I am 26 weeks pregnant.
I am 22 years old living with my partner who is 24 and we both work full time but not very high salary jobs. We can not afford childcare so one of us will have to stay at home until our daughter is in school and then try to find jobs that mean we can both work.
Originally this was going to be me. However I am struggling with the thought of being at home all day every day, week after week, month after month. I can't see how I will cope. I don't enjoy the work aspect of my job I work in a bog standard factory job but I like the social aspect, the adult conversation, its a reason to get out of bed everyday and it gets me out the house. Problem is solved by the fact my partner has said he will stay at home if I want and I can go back to work. I don't have any friends and that is why I fear that I will be lonely and miserable. The only people I see outside of work are my partner, my partners family, my dad, my nan and my brother. I have one friend who always says he has no money to meet for lunch etc then I see his out drinking that night so his a total let down imo. I am a shy person, I struggle to talk to new people because I feel I don't have any common interests. I plan to leave work on 19th feb just short of 36 weeks pregnant. I felt pressured by my boss to leave early. I said I wanted to work until 39 weeks and he kept making comments about how I would struggle, how they where low on work so wanted someone gone (they also made someone redundant last week). I felt bullied into going early and I gave in and I am to scared to say I don't want to leave until a week before due date. Their are plenty of jobs that I can do sitting down and would not be uncomfortable for me and the commute is an easy one. The part of mat leave I am dreading is the weeks before baby here and if their overdue that could be as long as six weeks of work. I'm sure once baby is here I will have a bit more to fill my time with
I am also suffering with bad anxiety/depression and its taking over my life 100 per cent. It is leaving me with horrible feelings/thoughts that I am finding very hard to control. I have suffered with anxiety for years since age 16 mostly related to my health but I have worried about other things as well. The worst parts of my anxiety for me are fear of being on my own, fear of death, fear of loosing my partner, fear of health issues. Since becoming pregnant I have had many a tearful/highly anxious day and I am now at breaking point. Late last week/last weekend I had five nights where I was barely getting four hours sleep and this just broke me. The lack of sleep made me feel like a zombie and no matter what I did I just could not sleep at all. Luckily since Tuesday night I have been managing 6-9 hours sleep a night. Despite waking a lot for the toilet about 3-6 times a night I am falling back to sleep after 5-10 minutes each time which is great. I am suffering with the urge to move my legs a lot. My lower calfs. When I sit down I feel like they should be moving not still and it feels like an itch that needs to be satisfied. I hate it- I am fine at work even sitting (probably because I am distracted) but as soon as I come home that is it for the night and I dread going to bed as after last week I fear I will get no sleep every night. I've cut out caffeine this week and have really cut back on sugar except fruit and two small glasses of fruit smoothie to see if it helps. Last week my legs where twitching a lot as well but I don't know if this is just because I was so sleep deprived. The twitching has now stopped but I am so focused on how my legs feel now that I am questioning do I have RLS or am I so focused on it my anxiety is causing this. My partner suffers from RLS and I can see he moves his legs a lot but he says his used to it and it just feels uncomfortable to keep them still. The feeling for me though is horrible and whilst I can mostly manage to keep my legs still I hate it eg I have not felt it a lot writing this post as I have been focusing on this. The RLS is another reason I am dreading my mat leave as I feel like I don't want to be at home all day every day with this dreadful feeling.
It is also making me feel very disconnected from my baby/bump. For example her movements are no longer exciting, I'm no longer fussed about buying baby things etc. Don't mistake this for not wanting her. I really do- she is my daughter and I pray she is ok every day but I don't want to just be mum. I want to be and I want part of me to be being a mum. I am horribly depressed thinking that I have ruined my life.
I have just been referred for counselling sessions and I have my booking app next week with them. But in the mean time what do I do. All I want is to relax in the evening without worrying about my damn legs and it is making me depressed.
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