A fear of pregnancy

[lilsyy]

Hi there,

I've suffered with anxiety for around 3 years now. It started off mainly health based, where I'd worry about every symptom being something deadly and dangerous. Nonetheless, this was never the case. However, I've been with my boyfriend for nearly 2 and a half years, and as a sexually active person with anxiety (the 2 don't mix well) I often get feelings of worry and anxiousness over the thought of being pregnant. Bearing in mind we use contraception and we are both responsible with regards to protection, I know that this shouldn't be of worry to me.

My boyfriend has got incredibly frustrated with me, with my sudden bouts of anxiety over 'Am I pregnant?'. He tells me logical things about the biology of it all (It's not likely... menstrual cycles... use of contraception etc.) but my anxiety chucks all logic out of the window. He doesn't understand this. He thinks that I simply don't believe him and trust what he has to say, but it's my anxiety.

I 'test' whether I'm pregnant by feeling my stomach at least once a day. Even when my period comes I still have thoughts in the back of my head that there is a still a possibility.

Is anyone else going through a similar thing? The anxiety is really putting a strain on my relationship and I don't really know what to do.

Many thanks,
lilsyy

[chickpea]

I can relate to how you're feeling.
My story is that, at 40, I got pregnant. It was totally unplanned - I have 2 children already - but also totally my fault; we didn't use contraception, but I thought it was a "safe" time to have sex.
At the time, it felt very unfair - it took over a year to conceived my first child 7 years previously, and this time my husband and I hadn't had sex in many, many months because I was ill with an undiagnosed illness (Crohn's) and suffering acute anxiety.

Because of my circumstances, I felt no choice but to terminate the pregnancy. It was not something I ever imagined having to face and nor do I ever want to have to face it again.
I'm nearly 45 now, but the fear is always there - as you can see from my earlier posts on this thread.

You can't stop the worry, maybe - but you can deal with it by coming up with a plan if the worst were to happen. Having a solution to your worries will help you stop worrying.

---------- Post added at 12:36 ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 ----------

Sorry - I meant my posts on the Worry about Unknown Pregnancy thread.