The good news arrived and you did it! Two lines on the pregnancy test and confirmed by blood test, you're officially pregnant. Congratulations! But why does it feel weird or off at times? Why do you feel you can not enjoy it fully? It’s simple, you experienced a very different journey to get there, with many obstacles faced and it will naturally have an influence on how you go through your pregnancy and manage the mental aspect of it.

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It takes longer to realize you are pregnant

After months, sometimes years of not being pregnant and even if you worked very hard on achieving a pregnancy, it could still be unsettling and surprising to you. Your mind got used to waiting and trying without the success you were expecting. As a result, you might not realize right away that things changed and you are now expecting.

It's common to not feel pregnant at the beginning as your mind will need more time to process the news and get familiar with the good news. No need to feel guilty about it, it's common for women having experienced infertility.

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You are not as excited as expected

At first, you might not feel as excited as you were planning to be regarding the pregnancy. Achieving it didn't happen easily and being on a fertility journey comes with challenges and many difficult moments. It's normal then to protect yourself mentally and to not let the joy of the good news take you over right away.

You might be feeling you are holding back your emotions and be surprised by it but this is absolutely normal and expected, especially if you have a history of miscarriage.

Couples having experienced infertility will often soften their emotions and stay cautious in terms of excitement. It's a protective approach and coming from the awareness that a pregnancy can be complicated and failed in some case. Being on the cautious side avoids the risk of high disappointment if things don't go as planned.

On a positive note, a pregnancy lasts 9 months and feeling the confidence building up later is perfectly fine, there is no right or wrong and all couples will decide how they want to handle it mentally so no need to feel guilty.

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You will be on the edge of your seat

After spending months listening to your body to try to conceive, you will notice that pregnancy comes with a brand new set of symptoms and some of them can be unsettling. You might feel cramping, nauseas and other feelings that are pregnancy-related and fully expected but they can hit different after having been on a fertility journey.

Instead of reminding you of what's coming in a few months, they could bring negative thoughts, create fears and doubts regarding the vaiablility of the pregnacy and keep you on the edge of your seat. If this happen, remind yourself that your past experience is driving these fears and your odds of carrying successfully a pregnancy as not related to how long you've been trying for.

As the pregnacy progresses and you clear a few milestones and medical exams during the first trimester, confidence will come back and the doubts will subsides.

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You might want to announce it later

This pregnancy is particularly precious to you if you worked very hard to have it starting. Couples who didn't experience infertility will not live it the same way as people who did. This often led couples to wait a bit longer than the average to announce the good news, they want to wait to make sure everything is going as planned and don't want to take the risk to announce it to early.

It's sometimes coming from past experience with miscarriages, sometimes it's to give themselves the space to cherish this good news privately within the couple for a bit longer before sharing it with the world and sometimes it's because this is a big change and they are not ready to talk about it yet until they fully realize it as mentioned above. It's also common to wait later in the pregnancy to start preparing the baby room. All these reasons are good ones and everyone has the right to announce it hwen it feels right and without feeling bad about it.

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So yes, becoming pregnant after a long fertility journey might feel a bit off, but don’t forget that you are also about to achieve your dream. It’s okay to experience it differently after dealing with infertility.

Don’t be hard on yourself and give yourself grace. Keep in mind your success is hope for all the other couples working hard to get there