance to couples facing infertility problems, by providing the best treatment and care. This best IVF Center in Malappuram has all the facilities to make your journey towards parenthood smooth.
