Losing friends over PG Loss

[Flowingscreed]

I had a termination after a diagnosis of DS almost 5 years ago, my closest friends know this, others assumed I had a mc so I let them assume. I feel as if i have lost two friends over the loss of my baby.

The first assumed I had a mc and as I work with her DH I decided not to tell all as I didn't especially want my workplace to find out. She was really quite nice to me and was a newer friend, she bought cake and flowers and I really appreciated it at the time, we also said we would go out for lunch or something when I was feeling better. She then got pg about 2 months later. Her DH told me and I rang to congratulate her and said if she needed help when the baby came I would happily do shopping for her if she liked as she was like me with no family within hundreds of miles and when I had my DS I would have loved a bit of help. She was very weird on the phone and snapped at me saying they would manage and would not need my help. I never heard from her again. Her DH bought the baby in to work and she completely blanked me.

My oldest friend from college had a baby two years ago ( I have known her for 20 years). She does know I terminated and is a pschologist so is rather insightful of the human condition and was very supportive of me at the time She lives abroad and when she had her DD I sent flowers and then a really nice gift. I also rang and understood totally at the time why she could not come to the phone. So asked her partner to tell her to call me whenever she was free and if it took quite a while then I understood as newborns are very unpredictable. She never rang, she visited the UK last year but it coincided with us being abroad and I found out on a round robin email. She has just announced she is PG again on a round robin email.

Is it just me that has lost friends over a pg loss? I felt very upset about it today , it may be because they don't know what to say or they don't want a reminder of how pregnancies can go wrong. But don't you find out who your real friends are. I just feel terribly sad about it.

[Combinearvester]

Yes a surprising majority of people I know avoid talking to me in the second trimester of their pregnancies (I sometimes become interesting again just before the due date). I think it is what you are saying, that I remind them that their smug own pregnancies could go wrong.

I also lost a couple of my own close friends after my second trimester loss, but this was more due to their own emotional immaturity than anything else, similar to the way some people avoid bereaved people because they don't know what to say.

I have also lost touch with a couple of people because I was too depressed to answer people's texts / emails for a while and this caused some people to take offence / have a temper tantrum and I simply could not be bothered with it.

Could any of those things be the explanation behind your friends' crapness? I know it is easy to say 'they aren't worth it love' but it feels awful at the time.

[Flowingscreed]

Thanks for replying, sorry your friends have been useless as well. I didn't ignore communication from friends at the time, I guess I was a bit tearful to my longstanding friend. I remember supporting her when her utter git of a BF was treating her like utter dirt and we had been through a lot together.

I think the first part of your post is spot on, it is like you are some portent of doom or a jinx so they avoid you. Both of them were okay with me until they got PG. Your right their not worth it but it really is apart from the loss of my baby one of the most painful things I have been through. It is kicking someone when their down.

[cherrysodalover]

I also think people are just busy with their lives. If a friend has moved abroad it will be hard for her to see everyone when she returns home.I would not read so much into it.some of my close friends did not do the gift thing when baby was born.....some people just don,t do the gift thing I think.

[Combinearvester]

Cherrysoda I think you might have read the OP wrong.

Flowing I hope you are feeling a bit better now about your useless friends, you now have more room in your life for the friends that do matter.

[cherrysodalover]

I hope not- I am very sorry for her loss- that must be a hard thing to go through.
But I think we can also read into peoples' behaviour things that may not really be there at all and that would be a less hurtful interpretation maybe?
I'm not sure her friends have been useless- just have not behaved how the op thinks they should have but the truth is that people are busy with their lives and once babies come into it......some of my lovely friends have not replied to e mails I have sent since moving overseas.I don't take it personally- I get it.Sometimes you are too busy with your own family to find time to check in with friends, especially when you are removed from their world somehow.it does not make them useless- just because someone does not return a call does not mean they are avoiding you- she is just preoccupied with her baby.
So it only upsets you if you take the interpretation you are choosing if you see what I mean.

[cherrysodalover]

I also hope you feel less upset but I don't think your friends are in control of how upset you are and I think it is not worth losing a friend over- you will have no friends left if you expect people to behave how you think they should all the time.But i can imagine that what you have been through must have made you feel very upset so I understand you will be more sensitive- but I don't expect anyone who has not been through a miscarriage to truly be able to empathise- a lot of people are every matter of fact about it because it helps them to try to be positive about a sad occurence- i don't blame people for being this way-just a regular human coping mechanism.
Maybe you could contact the friend and have a direct conversation about it- nothing to lose.

[ghislaine]

Flowingscreed, unfortunately termination for abnormalities is not your typical kind of pregnancy loss. People often don't know how to react and when they do, they react not with kindness but in hurtful ways (even if that's not their intention). I've lost contact with (been cut off by) a few people after my termination for T21. All were pregnant or ttc when I ended my pregnancy and I don't think that this is a coincidence.

Some people will look down on you for their decision. Especially if pregnant, and things are going well, they find (y)our decision inexplicable. They might see themselves as the Hero Mother of their self-constructed pregnancy narrative, where they would love their child "no matter what". They can do this because they have not had to face the situation you're in.

Some people have a sort of atavistic/superstitious reaction - you're a totem of bad luck and they need to keep their distance. At some level, they think your baby's problems are catching.

Still others think that any mention of your child is too hurtful for you to bear. Rather than run the risk of having to talk to you about your baby, they decide not to talk to you at all.

And some think that you are jealous of their pregnancy/baby. So they keep you "protected" from that. Of course this effectively means never seeing you again. After the initial space that they try to give you goes on and on, they realise that they are too embarrassed to re-establish contact and simply give up on you.

[ghislaine]

Sorry, that should be "your" decision, not theirs.

[BartletForAmerica]

I've thought a lot about replying to something that ghislaine has said above and really feel I have to now. I am sorry for flowingscreed's loss of both her baby and her friends. I imagine it must be very difficult to feel you had to make that decision and then to deal with the reaction of your friends. While I wouldn't have made the same decision and wouldn't understand it, I would hope that if any of my friends did that I would continue to love and support them through their grief.

I also wonder whether those friends have not wanted to put you in difficult positions of making you admire a newborn baby, but have gone about it in a (unwittingly?) hurtful way of avoiding you because they don't know what to say or how to act 'right'. I would wonder about taking the opportunity at Christmas to send them a chatty Christmas card and then leaving it with them to make the next move.

But ghislaine said, "Some people will look down on you for their decision. Especially if pregnant, and things are going well, they find (y)our decision inexplicable. They might see themselves as the Hero Mother of their self-constructed pregnancy narrative, where they would love their child "no matter what". They can do this because they have not had to face the situation you're in."

I think this is very harsh, hurtful and unsympathetic towards people who say they would not make the decision to have a termination. You want people to be understanding of your decision yet set yourself as better than them. I have been/am currently in the situation of carrying a child with significant problems who is unlikely to survive to term. I have never considered a termination and can honestly say that my reaction has been to love my child "no matter what".

[ghislaine]

I think you've misread what I wrote, Bartlet. I was referring to those who "have not had to face the situation you're in". That is not the same as those who have and have made a different decision such as yourself to whom my comments don't apply. There is a distinction there, which I think perhaps you've missed.

[BartletForAmerica]

That's really not the implication I got from that. Just because someone has not been the same situation does not mean that you get to judge them in such a manner because they would make a different decision to you. Your comments were judgemental.

[BartletForAmerica]

And also what you are saying that people aren't allowed to have an opinion unless they have been in this difficult situation and are looked down by you until they do.

[Mum2be79]

I can understand how you feel.

I announced my pregnancy in May (to the entire world!) and only one person (my best friend from uni who I've known for 14 years) has almost completely blanked me. She took two days to respond to a text message (she is attached to her mobile) and when I did speak to her, seemed to skirt round the pregnancy.

I did begin to think that she and her husband were having problems TTC or that babies were, for some reason, not on the agenda, but I got the impression that it was a 'sore subject' so I never raised it. Having said that, her niece had a baby recently and she seems 'fine' to talk about her and let the world know what she's doing.

In those seven months since, she has NEVER rang me to see how I am doing, responded to FB status updates regarding the baby or the pregnancy (especially since a few problems arose from 20 weeks) or text me (actually she did once).

She's in my area during Christmas and asked if we'd like to meet up. Since I'm 39 weeks on Christmas Day, I said absolutely and that 'I wasn't going anywhere' - implying she could visit me as I did not want to stray 1 hour in the opposite direction of the hospital to do a visit! She never replied back!

What is even stranger is that her older sister communicates with me MORE on FB than she does. I last saw said friend in March when I went to visit her. I also visited her four months prior, which was three months after my wedding in which she was matron of honour. Apart from my wedding, it has been 20 months since she's been up to visit me and DH has told me that she needs to make more of an effort before I visit her. And he's right.

Unfortunately I also think that some people just 'grow apart'. I think this may be the case between said friend and I and it could be the case with your friends. Friends come and go in our lives and it maybe that these two need to be let go of. :(