Anxiety in second pregnancy after first child with rare disease
Hi all!
Curious how those of you who chose to have more children after having a child with special needs coped with the uncertainty of all the what ifs in pregnancy.
My newly 3 year old son has a rare de novo genetic disorder that causes delays/intellectual disability. He is incredible and doing so well, and also I worry about his future, am busy with all this therapies, etc. We didn’t know anything was going on with him until end of my third trimester.
Now here I am entering the third trimester of a very wanted pregnancy, but I’m wracked with anxiety about raising two special needs kiddos. We ended up doing a microarray and whole genome sequencing on this pregnancy to have all possible information, all was clear, but the fear is still there. Obviously, we will love his sister regardless of who she is, but I’m looking for ways to recenter myself and try to enjoy and connect to this baby in the last phase of my pregnancy.
Curious if others went through similar feelings and if anything helped you relax and get excited about your baby? I did loads of therapy after having my son and feel so much better about his diagnosis/the uncertainty with it, but clearly not handling the uncertainty of this pregnancy well.
Thank you in advance!