Do you want another baby after preeclampsia? Recently over on my Instagram page, I shared on my story a bit about how my husband and I decided if we wanted another baby after preeclampsia. Having another baby after preeclampsia is a hard decision to make for many survivors. It isn’t just a “Do we want another child in our family?” it is a “Am I willing to risk preeclampsia again to have another baby?”
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How do you know if you want a “re-do” or if you want another baby after preeclampsia?
I desperately wanted a better experience. I think that it is okay to feel that way. I mean, would you ever wish for another traumatic birth experience? I desperately wanted a “golden hour” and not to experience another NICU stay. I also really did not want to experience preeclampsia ever again.
Both my husband and I were content with our then-only daughter. We were happy and enjoyed life with her and our family of 3. Being parents is the absolute best and we felt like we could be content with our life.
But I felt like something was missing. When we first decided to go ahead and start trying to grow our family through pregnancy we decided having kids around 2 years apart was a good plan. It was what we were familiar with in our own families and families around us. It seemed like a good plan to us. But then my daughter’s 2nd birthday came around and neither of us were no where near ready to even think about another baby after preeclampsia.
That brought me a lot of grief because this life was not the life I imagined for myself. Grief for experiencing prematurity, preeclampsia, NICU, and pregnancy loss. Grief for all the things I desperately wanted and missed out on during her birth and first years of life. And I was just so upset as well. Why wasn’t I ready for another baby after preeclampsia? Why did I still feel so upset over everything I experienced?
I was given the advice “Think about your Thanksgiving table in the future. Who is in it? That is how you know if you want a second child.” To me, that didn’t seem realistic. I had 3 chemical pregnancies before my first living child and never got the chance to know those babies. Already, I would be missing precious members of my family at the hypothetical Thanksgiving table. So this did not work for us.
Eventually, using the 3 tips I have listed below, we came to the decision that the risk was worth it for us. We became pregnant again at the end of 2022. Sadly, that pregnancy ended up in an ectopic pregnancy and we lost a very wanted child. We decided to try again after that because we really wanted another child to raise. I got pregnant fairly quickly afterward and we had our last baby and our youngest daughter at the end of 2023. You can read both of these experiences on my blog.
I have put together 3 Tips to Decide If You Want Another Baby After Preeclampsia
Explore your “Why” for another Baby After Preeclampsia
Around the time our daughter was 2, my husband and I were in therapy together. The therapist we both saw gave us a safe place to talk about what happened with my daughter’s birth and helped us learn to cope and process it. She explored with us the “why”. Why did we want 2 years apart? Was it what we wanted or what we thought we had to do? Was it to have a better experience? Or did we want another child to raise?
Ponder these questions yourself to see what your answers would be. I feel like these questions really made me think about my why I wanted another child. And to explored if the reasons why outweighed the risk in my opinion.
Get a Preconception Visit
One of the most important things to do when deciding if you want another baby after preeclampsia is to learn about your risk and what can be done about it. Make a preconception appointment with your provider, or a new provider, or seek out opinions of a few different providers. I have a great blog post all about the questions to ask your provider here.
At that appointment be sure to ask any questions you have. This appointment is for you to get all the facts so you are able to make an informed decision.
All of our preeclampsia pregnancies and births were different. All of our medical histories and current conditions are different. My experience will be different than yours because we are different. Sit with the information you learned and the discussion you had with the provider for a bit before deciding whether to have another baby after preeclampsia or not to have another baby after preeclampsia.
Accept the fact that it will be a different experience and a different child
You will need to accept that you will never get what you missed out on with your baby during your preeclamptic pregnancy. If you never got that “golden hour” you won’t get it again with that baby. If you never got the chance to have a breastfeeding relationship due to being admitted postpartum, you won’t get that chance back. As harsh as it is said, it is the truth. You won’t get those things back with your baby that you had preeclampsia with.
If you do decide to have another baby after preeclampsia don’t bank on the fact that your pregnancy, birth, or postpartum experience could be preeclampsia-free because it might not. The same thing you experienced before might happen again. You have to decide for yourself if you are willing to risk that. For you, the desire to have another child to raise outweighs the risk of preeclampsia happening again. Your next child isn’t the same child. Your next baby after preeclampsia will be their own person, with their own set of challenges.
If the risk isn’t worth it to you, that is okay! You know what is best for you and your family. Figure out if you want another child, not a re-do. Figure out if you want another child to raise, not just a better pregnancy, postpartum or birth experience.
One Partner Wants Another Baby After Preeclampsia but the Other Doesn’t
I got direct messages on my Instagram page after sharing some of these points on my Instagram story. One of the messages that I would like to share is “I’ve accepted the risks but my husband hasn’t”.
For clarity, I will be writing out the answer to this question as if I am speaking to this submitter talking about her husband. I understand that not every relationship is a husband-wife relationship.
It is a very valid reason for your husband to not be on board with wanting another baby. Preeclampsia didn’t affect him physically, but he felt all the emotions of it all. He watched as you were rushed to an emergency surgery to save your life and your baby’s life. He watched as a premature baby was handed off to a NICU team of strangers and life-saving measures were performed. He paced the hospital hallway back and forth wondering if he was going to be a widow. These are all scary things to experience.
Birth trauma like this is hard to reason with when wanting another baby after preeclampsia. It is putting yourself in the same situation that brought you so much heartache and trauma in the first place. Maybe your husband’s reasoning to not having another baby after preeclampsia is that he doesn’t want to risk losing his wife. Maybe he doesn’t want to risk losing another baby. Maybe he doesn’t want to go through it again.
I was on board sooner than my husband. I became okay with it a lot earlier. For him, a lot of his reasoning was he didn’t want to be the main reason to cause me more trauma. He wanted me to be 100% willing to go through with it because it would be my body, not his, going through it again. We had hard discussions and things put in place (like updating the will, making sure all the login information for all the various accounts was written down and put in a safe place, etc).
You and your husband need to have a very honest conversation about the reasons why he does not want another baby and be able to come to some sort of conclusion. Maybe put the discussion on hold for a few more months and come back to it. Maybe seek out therapy for both of you. Maybe reach out to a trusted individual (friend, family member, therapist, etc) to help facilitate the discussion. Get to a point where you can talk about it and come to some sort of agreement.
Having another baby after preeclampsia or not is a hard decision and not one to be made lightly. I hope this post has helped you decide what is best for you and your family. I have a wonderful resource on my blog to help you know what questions to ask your provider at a preconception visit here. I am sorry that making a decision to have another baby or not is complicated by the reality that preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, or eclampsia can happen to you again. I am sending love to you as you navigate this choice. Remember, you will make the best choice for you and your family.
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