![]() I cried every day for five weeks before that first appointment with Sarah*. The idea of losing him was unthinkable so, although my feelings hadn't changed, I agreed to see a psychologist. If I terminated our child, he couldn't stay. His words barely registered until his confusion turned to anger and he eventually gave me the ultimatum that saved our daughter's life. I knew what I was experiencing wasn't rational, but I just couldn't do anything to stop it.īy the Friday I knew I had to confess, so when Andrew came home from work, I blurted it out: "I'm pregnant but I can't go through with it".Īt first he was bewildered, saying over and over that it should be the happiest time of our lives. It sounds ridiculous to be so scared of putting on weight, but it went so much deeper - it was a crippling fear of losing control of my own body. For me, though, it was the idea of my body changing during pregnancy which caused my terror. It's little understood, but for many women it centres on the process of childbirth. We now know I was suffering from tokophobia, a psychological condition that can instil a pathological fear of pregnancy and childbirth in pregnant women that has, in some tragic cases, resulted in some sufferers aborting. I trawled the internet, reading about pre-natal depression and wondering if that was the problem. ![]() I spent the week desperately trying to make sense of my own feelings. Andrew knew something was very wrong, but I pushed him away. I was a mess, barely functioning at work and crying myself to sleep every night. So why, instead of dialling his number, was I stuffing the positive test deep into a drawer and vowing not to tell him? And why was I consumed by the idea of having an abortion behind his back?įor a week, I kept my pregnancy secret to myself. We were deeply in love and I knew he'd be a wonderful father. Andrew and I had talked about starting a family so many times over the two years we'd been together, and we'd started trying to conceive as soon as we'd married nine months earlier. I knew my response made no logical sense whatsoever. It sounds crazy but the split-second switch in my emotions was so physical I started to shake. All I knew was that I felt panicked and out of control - and that I couldn't possibly go through with the pregnancy. I had no idea why I wasn't reacting the way I always imagined I would. Looking at the result, I was overwhelmed by a sudden, random and inexplicable sense of dread, so powerful I struggled to breathe.
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