I don't know whether there's any advice that can be given on this one. Mostly I guess I just want to vent and maybe get reassurance that you can feel this way and things still work out ok.

I can't stop stressing about this baby. For the first 12 weeks or so, I felt totally disconnected. Intellectually, I was excited by the idea of another baby. By being pregnant. DD getting to be a big sister. But I didn't feel any of the instant love and connection that I did with DD.

I had the nuchal fold scan, and seeing bubs definitely helped. Affirmed that this is real, and there's definitely a little person growing in there. But still, I've felt weirdly distant. And have this underlying sick, awful feeling that this baby isn't going to make it. That I'm never going to see him/her alive and breathing. I've felt movement from 15 weeks, but it's so inconsistent and there are days on end when I feel nothing at all. At 17 weeks I felt nothing for more than 48 hours and I ended up going to hospital to get monitored. The actually gave me a scan, and again I got to see that lovely little person who was indeed wriggling away in there, i just couldn't feel it. For about 2 days that helped to allay my fears, but it's back with a vengance. I keep getting awful mental images of having a dead baby inside me or having to give birth to a sleeping baby. I freak out about little things which I take as a 'sign', like DD announcing out of the blue the other day "baby gone". Don't know what she was talking about (maybe a dolly, or that she couldn't see the baby in Mummy's tummy)... I have felt baby move since then. But it made me keep thinking that maybe she knew that this baby wasn't going to stay.

My friend lost her precious boy at 17 weeks, not long ago, and I'm sure that reading the stories of loss on here also keeps this more 'real' or 'likely' in my mind. But I'm scared that it's not just that.

I wish I could shake this. If DH has any say in it, this will likely by may last pregnancy and I so want to enjoy every minute of it. I want to feel the joy that I did when I was pg with DD, when I just beamed at every little wriggle, sang to her and rejoiced in my growing belly. But I don't. I feel sick and afraid and am tormented by these negative thoughts.

Thanks for letting me vent ladies. xoxo

Oh and to my lovely student midwife, if you're reading this I am planning on chatting to you about this... I just had hoped that it would go away. It's not... and we shall talk.