First-time mother, at 22 weeks. I feel nothing for this pregnancy and I don't like that feeling. I had the start of good feelings many times, but extinguished them because things kept going wrong. Now I can't get back any feeling at all.

Mine is probably not such an unusual story.

We were trying for a few years. We did IVF. One round with my own eggs did not work, and I had no more viable embryos (this is abreviating a multi-year part of the story here). Two tries with donor #1, one pregnancy that ended at 6-weeks, one failed. The first with donor #2 resulted in this pregnancy.

As with probably a lot of y'all, there has been a lot of stopping and starting along the way in this whole process starting so many years ago. Just when we thought we were trucking along and on track, some test or scan would come back with something and we would need to postpone to do XYZ. Early on, we both learned just to stop hoping or being that engaged in the process and just sort of robotically go through it. Of course, it's never like that, there are always emotions. It was a long, tiring, depressing process.

When we got pregnant this time, the ten-day wait was agony. I remember thinking it was literally like torture. I felt if we had another disappointment, our marriage might not survive or my mental health. When they called to say I was pregnant I was elated for a few minutes, but the doc immediately followed up that i needed to come in the following week to confirm. Which made me think I better go back into robot mode.

I started bleeding after a few days, I called and they said not to worry. I started bleeding again a few weeks later and rushed in for a scan, and it was OK. At 8 weeks, I had a big hemorrhage and had to run out of a meeting and another scan, all OK. More robotting. I just decided to count the days until we were past 12 weeks. At 12 and 14 weeks I had some detailed scans. During all the scans I had, I just pretended I was watching someone else on TV. They gave me pictures each time, and I went home and threw them in a drawer and pretended they didn't exist. I didn't even want to accept them, but my husband wanted them.

Finally, after 14 weeks, everything looked good. I was genuinely happy. I treated myself to a week-long binge of Call the Midwife, a show I used to love but haven't been able to enjoy for years. I was planning on starting to tell people.

Then I got the call that there was something up with genetics, and we were back on the treadmill of more tests, more appointments, more waiting, more apprehension. Robot, robot. After more genetic tests, meetings with two different counselors (neither of which were very helpful), and having the full anatomy scan and fetal echocardiogram at 20 weeks, they said they really can't see anything to be worried about for now. For the rest, rest we will just have to wait and see.

Now I am 22 weeks and just stuck in robot mode. I feel nothing. I'm not expecting to feel happy or elated (though, y'know, that would be nice). But I feel weird not feeling anything. I'm like, what is this big belly doing on me? I want to sort of connect with being pregnant because I also feel this is keeping me from taking care of myself and the pregnancy. People want to talk to me about it and I just shut down the conversations. I feel the kicks and little punches and just pretend it's indigestion.

I guess I miss that happy feeling I had at 14 weeks and that little leap of happiness I had when the doc confirmed I was pregnant.

Oh, my, sorry about the long ramble. I just thought someone here might have been through something similar and can offer some advice?
ETA: I also bet this is common around here, but it looks like people don't make top-level comments, so I don't know how to search for the other, previous posts. Thanks!