Feeling detached in your pregnancy?

When my husband and I decided that it was time for us to have a baby, I imagined how it would feel to be pregnant. I could picture myself rubbing my perfectly round belly, sitting in the rocking chair in my beautifully decorated nursery, and talking to my baby about all the things we would do together when he or she arrived.

That picture would come to haunt me for years to come. Because the longer it took, the more IVF cycles we had to endure, and the more miscarriages we suffered, that image would remind me of all I had lost.

Our first baby was born via a surrogate, after 5 years, 9 IVF cycles, and one miscarriage (I feel compelled to add – and a partridge in a pear tree here 😊). Our second baby was born 17 months later, after yet another miscarriage and via emergency c-section, with no one to support me through it or hold my hand.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that I feel qualified to speak about detachment when it comes to pregnancy. I felt it deeply with both of my babies.

If you’re wondering why you’re feeling detached from your pregnancy and your baby right now, let me explain just a few reasons why.

Firstly and most importantly, this is a self-protection mechanism. You’re trying to protect your heart, because if you’ve experienced a pregnancy loss, you have been here before, and it didn’t work out. You have been on the wrong side of the statistic, so it feels a little risky to be all in. The disconnection is your brains way of trying to keep you safe. No, there is nothing wrong with you.

Trauma also has a huge part to play in this. It can cause us to disconnect from our body, and feel a huge amount of distrust in it.  Whether it’s trauma of miscarriage, of IVF treatments or invasive surgeries, even childhood traumas of sexual abuse, or body image trauma. All are understandable causes of feeling detached.  And when we don’t feel safe in our body, we live in our minds (which isn’t much safer!).

You are also focused on the task at hand, which leaves little room for enjoyment. Let me share a little analogy that may explain why your experience is different to those around you, including your partner’s. Let’s say you’re driving a car on a treacherous stretch of road – the car keeps sliding toward the edge of the road where there is a steep drop. There are various twists and turns along it, and you can hardly see the road in front of you. There are passengers in the back (your friends and family), and your partner is sitting beside you.  The view out of the windows is absolutely glorious. We’re talking snow-capped mountains on the left, ocean with whales breaching on the right – stunning!  The passengers are exclaiming – wow, that’s amazing, look at that! But you can’t, because your hands are gripped on the steering wheel, and you’re concentrating hard on keeping everyone safe. Which is exactly what you’re doing now. You’re trying your hardest to keep this baby safe. But no-one else has that job, so they get to enjoy the special moments and say how amazing this is. Meanwhile, you’re just trying to get to the end of that road safely.

You can see that there are very good reasons why you feel disconnected, and you are definitely not alone in feeling like this. The disconnection isn’t the damaging part however – in fact, it isn’t really a problem at all. But it becomes a problem for us, because of a few things.  

The guilt. This is a HUGE one. We punish ourselves because we fought so hard to get here, and now we feel ungrateful that we’re not more joyful.  We feel guilty about the language we use – we speak in terms of “if” baby arrives, not “when”. We feel horrible because other people would kill to be in our position, and we can’t even enjoy this pregnancy and wish we were at the end already. 

We feel judged by others and ourselves.  We feel like there is something wrong with us, because other people are more excited about our pregnancy than we are.

And because of this, it can lead to resentment and jealousy (which we also feel guilty about). Because other people didn’t have the same treacherous road to travel on, they were able to just enjoy the view at the same that they were driving.

We also tell ourselves a story about what this means. It means I’m a horrible person. It means I’m ungrateful. It means that I won’t be a good mom. It means that my baby won’t feel loved by me. You may also be telling yourself a story that you’re living in fear every day and haven’t found any joy in your pregnancy – but in truth, you have. You’ve found moments here and there. But you can’t see those moments, because the story is louder.

The stories we tell ourselves can be pretty intense and mean. But in fact, the disconnection doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that the path you have walked down to get here has been hard. And I’m not sure about you, but I don’t want that path to be erased. I need it to be acknowledged, and not dismissed. In fact, I got a tattoo on my wrist recently to remind me of the journey – the losses, the strength, the beauty, the grief, the endurance and the determination.

I know it doesn’t feel great to be disconnected from your pregnancy. But the main reason why we struggle is because of the guilt, self judgement, and the meaning we place upon it.

Accepting and surrendering to the fact that the picture you originally had in your head of your pregnancy experience may not come to fruition, is hard. Yes, it completely sucks and is so unfair. But it doesn’t mean what you think it does.  

You love this baby with your whole heart now. And even if you don’t feel it in your body, or in the language you use. Even if you can’t picture yourself holding your baby, or bring yourself to rub your belly or talk to your growing bump….your actions show that you do – when you monitor what foods you’re eating, when you modify your exercise routine, when you feel anxious about an upcoming scan, when you constantly check symptoms to make sure you still feel pregnant. Those actions prove you’re connected. It just feels different to how you imagined it.  

It’s ok to be disappointed in the path that led you here, but you don’t have to be disappointed with yourself. Because you are incredible, and you’re doing everything you can to make sure your baby stays safe and loved.

If you’d like to know how you can feel more connected to your baby, you can refer to this blog – 5 ways to feel more connected to your baby

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