Why we get screwed up...

I'm interested in the psychology of pregnancy, given my own disastrous experiences and the really horrible aftermath, that I still live with every day. I read something in a newspaper recently which may encapsulate the journey a woman's head goes through when she finds out when she's expecting a planned a baby. This is a quote from a newspaper from Sarah Storey, who competed in the London Paralympics for the UK team. She and her husband planned to have a baby after the Paralympics, and, lucky girl, she's found she's pregnant only a matter of months after the event. At 13 weeks gone, this is what she had to say:

`` Mrs Storey, 35, told The Mail on Sunday that she had hoped to have a baby soon after London 2012 so that she would be able to compete at the Paralympics in Brazil in 2016. 

‘We were very fortunate that it worked out the way it has and it’ll be three years before the Games in Rio so the baby will be running round and almost ready to go to school by the time it comes round,’ said the cyclist, from Disley, Cheshire.''

I guess she must have found out at around 4-6 wks, and between that time and the official announcement, she's already mentally calculated 1) the age of the baby when the next Paralympics comes round 2) started to imagine that her baby will be running around and 3) will be almost ready to go to school. So basically in a matter of moments/weeks, she's already visualised how much her life will have changed in the years ahead. She already has new plans and hopes for the future because of this baby. And not for a minute can she imagine that it can't come about. The due date is when her baby will be born alive and healthy. By Christmas her baby will be X months old. For Y family event the baby will be Z old. And so on. I think this must be true for almost all women who fall pregnant with a wanted baby. And when it doesn't work out, that's when you're really screwed. Anything that happens to alter that specific future makes those events, when they arrive, terribly sad. For the vast majority of women, they will be lucky in that their imagined futures will come true. But for those who lose their babies, family occasions such as Christmas, become a particularly cruel form of torture.