Do you feel like no one else understands?

[dappymoo]

God I am just getting really frustrated with the things people say and I don't know if it's my hormones but I just really wonder what people are thinking sometimes! I feel like EVERYTHING is offending me!

Like when the in-laws tell us we have no idea what we've let ourselves in for, our lives are over, we will have no social life anymore...etc etc

Or when my friends (no kids) say that "people have had babies for millions of years", like I don't know that, and to "stop worrying" when actually I hardly talk to them about it at all, only when THEY ask ME, and then they have useless retorts.

AHHHHHHHH!
OK this has kind of gone into "annoying comments people make", but I really feel sometimes that people DO NOT UNDERSTAND how this feels! Even women who have had babies themselves have somehow forgotten how sensitive a time it is and how massive a deal it seems to you personally.

AND actually it doesn't feel great when people say, "oh I nearly bought you a babygro but then i thought things could still go wrong..."

OH YEAH. THANKS!!!! (cos I never worry about that one...)

Ok. Must chill.

[Joolyjoolyjoo]

Yup- people seem to love glooom-mongering when you are pregnant. I always tell heavily pregnant women how easy my labours were, just to be different and to ignore all the people who tell you they were in labour for 64 hours in dire agony then ended up having a section, except the anaesthetic didn't work..... Ignore, ignore, ignore!

[dappymoo]

I don't understand why people want to be so mean! It's scary enough already!

[LittleSilver]

I remember the night before I went into be induced with DC!, lying awake worrying my head off and stressing out about all the bloody negative things people said about us having a fmaily (I was only 23 and a student). In the event, I stayed on my course, graduated with the rest of my cohort and we actually had another baby before graduation. It was fine. It will be fine OP, some people are just miserable sods.

[FatSeal]

Yes, people love the doom n gloom stuff. I particularly remember one day when I was about 7 months pg and working in some borrowed lab space in the lab next door to ours, one guy who had never spoken to me before (or since), made it his mission to sidle up to me and tell me about his wife's horrific birth. Thank you SO much, you nerdy little twerp, the ONLY thing he has ever said to me and he makes it a terrifying statement- why would you do this?!

So I'm on your bus. Smile sweetly and allow your internal monologue to give them the two fingers

[dappymoo]

Thanks guys! I'm glad it's not just paranoia!

[Bumperlicious]

Yes, then you get all the comments about just how fit their wife was, playing badminton till she gave birth, while you slump on the desk trying not to vomit over them.

And you will become public property. I had comments on the shoes I wore, swearing in front of the bump and people trying to touch it.

Gosh, it's such a magical time (not!).

[musicposy]

Oh, I'm so with you on this one!

Bumperlicious, I'd forgotten the bit where everyone touches you - still got that to come! Why do people do this? You wouldn't grope an almost stranger at any other time (well, I wouldn't )!

And the comments! Try expecting your third with a 14 and 10 year gap! Comments have ranged from the fairly mild but stilll irritating "Gosh, you're brave", to "Ooh, that's going to disrupt the lives of your poor girls" (yes, thanks for that), to complete and utter shocked silence, to actually telling my 10 year old that her life would be ruined by mum only having time for the baby! . I'm quite proud that I took that friend aside and actually got quite cross with her. I said it had taken us some while to persuade DD2 that the baby would be a good thing, and I was not impressed at her undoing my hard work. She did at least act contrite!

And why is it the person who has never had children who told me "it's not an illness, you know" when I was saying I felt lousy?

Dappymoo, you'll be fine. The baby will enhance your life in a wonderful, wonderful way. Your life will not be over. And pregnancy is bloody tough at times.

Sorry, this has been a hormone induced rant,(doing rather a lot of those recently ) but I so understand!!!

[dappymoo]

Haha! Oh god yeah someone did actually pat my "bump" the other day, and at only 12 weeks I did have to say, "actually I think that's just wind!!"

I think I need to come up with some good replies rather than welling up!

[Bumperlicious]

I'm going to repost this quote that I made a year ago, because it sums up how I feel again:

'I love the whole "pregnancy is not an illness" thing, no really I do.

It's not an illness when you throw up everyday for 2 months (if you're lucky) and still have to go into work feeling like you have the hangover from hell despite not being allowed to touch a drop of alcohol. And you're just imagining that your ligaments hurt so much you can barely walk. And those fluttery little baby kicks that actually feel like the baby has wedged it's foot between your ribs, and what ever it does with it's hands that makes it feel like it is trying to dig it's way out.

Veering between narcoleptic like tiredness and pregnancy insomnia (with for the record it not adequate preparation for the sleepless nights with a newborn). Heartburn, piles, itchy skin, not to mention a mental health so fragile you make Kerry Katona look normal. Plus the heart stopping fear that grips you when you worry that something might go wrong. Then the equally blood chilling fear when you thing that what if it actually all does go right and you end up with a baby - then what the frig do you do? Did I miss anything, oh yeah - labour. Like pushing a grapefruit through a nostril, and boys you don't know the meaning of the phrase "ring of fire" (having the runs after a chicken jalfrezi is not the same thing at all). That's before mentioning the sheer exhahaustion of pushing your insides out and having your most delicate bit of skin ripped to shreds then sewn up never to be the same again ("but that's why they call it labour dear").

"But at the end of it all you'll have a baby..." Yeah that's not really looking like a plus side at the moment.

Not an illness? My fricking, torn and resculpted arsehole it's not an illness.

Bring back confinement that's what I say! Then we can just take to our beds, be waited on hand & foot in a big house in the country away from all the annoying buggers who say "It's not an illness you know"'

[Jacksmybaby]

Well said, Bumperlicious!

[Librashavinganotherbiscuit]

If there was a love emoticon I would be using it right now.....

[musicposy]

Bunperlicious, I'm laughing so much! You've made my day!

[musicposy]

Sorry, Bumperlicious . Pregnancy mush brain as well as poor typing skills!

[upahill]

It is for the reasons that you mentioned Op that I didn't tell anyone that I was pregnant with DS1 until I was nearly 6 1/2 months. People just thought I was gettting fat and didn't like to comment where if I had said I was pregnant it would have been open season for comments and quips!!

[Bumperlicious]

I'm such a curmudgeonly pregnant woman!

[tartyhighheels]

Generally,I am a jolly pregnant woman but the other day after my oldest dd announced my pregnancy to the entire world, the school receptionist said'oh, we have heard your news, congratulations... oh are congratulations in order, or was it a bit of a suprise?'

I said 'do i look like a knocked up 16 year old?' of course bloody congratulations are in order - this is my fourth - and i am 40... weird as it is a catholic school and big families are muich more the norm - my dd's mates mummy is on her 7th!!!! makes me look like an amateur...

i have also had 'ooh. you are brave' , 'i never saw you as an earth-mother' (weird this one as i don't knit my own underwear from tofu), people have also started commenting on my high heels, which they did a lot in my last pregnancy - last time someone (a dull mother in flat shoes in the playground) suggested that wearing high heels when pregnant could damage the baby!!

[dappymoo]

hahahahhahhaha oh my god this is quality!

I swear if it wasn't for this forum I would have gone mad by now!!

I'm just waiting for the comments to start about my imminent trip to Vietnam.... you can just imagine can't you?
Maybe I should just say I'm going to Bognor...although someone is bound to say "oooh sea air can increase the chance of conjoined twins" or something equally ridiculous....

[MPuppykin]

Oh yes, completely with you all on this one. I have generally been fairly relaxed, but am so flipping miserable today. And am so so so tired of people touching my bump, feeling like crap, feeling scared to death of the birth itself, having to deal with my mother who lives in another country and weeps on the phone and e-mail that she will 'only be a picture on the mantlepiece' having people ask DH if he will be there at the birth, then (as happened yesterday) taking me aside and saying it it not a good idea as he will never fancy me again if he 'sees all that', and just generally feeling like rubbish. (My answer was 'if he was there at the conception he can be there at the bloody birth'). So glad that it is not just me who is royally fed up. And why DO people feel compelled to tell you all the horror stories? The only vaguely funny thing that happened this week is when a male colleague told me all about his wife's emergency c-section which happened after kazillion hours of labour and then the baby was blue but in the end 'there was nothing to [the birth] really.'.

Pregnancy may 'not be an illness' (LOVE Bumper's answer to that!) but it's uncomfortable and you can't even drink your way through it. Feel better after that rant though!

[LuckyC]

This weekend I have had:

1. 3 'you have no idea what you have let yourself in fors'/ 'your life is overs'

1. 1 'all the women with children at this party looked SO tired'

1. loads of 'your bits will never be the same/ a friend of a friend had hers sewn backwards'

1. I have noticed is exclusively from boring crappy people who use their young children as their excuse to never do anything interesting. All the cool people I know with little ones say 'You are going to have SO much fun.'

1. was from a single woman who is about to hit 40 and feeling very sensitive about it all. I therefore resisted the temptation to gently point out that she had just spent 20 mins telling me how exhausted and hungover she was, and that she looked like death on a swizzle stick.

1. These people have lots of terrifically unfortunate friends with inept doctors/midwives? Not sure actually as I AM terrified about the whole giving birth thing. Don't want to hear their second-hand horror stories though! Have resorted to saying airily 'Oh for God's sake, a bit of screaming, a bit of pushing and it's all over, don't be such an utter wuss.'

[musicposy]

LuckyC -

1. You will have fun. Having our two girls was a great excuse to do loads of things we didn't feel we could do without a kid in tow. Theme parks, zoos, sliding down huge slides and crossing rope ravines in play centres, seaside trips actually being fun and exciting again...I can't wait for number 3 and to do it all over again! Why do people say your life will be over? It's like all the people who've said to me "Gosh, you're brave". I think I will start saying "Am I? Why, exactly?"

1. A friend of mine who is 45 went on a lot this weekend about how she's so glad she hasn't got children because of this and this and that......I think it may be a case of protesting too much sometimes .

1. I'm sure these "friend of a friend" birth stories get wildly exaggerated. Yes, one or two of my friends did have tricky times, but that's certainly not everyone and not as bad as the horrro stories would have you believe.

People keep saying " aren't you worried about going through birth again?". My glib response is that DD2 vitually fell out and I'm sure this one will be the same, so, no! It's a bit of an exaggeration but I did actually sleep through all but the last 2 hours of labour so there's a story to counteract the horror ones. No one ever believes me but it's true!

[LuckyC]

Thank you, Musicposy

You are clearly not a boring person!

Channelling the sleeping through all biut the last 2 hours of labour thing...

[dappymoo]

Lovely musicposy. Lovely.
Now THAT is more like what we want to hear!!
(ok it actually made me cry a little bit. Not that that is hard)