Chapter 7 168 Finally, the third group of symptoms is inherent to the pregnancy itself, as pregnancy changed women’s preexisting psychiatric symptoms and caused new symptoms, such as nausea, mood swings and irritability: "And uh, that mainly has to do with the increase in uh, compulsive traits in my personality. So uh, that became bothersome at a certain point, and uh, probably also a combination of hormonal factors along with, uh, a certain psychiatric sensitivity, I call it that now. Uh, that kind of triggered each other a bit more and that came to the forefront again." (Participant 9) For participant 1, symptoms that she previously experienced due to her bipolar disorder resurfaced. "That I'm just very easily irritated now and more emotional." (Participant 1) Her partner, in his own interview, agreed with participant 1 by indicating how he felt about the pregnancy impacting her mood. "Um, she can occasionally react very sensitively and emotionally, and I think you see that during her pregnancy, influenced by hormones, a bit more strongly. But I don't really feel like there's also a psychiatric aspect that's very difficult to deal with." (Partner participant 1) A conversation between participant 2 and her partner (who were interviewed together) echoed this experience, where pregnant women and their partner had similar thoughts on the hormonal impact during pregnancy. Partner: "That was really intense. It's tough that I... How? How can you turn this into a fight again?" Participant 2: "Well, I didn't like it either because I was really caught off guard by that. Yeah, and that was all too much." Although the emotional lives of women with UPs were marked by mixed and often negative emotions, UPs had several positive effects on them. For participant 4, the UP meant that she had successfully conceived, which caused her relief. "But I mean, I was talking like ‘I’m healthy enough to get pregnant’, and I can’t believe like, in the back of my mind before I was like ‘you know, I’ll be sad if I can’t
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw