Do you feel the stress you experienced while pregnant had any impact on your child?

Hello All,

I’m 22 weeks pregnant with my second baby. My first was a boy and this one is a girl! My pregnancy with my son definitely had its challenges, but I feel like this pregnancy has been so much more difficult as far as emotions and stress go. I do what I can to stay healthy and calm, but the emotions are down right overwhelming at times!

To add to all of this, my husband’s ex wife is on a mission to make our lives as difficult as she possibly can. Especially when I am pregnant, she seems to try harder to fight us and make things as dramatic as possible. You don’t know me, and you don’t know her, and this post isn’t about giving your input or advice on a mother and step mother’s relationship, because let me tell you, I have already heard and gone through everything you are going to tell me. Trust me when I tell you, that my husband and I have done everything in our power to give his ex wife and her husband all of the respect and consideration we can possibly give to a human being, but she is obviously very unhappy and chooses to take it out on us. Needless to say, I don’t know how to handle the stress of someone intentionally trying to hurt me and the people I love while I’m pregnant.

I know this can’t be the most stressful thing a person has ever gone through while pregnant, but my sister and sister-in-law keep scolding that I need to avoid stressing as much as possible. I guess what I want to know is what are some crazy stressful things you guys went through when you were pregnant? And did you feel like it had a negative affect on your child after they were born? There’s really nothing we can do about the ex wife situation. My step daughter is only 8, and losing her is not an option. One time when we went to pick up my step daughter while I was pregnant with my son, the ex wife must have been having a bad day because she started screaming at my husband for random things that had no relevance to us picking my step daughter up. While walking my step daughter to the car and away from the screaming (my step daughter was terrified), the ex wife told my husband that she would kick me in the stomach the next time she saw me. My husband was the only witness to this and it wasn’t recorded, so there’s not much legal action we can take. But this is the type of verbal abuse she gives to us. I don’t know if she is on drugs or something, and I have no way of proving that she is one way or another. I just know that whenever we go to any of my step daughter’s school events or have to pick her up, the mom goes out of her way to pick a fight with us. We obviously, avoid her at all costs, but there’s not much we can do at times to avoid her completely. All in all, when I can’t avoid the verbal abuse, I do stress immensely, because I genuinely do care about the relationship I have with my step daughter and her mother.

I know it’s not healthy for my baby, so I am trying my best not to stress! Even with the stress I went through with my son though, I feel he turned out really well. He was a fussy baby at times, and sometimes difficult, but now that he’s 2, he’s absolutely delightful! He’s clever and funny as hell, and he cares so much for others. Just curious if you guys ever went through something severely stressful and traumatic while pregnant and if you feel it did affect your baby in a negative way or not.