Pregnancy
Whether your pregnancy was planned or unplanned, it’s natural to have mixed emotions about it.
Powerful pregnancy hormones will contribute to the mix of your emotional highs and lows, especially in the first three months. You may find that you swing between feeling excited then anxious and happy and then cry at the drop of a hat.
We are constantly bombarded with images of happy, healthy women with their "designer bumps" in magazines and on social media but the reality is often very different as not everyone enjoys how pregnancy affects their body and makes them feel. Some women love the physical experience of being pregnant and feel strong and positive whereas others may struggle with feeling sick and tired and putting on weight.
You may have expected to feel excited and happy throughout your pregnancy and worry that you are not enjoying it as you thought you would. This can add to more worry that you won’t love your baby rather than accept that it is OK to feel is how you feel.
Pregnancy worries, fears and stress
Having a baby changes everything and it’s very common to worry during pregnancy and about the future. Many women ask themselves questions like:-
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Will my baby be OK?
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Will something that I've eaten/drunk harm the baby?
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Can the baby be hurt during sex?
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Will a previous pregnancy problem happen again?
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How will I cope with the birth?
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Will I be a good mother?
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Will I get Post Natal Depression?
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Will this change my relationship with my partner?
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How will we manage for money?
No matter how excited you are that you’re having a baby you are likely to feel emotionally vulnerable and down at times during your pregnancy. If you think you’re feeling down or anxious a lot it is a good idea talk about it.
How can I help?
Working holistically, I can help you with your worries and concerns around the life changing experience of being pregnant and becoming a parent.
Whilst being pregnant may be amazing, you may still struggle with some of the common (and unpleasant) physical symptoms associated with pregnancy. As well as being a counsellor and being able to listen and support you with your worries and concerns, I can offer other therapies to help alleviate morning sickness and tiredness and stress.
Relaxation and mindfulness techniques are now used in the health service today to help with stress and anxiety and physical discomfort and pain. The wonderful thing about Reiki, is that your brainwaves naturally go into "alpha" so you feel relaxed and calm.
Hypnotherapy uses relaxation and visualisation techniques and as Reiki already provides the perfect vehicle for deep relaxation, it makes perfect sense for me to combine Reiki with hypnotherapy. This means that not only will you be getting an energy boost from the Reiki, but work can also be done at a subconscious level to facilitate positive changes and help with your responses to morning sickness and tiredness. A Reiki treatment will offer you a calm space from within which you can talk or you may just want to take some time out and completely unwind, relax and have an energy boost. Feeling calm and relaxed is good for both you and your baby and can give you the space to spend some time bonding with him or her.
I can teach you some coping strategies such as relaxation and breathing techniques and I can help you to work out the lifestyle changes that you may need to make in order to reduce stress levels and help you to cope. By learning to value yourself, understanding and taking care of your needs, achieving a healthy work/life balance you can feel less stressed and more able to cope with the demands of pregnancy and being a parent.
What if being pregnant is a mistake?
Realising you are pregnant may be the best news in the world or it could be totally unexpected and you may be thrown into emotional turmoil and not know what to do.
As an experienced therapist I can offer you a safe and non judgemental space to explore your feelings around keeping the pregnancy or having a termination so that you can make the right decision for you.
You still have the right to grieve......
The reasons for not wanting to continue with a pregnancy are varied and the decision to terminate a pregnancy is rarely an easy one. Depending on your individual situation, once you have been through the procedure, you may have mixed feelings. Any pregnancy loss will lead to an interruption in the hormone cycle. Even if you believe that you made the right decision, and feel a sense of relief and calm, the range of negative feelings, partly due to hormonal changes, such as feeling as guilt, anger, sadness, loss, shame isolation and regret may take you by surprise.
Reiki would offer you a healing space, where deeply relaxed, you may acknowledge any feelings you have after the termination. It is important to be able to get in touch with any feelings of loss and to release them. I have seen many women who haven't allowed themselves to grieve because they didn't feel that they had the right to and needed some help to do so. Reiki is naturally calming and helps to release any feelings around what happened so that you can properly come to terms with it thereby removing any blocks to potentially getting pregnant again if or when the time is right.
EFT is based on the discovery that imbalances in the body's energy system have profound effects on our personal psychology. Using EFT we can correct these imbalances and gain quick relief and freedom from negative emotions.
I am an accredited and registered Counsellor & Psychotherapist with the BACP with over 14 years experience of working with individuals, couples and therapeutic groups in a variety of settings.
Counselling is always at the heart of what I do, but by incorporating other treatments and techniques I can offer my own unique combination of therapies to effectively help clients to feel better on all levels.
Tina Deas
A Time For You, Counselling & Reiki Swindon