“So is anxiety normal at this point in pregnancy?”, I asked my doctor at my appointment this morning.
“Oh yes, definitely. What type of anxiety are you feeling? About labor? Delivery? Newborns?”, my doctor inquired.
“Oh, no, no, nothing like that. I just can’t stop worrying about…well, you know, our furniture falling through the 2nd floor of our house…the headboard on our new bed cracking…our brand new mattress potentially being infested with bed bugs…a short in our electrical system burning down our house…our water heater exploding…I mean, I think it’s an old water heater. What if our ceiling fans falling out of the ceiling and then our air conditioner stops working when we have no ceiling fans…It’s July!”
She raised an eyebrow. “Ummmm. Those are new…and not really what I expected”, she replied. “You probably just need to relax. Take a day off of work and go to a spa. Maybe cut back on your caffeine intake? Don’t rush or stress, even if you’re late to a meeting or something.”.
Apparently, my doctor doesn’t know that I’m perpetually running late. That’s certainly not the problem.
These bizarre and completely illogical fears always seem to strike around this time in pregnancy, somewhere between 24-36 weeks. When I was pregnant with Greenleigh, I was walking through our house when I happened to pass a bookshelf in the hallway. It was loaded up with every legal text book we own (and couldn’t seem to get rid of when it was time to sell books at the end of the year), my husband’s never-ending coffee table book collection that never seems to end up on an actual coffee table, and well, every other book we own, most of which are hardback books. “Damn, that must be heavy,” I thought to myself as I walked to the bedroom and jumped into bed.
And then it started. My mind started reeling with how heavy that bookshelf really must be. I started to question the construction of our townhouse, and based on other issues we’d had, I assumed wasn’t great. “How much weight can the floor hold?”, I thought, looking around our bedroom. My gaze then caught the foot board of our solid wood, queen-sized sleigh bed. I looked over at my husband and asked, “So, um, how much do you think this bed weighs? You know, with the mattresses and us and everything?”. My husband feebly put together an estimate, without asking for much of an explanation. With the estimate brewing in my head, I casually told the cat and the dog that they needed to get off the bed…because we didn’t need their extra weight. “And that bookshelf out in the hall, how much do you think it weighs?”, I inquired. This time he wanted to know why I would ask such a thing.
So I told him.
And he laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed at me. He stopped just long enough to mutter something about construction and being able to put a bobcat/tractor on our second floor, but couldn’t quite get it out before he started laughing again. He also made sure to bring it up in all conversations with our friends for the next few weeks so they could laugh at me too.
See, here’s the thing – I knew at the time that it was irrational. I just couldn’t stop my mind from thinking of all our furniture suddenly falling right through our floors, taking us with it, and leaving a checkerboard pattern in our second floor. And believe me when I say – I could not stop. All that gave me comfort was that at least the cat and dog would be safe sleeping in their nearby beds instead of on our bed.
These irrational fears struck again few weeks later when Erajh attended a Daddy Bootcamp class that was offered by our local hospital. The class started late and ran late, causing him to be over an hour late coming home. I called and texted, but no response. In my mind, he was dead. There was no other possibility. I was going to be a single mom all because he went to a Daddy Bootcamp class. I actually got in my car and drove all the roads over to the hospital that I thought he had taken, expecting to see some horrific accident, only to find him walking to his car in the parking lot. Not dead. Late, but not dead. And totally scared that I was stalking him in the parking lot, because trust me, it’s pretty much impossible to pull off the whole “I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d drive by” after you’ve sent 35 text messages that all say “Are you dead? Text me back if you aren’t dead.”
So when they delivered our new bed yesterday – we just purchased a king sized bed because the number of children that manage to find their way to our room through out the night, plus the new one on the way that will no doubt find the invisible tracks in the floors left by the others and follow suit – and all I could notice about it was the headboard…namely that it didn’t look as stable as I’d like it…I knew they were back – Pregnancy Induced Irrational Fears. I’ve examined that headboard no fewer than 20 times in 24 hours or so that we’ve had it and all I can think is that it’s going to crack and fall on us. Probably in the middle of the night, kind of like a sneak attack. On the bright side, at least the headboard will provide a little protection from our falling ceiling fans.
Cross your fingers that this passes quickly before I go totally off the deep end.
Anyone else ever experience this? Have irrational fears during pregnancy that you can’t stop thinking about? What are/were they?
Wow!! I can’t believe I have come across this post I thought I was going insane! 27 Weeks pregnant and the irrational fears started a few weeks ago. My main one is I’m absolutely obsessed that someone close to me is going to fall down the stairs and die! Its horrific I get into such a state I’m almost at the point of hyperventilating! Pregnancy is a crazy thing how it can put these irrational thoughts in your mind!
Well, if it makes you feel any better my irrational fears have mostly disappeared and I’ll be 37 weeks tomorrow…I mean still have one or two – they just don’t keep me up at night anymore. 🙂
It looks like I’m a bit early for this (however, almost everything in my pregnancy seems to have occurred a bit before I was informed it would). I’m 21 weeks and in the last week I’ve started having these powerful feelings that come over me where I’m certain something terrible and probably fatal has happened to my husband. It brings tears to my eyes and I can’t shake it until I call him at work and hear his voice. He just chuckles and tells me he’s fine, but it’s so serious for me for the few minutes it comes over me!
I have so been there! Not with this pregnancy, but with my first. Hopefully, these types of concerns won’t last long for you (I mean, it’s always a concern, but I hope the bringing you to tears part stops soon). Hormones really suck sometimes!
I thought I was going crazy! I’m 16 weeks pregnant with my second child, and the other night I woke up at 2 in the morning in a cold sweat and unable to go back to sleep because I was scared that a social worker would (for no reason) come and take my precious 16 month old son away from me. In my mind he was crying for me and I obviously couldn’t do anything. It got so bad I started crying and I actually fetched him from his cot and put him in bed with me.
Also, if I read any potentially scary material (I was reading about the Titanic earlier today), I automatically put myself and my baby in that position and I go cold all over. I’m afraid of me or my husband dying as well and our son crying for us.
Haha it seems I’m afraid of him crying 😀
Ok i have an irrational fear but mine is a bit different. Mine is that my mom is going to die. Ok let me explain. I am 24 and a single mom currently pregnant with my 2nd baby. I live with my mom and she has some health issues but nothing life threatening. I help her and she is my rock. We are best friends. I know people say this all the time but if i lost my mom i would probably literally die. I would be alone. (Other than my kids) i would have no one. And so npw i guess from the pregnancy I have developed these severe fears. I keep thinking my mom is just gonna die, so I am constantly over her shoulder hugging her and telling her how much i love her. I cant loose my mom. I mean ill be honest i have always been terrified to loose my mom but its never been something i thought about on a daily basis. Its consuming my thoughts. It is actually affecting me physically. My heart races, i cry, i go in to a mini anxiety attack or something. I really hope this goes away after the baby is here.
Well Mandi, the good thing is that they do go away – at least, mine did. Mine were almost gone by the 3rd trimester and I haven’t had many since my baby was born. I mean I have the normal mom concerns, but nothing like the furniture falling through the floor. Good luck to you!
Thank you for this- I thought I was going crazy…sometimes the fear is soo crazy that I cant sleep. I have this fear of being too happy. Im having a baby- just got engaged today….and im up at 3 am with all of these fears of things that could ruin this for me…Im consumed with things that are impossible. Thank you for this honest post. I needed to know Im not alone.
I’m so, so glad that I could help…even if it makes me look totally crazy. LOL.
Thank you so much for this, you just made me feel so much better!! I’m 27 weeks with number 2, I was just about to leave work in a panic and run to the park where my mum is playing with my 19 month old baby girl completely convinced granny was going to have a senior moment and wander off leaving her by a park bench or something! I’ve already woken my husband up in the middle of the night to plan our escape should the house burn down, he wasn’t best pleased but humoured me anyway bless him.
I am so glad I came upon this post. I have been trying to convince myself that I AM in fact having irrational thoughts and that they couldn’t possibly happen. I suffered from minor anxiety attacks prior to my pregnancy…it was mostly when I was planning my wedding and in grad school. I was put on medication, but quickly got off of it because I didn’t like side effects or the way it made me feel. After my wedding and things settled down, I didn’t have any issues with it. And then…BOOM, here I am 27 weeks pregnant and I am having the craziest thoughts that I CANNOT get out of my head. My biggest fear is to be separated from my baby. I cannot stop thinking that I will be arrested for something I have done in my past and be put in jail. I know…I am crazy, right? It is really getting to me. I am thinking about seeing a therapist about it. I want to enjoy this wonderful time in my life. I am so so blessed, and I sometimes feel that thing are too good to be true and something bad is bound to happen. I want to overcome this and don’t want it to become worse when the baby is here. It makes me feel better knowing that there are other women who have suffered from the same thing. Thanks for the post!
You are so, so very welcome and I’m sorry that you’re going through this…but just know that my irrational fears were almost totally gone by 32-35 weeks (I say “almost” because don’t we all have an irrational fear or two here and there?). Hang in there!
Its so good to hear that I’m not as nutty as I think. I am almost 20 weeks, and about a week, the most irrational thought came across my brain… that I blacked out, slept with someone else, and this baby is my husbands. I don’t drink… so I don’t know how I could black out and it happen… completely irrational. How insane my days have been since… so much so that my thoughts have spiraled into, I’m going to drop my baby on day one, by baby will come out the color blue… It has caused some severe anxiety. I was diagnosed with BiPolar prior to marriage and baby time, and then was off meds before becoming pregnant, but my OB put me back on a low dose of Lexapro. I’m just hoping that I can get the thoughts to stop, and at birth I don’t have to do a paternity test just to calm my fears and prove myself crazy.
so good to read this… im 25 weeks n my head just keeps thinkng ill lose my grandparents n parents n my son will grow up to be an adult super super quick. like life will just pass by super quick
I can’t believe I came across this. I’m 28 weeks pregnant and for the last 3 or so weeks I have had terrible anxiety about floors collapsing. Mainly in the new house we just moved into 4 weeks ago. It has a basement and I can’t get passed the thought of the fridgerator being too heavy or filling the bathtub and it begin too much weight for the floor to hold. I can’ t get these thoughts out of my head. I feel as if I’m going crazy. This didn’t happen with my first. I’m just praying it’s brought on by pregnancy and will go away and isn’t a lifelong thing I’ll have to deal with! I just don’t know how to cope with it all now.
I am so thankful that I found this website, because now I see that I am not alone. I am in 35th week and for several weeks I became obsessed with fears about the health of baby. For some reason I am afraid what if our baby is an autist. We have friends whose children are autists, that’s why I am so scared. I really hope that this obsessive and irrational thinking will go away and that our child is absolutely healthy.
wow makes me feel better to know that others have irrational thoughts but i am worried that i cant see any similar to mine :/
since about 3-4 months pregnant i had the idea that the baby might not be my husbands … and although i initially couldn’t remember sleeping with anyone i then decided that i must have slept with a maintenance man at work and now my baby will come out a different race from my husband and he will think i am a cheater and leave me and ill be left with a strange baby that i don’t recognise !!!
is got so bad that i go over and over my diary and txt messages around the time of conception so i can remember what i was doing around those days ..and i have no real evidence that i did cheat but i still think that it might have been possible and that i just simply forgot until i was 3 months pregnant .
if there is ANYONE who had a similar thought i would greatly appreciate a reply
I am just 4 months pregnant and the anxieties have kicked in. I was eating a meal with my baby son and Mother and I suddenly found that I had an irrational fear of knives so proceeded to hide all the knives in the house. Sometimes I feel like I’m going mad but what reassures me is that I’ve dealt with difficult times in my life and always manages to get through.
Before I got pregnant I was such a fearless person, I would go out walking late at night by myself with no fear what so ever, but now that I’m 3 months pregnant I’ve had these horrible fears about losing my mom in ANY way. My other biggest fear are serial killers, which is my fault cause I keep watching these documentaries since I want to study crime scene investigation. It sucks because when im home alone with my brother i have to check many times that both doors are locked, all windows are closed and have all locks on them and then ask my brother to double check. Then I make sure my pitbull sleeps in my room. Oh and not to mention that I check every closet, both bathtubs, laundry room, under beds. I am so scared lol But this isn’t irrational, everyone should be careful. Btw I forgot to check my laundry room tonight. Ima go do that now.
Oh wow! I wish I had some of the irrational fears listed instead of mine. Mine drive me crazy!! I’m 34 weeks pregnant. Recently I scrolled across, didn’t even watch, a YouTube video entitled, “woman gives birth to snake like creature.” I can’t stop worrying that something might be wrong with our baby. But I know it’s completely irrational. Thank you for your post. I’m encouraged that I’m not the only one with irrational fears during what should be a most joyful time.
So very glad I could help Heidi! Luckily, my irrational fears passed the farther I got in my pregnancy and there’s a very slim chance that you’ll actually birth a snake like creature. LOL. Hang in there!
So it’s 3 am and I’m 24 weeks pregnant and I needed to find this post. I’ve gained a handful of irrational fears, I say irrational because I never had them before. I’m scared of clowns now, I’m scared of heights,I’m scared of holes, I’m scared of death, I’m always scared! I’m really jumpy and everybody startle’s me…
So very glad I could help! Don’t worry, based on all the feedback I’ve received on this post since it was originally published, you are totally normal. Try your very best not to stress (difficult, I know) and take good care of yourself. Pregnancy and all that comes with it is hard, but so very worth it!
Holy crap
I’ve been convinced we are going to have a bug infestation, specifically bed bugs. Everyone tells me to relax and go away with my husband, but. …I’m scared we’ll get then while away.
I went to the ER the other day from panic attacks but they couldn’t help.
Please tell me these fears went away after awhile!
Yes! They did, but it took a while. I hope they pass for you soon!
It has been years since I have laughed till the tears roll down my face and today was the day. I’m not laughing at any of you but more the commonalities of ou situations. Dead partners who are late, falling down stairs, stupid loose ceiling fans and cot death with my 18 month old. Thank you for making me feel liberated that these things are clearly normal whilst being abnormal at the same time. I really feel so thrilled that I’m just pregnant again…
I’m so glad I could help Joanna! Totally ridiculous and yet – at least according to the comments on this post – pretty normal. 🙂