How to deal with pregnancy-related fears?

I know this may either be really helpful or really unhelpful, but I stopped worrying when I realized that the worry would not stop when my kid was born. There would always be something else to worry about, and did I want to keep being that worried? No. So I (mostly) stopped.

Your level sounds about what I was dealing with not too long ago. It sounds like you are just a couple weeks further along than I am, and if you want to me-mail me please feel free, sometimes just having a one-on-one conversation with someone else in the same boat helps. What has helped me (ymmv): -ignoring all negative pregnancy sites/threads. I've pretty much stopped visiting the pregnancy forums I was a part of because they are so toxic with everyone talking about problems (from the pregnancy to their personal lives) and potential problems. I just had to put my foot down and stop reading. -I switched to a birthcenter rather than a hospital. The attitude went from my OB treating me like a patient to "fix" to a group of midwives who want to assist in my baby being born. I switched at week 30. If there hadn't been a spot at the birthcenter, I would have found a doula to be at the hospital. -Reading Hypnobirthing. I am not interested in actually trying it, but the first few chapters talk about the history of birthing and stuff and I found it useful in the "gajillions of women have done this before me, I can do it too" sense. Also, some of the meditative exercises have proven useful to my mental state, even though I'm not really doing it. I found a copy at my local library. -Watching "Unconventional Births" and "Business of Being Born". I felt both were really good about showing just how natural our bodies are at birthing babies. -every time I worry about things like tearing I do kegals (end up being at least once a day). -when I feel scared I take a deep breath. I tell myself that being scared is okay. I don't think its natural for first time mothers to NOT be scared when thinking about a 8lb baby exiting your body. Then I think about all the women who have done it before, I think about all the women who did it once and then go on to do it again o.O and I think about how I AM A WOMAN AND I CAN TOTALLY FUCKING DO THIS. And then I repeat that mantra to myself until I find something else to occupy my mind. -sometimes I just say to the middle of the room when no one or just my husband is around 'I'm so not ready for this!" and then I feel like I got that off my chest and can move on.

Answering from the opposite side as I head off to see my baby in the NICU after her heart surgery yesterday. Bad things can happen. I delivered in an emergency c-section ten weeks early after two months on bedrest and for a 30-weeker, she has done okay which means ventilators, blood transfusions and finally heart surgery. Being scared isn't irrational if you have good reason for it, and you do from seeing people with difficult pregnancies and births. My two older daughters, who are adopted and saw their mum and many other women in their lives have relatively easy and healthy pregnancies, have been rattled by how bad my pregnancy was and are currently swearing they will never have children in case this happens to them. Pregnancy means you're physically overwhelmed and emotionally on edge. Having bad memories/stories of people close to you adds to that pressure. Most pregnancies have something happen - gestational diabetes, a breech position that needs to be turned etc - but very very few end up with a seriously ill or dead baby. I am a total aberration, and I bet if you start asking people for good stories, you'll hear far more of them than serious problems. Ask your friends and family for good stories about pregnancies, look at the online birthing communities for other positive stories to drown out the sad stories too. OTOH, I found reading ob-gyn textbooks much more helpful in stress reduction. Knowing actual hard numbers and what would happen if this went wrong, etc. made me feel like I had control and awareness of what was happening. It was very very helpful to know statistically what our daughter's viability was. Two days ago, she had seizures from a sedative when she was intubated. If I hadn't just read up on the medication and known 8% of neonates have that reaction and that it was temporary, I would have collapsed in terror when the doctors told us after the intubation. I need data - and yet other parents in similar situations do *not* want the data, and need emotional reassurance much more. I research like crazy while my husband focuses on distractions to cope. Think of a past stressful situation and what helped you cope with it - was it getting physical care, being distracted by something, having clear goals etc. Then apply that to the pregnancy stress. I just finished Half Baked (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0762439467/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/), a memoir of a mum and her NICU child. She was terrified, a great worrier by nature, and writes about making it through with great clarity and humor. It might help in that you'll see - and I promise you it is true - that even if things go badly, you will find a way to cope because you'll need to be there for your child. And statistically, most pregnancies do go well. Overall infant mortality is very low in the U.S. and developed nations. March of Dimes has lots of statistics, although they focus on the negatives, so you have to flip it around from 12% preemies to 88% term babies for example. One in eight babies in the US are born preemie, and that includes the healthy 35-weekers who spend a couple of days in the NICU and go home. If you google for your state, you should get specific statistics. You're not crazy to be worried. But you have to find a way to deal with it. And I promise, that if bad things do happen, there are lots of people who will help. You won't be alone. You can survive.

I went to a http://www.llli.org/webindex.html meeting while pregnant with my first and found it very reassuring. A room full of women and their babies who had all survived delivery and were there to support each other, could answer questions, knew what I was going through... and it also meant that I had a lactation consultant's number if I wanted to call her from the hospital. Not only is postpartum depression a thing -- a thing I will happily go on about at length! -- but so is antepartum depression. The coping mechanism that helped me the best was Zoloft, while pregnant and for several months afterwards.

This is totally normal.....And once the baby is born, the anxiety will become about the health and welfare of the child, till they are 60 +.... That means you are already and will be a good Mom. Try and relax, I had several health scares with my two, they are fine, but relax and enjoy the ride. If something does happen, you'll know how to respond. I'm jealous....the feeling of that month before your first child will never come again. Congrats!!

I am so sorry that you are so consumed by worry over something that you should be looking forward to. My only words of advice are this: No matter what happens, you'll be able to handle it. You may not be able to control all of these out-of-your-control scenarios, but if something terrible happens, you'll make it through. Take some sort of comfort in that. As for coping with the worry: I am a natural worrier. I worry all the time. However, I've gotten better at just shutting it off. Don't let the thought run away with you. Stop them cold. Down's? Cerebral Palsy? Shut them off. Don't research them, don't think of them. Do something else to occupy your mind - watching a mindless tv show, singing a song, etc.

I think a certain amount of pregnancy-related anxiety is fairly normal; it is a major life change, and highly unpredictable. I certainly was anxious about some of the things you have mentioned in your post, but what helped me was understanding that, as your OB mentioned, there isn't anything to be done by worrying about things that may or may not happen. Pregnancy hormones definitely did a number on my brain chemistry, so I'd remind myself from time to time that my worries might be unduly magnified by the "pregnancy brain", and that also helped calm me down. being pregnant and having a baby is difficult and sometimes not 100% sunshine, and a lot of women don't know that that's ok, or that it's ok to talk about that. So I'm telling you all of this basically to communicate: you are absolutely not alone in feeling this high anxiety, and you absolutely can talk with someone about it if it feels overwhelming to you, and it won't mean that you're weird or not a good mom or doing something wrong at all. This, a thousand times over. If you have not already located one, let me encourage you to find a new mother's group that meets in your area. Many hospitals facilitate them or can point you to resources to find one- having a place to go with your newborn, to meet other women who are going through the same things you are going through is a sanity-saver, and if you can find one now that is one proactive good thing to do ahead of time. You are not alone.

Also from the other side of the fence, and am currently conquering The Worry myself: I'm one of those worst case scenarios of recurrent pregnancy loss and problem pregnancies, and am currently trying to get pregnant again -- despite my own proven worrisome history. I've got a good team of people around me, including an obstetrical internist and a psychologist who specializes in infertility and loss, and it's helped me tremendously. After loss number one, with my second pregnancy, I tried the whole peace-and-love / midwife / birthing center / zen-centered breathing approach, with the rationale: damn it all to hell, I'm NOT going to be conquered by this extreme anxiety. But bad things happened anyway, and partly because I was seeing a midwife rather than a specialist (no offense to midwives out there, but when you've got a history of problem pregnancies, it's a good idea to call in the big guns). That's when I started seeing a therapist to cope with The Worry -- and The Heartbreak. Here's what my amazing therapist tells me all the time: your thoughts / worry cannot affect the outcome of this pregnancy. Also, she has encouraged me to see specialists, to ask good questions, and to be satisfied with their answers. Now you've investigated that worry, she'll tell me, and Dr. So-and-So has said that it's fine, so let that worry be absolved. There's enormous peace of mind with just confronting that worry head-on. My amazing high-risk ob has suggested that in my next pregnancy I ask for an extra ultrasound when The Worry gets to be too much. It's worth it for the peace of mind. Lastly, here are the two most important things. 1) the worst happened to me, more than once, and I'm okay now. It was hard and sad, but I got through it, and you would too if it happened to you. It's reassuring to me to think that I'm strong enough to take what life dishes out, no matter what. And finally, 2) despite what it feels like, you have already made it through the most difficult hurdles of your pregnancy. There are benchmarks all along that once you've passed through, you should breathe a little easier: seeing the heartbeat, passing through the first trimester, and getting past 24 weeks -- which is the age of viability for a preemie. If you are at 36 weeks, you're golden. The odds that you'll run into problems now, with delivery, or with a problem somehow slipping past the testing -- in a first world country -- are very, very slim. The Worry shouldn't take away The Joy. Find someone to talk to, explore your fears with your doctor, do what it takes to find peace (even if you have to pay out of pocket for another ultrasound), trust the answers you get, and keep reassuring yourself that you can handle *any* outcome -- because you can. You will. I promise.

ps: I only let myself read the week I was actually IN in those week-by-week books - couldn't read ahead or I'd hyperventilate. And do not Google anything. At all. Forevermore.