First pregnancy after a NICU experience...any advice?

[Jilian]

Hi mamas, I haven't posted here in a while because DS2 has been doing well and I felt he sort of "outgrew" his ICU experience but here I am preg again! I'm wondering how you mamas handled pregnancy and the worrying that comes along with being preg after a NICU experience. DS2 was born in June '07 and surprised us with a congenital heart defect when he was 2 weeks old. He had emergency open heart surgery just a few hours after being diagnosed (quad bypass) and we had a 9 day CVICU experience. I did suffer PTSD for a bit after we got home and got lots of support from you sweet mamas : Now that I'm preg again I'm finding that I'm reliving a lot of the emotions that I felt before, during, and after his surgery. I'm having nightmares of things going wrong with this baby's birth, etc. Did any of you deal with this? Any sugestions?

I did decided to take hypnobirthing this time around to relax but I won't start those classes for a few more months. Also, we're scheduled to see the perinatologist/maternal fetal medicine in March for a detailed level 2 u/s and a fetal echo. I'm hoping I can relax a bit after that.

[liberal_chick]

Well, I have no idea how to banish the fear, if that's what you're asking. I'm currently pregnant with my second child (ds1 pPROM @ 20 weeks and born @ 30 weeks) and things have been going normally. But even so, with every milestone I crossed, I was very fearful. During my 20th week, I was convinced I was leaking fluid. In my 30th week, I was convinced I was having contractions. I just had to remember to breathe and remind myself that what will happen will happen. I couldn't control any of that stuff with ds1's pregnancy and I couldn't control it with this pregnancy. That usually did a pretty good job of calming any panic down, at least for a while.

FWIW, I'm almost 32 weeks now and I'm counting on making it all the way this time!

[Amys1st]

Hey congrats! I remember your ptsd and when your little guy had surgery. You know that no two pregncys are alike and just because that happend last time, dosent mean it will happen again. Also, you have BTDT so you know what to do this time which could be a blessing. HTH!