How Finding Out I Had Preeclampsia Affected My Mental Health During Pregnancy.

Stress! Up until this day I am convinced stress was the leading factor behind what was preeclampsia during my pregnancy and eventually the early birth of my son. This is all just my opinion on how it unfolded, and I will explain why below.

It’s important to note, experts have said “the exact cause of pre-eclampsia is not known”, though there’s no denying “There are a number of things that can increase your chances of developing pre-eclampsia”, that I also briefly touched on in this post.

A lot was going on around the time I was pregnant, personally and with the pandemic, globally, which bought about changes locally in the day-to-day things.

Personally. it was processing the fact me and my partner were about to have a baby. The rollercoaster of emotions when we found out were Joy, mixed in with apprehension, being overwhelmed but mainly thankful and then being at a place where we were just really looking forward to being parents.  We knew our relationship was about to change and we started going on more dates than we normally would have based on the idea that someone else will always be with us (and boy do I wish we had even more dates because we didn’t have to think about babysitters!)

It was great! spending more time with the person I love and doing all out favourite things just like when we first started dating. But fast forward a few months later and realising just how much our future will change, I started feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe it was the hormones, or maybe it was coming down from that happy bubble of excitement about the pregnancy news, but something made me start to realize I was not where I want to be in life for the baby, regarding my career, finances, where we lived, not being married, being far away from family and feeling too young to do this now.

So, I went from complete joy to being overwhelmed in rather quickly, and this feeling went on for months. I bottled it up and carried on as if I was not worried about these things, mentioning only one or two of my worries when I could not keep a straight face to my partner. He always bought logic and reassurance to my fears, but I did not want to hear it, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

Globally. The world was changing, covid happened. Nothing good seemed to be on the news, I wasn’t one who turned on the TV to watch news, but it just seemed like every time the TV was on all we heard about was the pandemic. All everyone talked about and posted about was covid and it was never good. No one really knew what it was or how it will affect us all, but everyone was on edge.

It was March 2020 they announced what was happening around the world and it was April 2020 we found out we were having a baby. As much as we tried to enjoy what was to come, it was all clouded by what was going on around us.

Rules were changing all the time. I remember being extra cautious by wearing gloves everywhere, hardly leaving the house, and when I did leave the house having the biggest bottle of hand sanitizer in my bag and keeping away from everyone.

A few months later and society had become a new place. People did not want to be around each other in case they caught something and being pregnant I especially did not want to be around anyone, even the doctors and nurses who will help me throughout this pregnancy.

But how do you avoid people who are there to help you. I knew it was inevitable to attend all my appointments and sure enough I did together with my check-ups, but each time I was anxiously going in trying to avoid people?

We were told none of the pregnancy classes they have will be available, not even online at this stage. That was the one thing I was looking forward to, learning about how to take care of my child and be around other women to finally talk and share about pregnancy. But this was all taken away and I had to stay home and be secluded. What will they announce next was the main thought in the months after April.

Personally, and Globally. So, from both these two things it really was just stressful. I felt like I could not control what was going on around me and nothing could be changed – we just had to go with what we were being told and basically hope for the best.

Carrying these feelings around and going into the doctors alone for all my appointments because no one was allowed to accompany me weighed me down too. A few weeks before I was officially diagnosed with preeclampsia, I had spikes of high readings in blood pressure, but they always came down.

It is said regarding BP and the pandemic “Stress, and, to a lesser extent, emotions are suggested to be linked to BP”, “the COVID-19 pandemic substantially increased stress and its toll on physical and mental health” according to the National Library of Medicine.

Not knowing what preeclampsia was added to my feelings of helplessness and not being in control. You can’t control getting preeclampsia and neither can you control when your baby will come. But this was the start of pausing to check on my mental health and finally starting to talk about my feelings and not bottling anything up regarding my fears of becoming a parent, work or our relationship. I finally confessed how uncomfortable sleeping was – which led to a pregnancy pillow being bought and I finally started getting some sleep! (woohoo).

I will say finding out that day almost made me physically sick, I was now more worried than I have ever been regarding my baby and how the future will pan out, but it also made me change my perspective to “I can’t control it, but I’m not going to panic”. I now felt like I HAVE TO keep calm, its not a choice anymore, but for my sake and most importantly the sake of the baby, I can’t panic about small things I can’t control. As Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything”.