Pregnant at the same time as my mum – feeling weird about it!

So if both had babies at 16 then the grandmother shouldn't have a baby with her steady partner at 32. Where do you draw the line.

Yes but with 20 something year old eggs.

I feel like there’s a lot of pressure now to pretend getting pregnant at 45 is great and normal, it just isn’t. There are a lot of health side effects and frankly doing primary school runs in your mid 50s is 😩

As someone already said, this used to be perfectly normal. I have a couple of cousins who are older than two of my uncles.
Why 'used to be' as if it was something freaky
I think she is referring to the days of large families where there was a big age difference between youngest and eldest sibling.
These days generally speaking ,women tend to have children at an older age than previous generations and smaller families.

A friend of mine was pregnant at the same time as her mum.
Her mum had my friend was she was a teen so a young mum herself and my friend was early 20s when she fell pregnant, my friends mum was late 30s.
Fast forward 12 years later and my friend's daughter and her mums daughter are the best of friends even though technically they are aunty and niece. The relationship between my friend and her mum is stronger than ever.
The young children have sleepovers at each others houses, my friends mum takes my friends daughter on holiday with them (they didn't have anymore children after) they do a lot of family occasions together and she is still a fantastic grandma to all her other grandchildren (8 in total).
You're not unreasonable to feel the way you do, but I would try and not let it affect your relationship with your mum. It could be the best thing for your relationship or the worst, you won't know yet until you get to that point.

I am early 60s.I do primary school runs, child care & hold down a job & I am happy. Perhaps in your eyes I should be sitting at home knitting😂

I understand OP. Usually, grandparents are the only people for whom your own DC are the most important people in the world - so I understand feeling a bit sad about an imagined alternative universe where you and your DC have your mum's full attention. But as others have said, at the end of the day this used to be more common for the oldest daughters. Hopefully it will be a blessing!

Granted, it’s unusual and I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do. But remember, this is still a special time for you and no-one can take that away from you. Secretly, I think your mum’s nuts. She had you so young and this should be her time enjoy herself but she wants to go right back?? No thanks. I couldn’t think of anything worse personally but each to their own. Your babies will (hopefully) be like cousins.

Im guessing you knew she was TTC before you got pregnant? So you knew it was a possibility and not too much of a shock.

I know somebody this happened to but she was well into her pregnancy and was completely shocked when her mum announced her own pregnancy. It did completely change the dynamic and the way she thought things would be- realistically the grandparent experience it is going to be very very different when your mum has her own newborn to look after. She did once say to me she’ll never quite forgive her mum and it’s created a bit of a strain, but it is what it is and her DC has grown up close to her sibling- sort of like cousins rather than uncle and nephew.

Completely understand why you feel that way OP.

This
I can understand why you feel as you do OP.
Take care and I'm sure your feelings will settle as time goes by.
You have every right to feel as you do.
Congratulations to you and your husband

In fairness, I think that the 4 years of motherhood are what age you dramatically! My good friends from the baby days are 10 years older than me. In pregnancy, there was little difference between us, health wise. Now 5 years into motherhood, we're all feeling it ! Hitting 45 without ever having had a sleepless year is very different from 45 and 15 years of child reading under your belt.

If you ever watch ‘kids and counting’ the Radford family have lots of kids younger than their grandchildren and the mum has been pregnant at the same time as a daughter many times .

I'm same age, do school runs and work too. I am a grandma and I don't like knitting😁

This is the plot of Father of the Bride 2!

People are entitled to have children when they want, but OP is not unreasonable to find it weird. No matter what age you are, your parent having another child brings up all sorts of feelings. It doesn't matter if you're 2, 12, or 42. Your parent is your parent and it's natural to have feelings about a sibling and a parent being pregnant. Your feelings are your feelings and there's no such thing as them being wrong!

Think of it this way though OP, your child will have a ready made bestie to grow up with.

I have a niece who is older than me 🤣 I'm 31, and have 3 half brothers. One is 41, and the other two are late 50's. My dad was 49 with fully grown children and a grandchild (my niece!) when he had me. It never felt weird growing up. My eldest brothers are more like uncles though, and I don't feel like a typical auntie to that niece, so it does change the dynamic.

People have all kinds of family dynamics and when it's here you will love your mum's baby, and she will love yours, don't doubt that :) but it's okay that it feels weird!

I'm so glad my 44 year old Mum took the gamble 🙄

My parents had been married 22 years before she became pregnant with me, presumably they shouldn't have bothered if some of the comments on here are anything to go by.

How far along are you both? Your mum has a mich higher chance of mc etc

I’ll bet OP’s mum is in a much better position in multiple ways than she was when she got pregnant with OP and likely will actually experience a stable relationship too. Plenty of positives that she less likely experienced at a younger age.

All positives for a baby too.

I had my children in my 40s and love having teenagers now. Women have always had babies in their mid forties.

I know a lady who had a15yr old and 6yr old. She came into work one day very upset as 15yr was expecting. We calmed her down and got her in a good place.
About 3 days later back she came sobbing about the baby. We were like yeah we know but it will be ok but she was sobbing because she had just found out she was expecting again! Not planned.
Both had great pregnancies. Daughter had her baby 3 weeks before the mum had hers so the niece was born before her aunty!
I know several people where aunties/uncles are younger than niece / nephews .

People are being very hard on you, OP, but you're entitled to your feelings. It sounds like you've been nothing but supportive to your mum, and came here looking for a space to work through your own feelings without hurting her. You've tied yourselves in knots explaining how happy you are for her. If PP choose not to see that and to tar you as an ungrateful daughter not letting your mum "live her own life", well that's on them.

I think most of us understood what you meant when you said you were hoping to have a mum in "grandma mode" during your first pregnancy. It's an overwhelming time, and many women do want to be able to lean on their mum. The kind of relationship you have with her now - "bump buddies" - is more like two friends going through it together. It's not the same.

You're not going to be able to let go and lean on her completely if it all gets too much. You're tired? Well, she's tired too, and older mums always feel it more, so best keep it to yourself and not complain. In your shoes, I would definitely find myself holding back, and serving as more of a support for my mum than the other way around.

Your mum doesn't have to live her life entirely for you, but it's natural to feel you've lost out on something.

Why, because she’s older? A lot of the older mums I know are trapped in bad relationships that they rushed into at 38 because they felt it was their last chance. This assumption that older equals more stable relationship is nonsensical.

Don't be so vile, you need counselling having that attitude to hearing about a much wanted pregnancy. That's OP's sibling you are talking about!

It’s factual. Not always of course but it’s more likely.

Just as it’s more likely age comes with financial stability as well.

Not always, outliers do exist but they are just that, outliers.

Yet we have so many 50+,60+70+ year olds just "being granny" aka childcare to 5+ year olds and younger. I am sure if people can look after their grandchildren when they are 60+, people will be able to look after their own kids at 50 (bar ill-health of course)