Lee, I am so sad to read your story, you are very brave to be back on your bike again, I wish you the best for a happy and healthy pregnancy and baby.

Michelle, I'm sorry to read in your sig about Caitlyn and I'm so happy to read that you've birthed a beautiful boy.

My older children are 8 and 6 years old. For me, the fear of losing them has never gone away, although I suffer from PTSD and an unsafe childhood which heigtens this fear. I shelter them too much, something I'm working on fixing. They don't go to friend's houses, don't go anywhere without me except school (I even homeschooled early on because I couldn't face letting DS1 go to school). They rarely get babysat by family, but never anyone else and only very select family members, and only when I am totally desperate, like going into hospital with this baby. At their age, this is starting to cause them some problems which is why I need to start allowing them to be normal children.

I think that fearing lose one's child is a completely rational way to be. I noticed this mainly with DP with this baby (baby Leo born 8 weeks ago). It was his first baby, and when we brought Leo home, he went completely paranoid, waking with every noise, not letting anyone including me walk around with him in case of dropping him. Leo was much bigger than my babies, so I was more relaxed with him, but to DP he was so tiny and breakable. IT's a natural response when all of a sudden there is something that you love more than you could every imagine loving something, that you feel an overwhelming fear of losing this precious thing. And of course, experiencing the loss of Caitlyn would make this more exaggerated.

I expect you will feel better as little Oscar grows, but never completely because that's just part of being a mum that we are always worrying about our little ones.

You are going so well from what I've read, good on you.