NC. Sorry this is long but I'm at my wits end and needed to try and get this out in writing. I am currently pregnant with my first. Context is DH and I have been trying for a while with some difficulties and had some fertility treatment etc before luckily falling pregnant naturally in the end. I'm an "older" mum too, and there have been some risks but all good now. So obviously I've had a long time to read all about pregnancy and get myself fit and prepared.
Lately, I have seen a number of friends socially for the first time since they've known about pregnancy. All of them have DC of their own, of various ages from babies right up to grown up children. I appreciate that between them there is a wealth of parenting experience. However, I have found myself feeling increasingly frustrated, bogged down and overwhelmed by all the advice I've been getting. It has been relentless. I really feel it's oppressive and overwhelming me. From advising me what vitamins to take, to what pillow to use, what to do during the birth, what changing mat, cot, sleep regime, how to breast feed, how I will feel, how I will fail (it's only natural), and so on. Now I'm sure that much of the advice is true, but I have felt ready to cry or scream at times with the sheer relentlessness of it. I went out for a drink with my good friend at the weekend and she went on and on for about an hour with this stuff. I felt I really wanted to cry by the end. I felt so disempowered and deflated like it was all hopeless.
One of the hardest aspects is that because I don't have children, it feels like there's nothing I can say in return. I have no leg to stand on because they have been through it and I haven't. Because the response will always come back as 'you don't know what it will be like until you have one'. Which is of course true. But then it feels like I have to just sit there and have all this advice told to me over and over again. There have been a few times when a friend has been going on and on about something, eg a sleeping position, or diet, and I have said I am already doing that, and they haven't even heard me and they just carried on going on about what I should be doing.
Everyone's an expert it seems. My friend at the weekend is not someone I would have ever expected this from- she is normally very chilled out, quite a hippy, easy going and of a "live and let live" sort of view, but even she was telling me how I would feel and what was the best thing re the birth etc. I don't want to be told how I will feel. I find that really hard to hear.
Also, I have been reading a lot of books on parenting etc and just doing my own research on a few bits, and on the few occasions I've mentioned something I'd like to 'try' (like having a next to me cot for example) I get immediately shut down- "well that will be impossible if you have a baby who refuses to sleep anywhere except in your bed", or "well that won't work if you have a needy baby", or "if you have a clingy baby you can forget this / that etc etc".
I know I don't have all the answers- no-one does. But I'd like to feel I have the opportunity to plan for my child in the way I want to, and give certain things a go. If they don't work out then I'm an intelligent adult and I'm sure DH and I will work something out. But I feel patronised and stifled / claustrophobic by all the advice and opinion I've received from my female friends lately. I have literally come home from seeing them and cried. I'm shocked about it because in some cases we are talking about close friends whom I would never have thought would be so full on, and they are not the sort of people who normally tell me what to do about any other aspect of my life. There's something about this motherhood thing that seems to make other women feel they are the experts. In many ways they are- of their OWN experiences. But I just want to be free to have my own experience.
It's also patronising to advise me things that I'm clearly going to know about, given I've been TTC for so long and I'm not a young teenage mum who fell pregnant by accident. For example, a friend this weekend reminded me I shouldn't eat certain cheeses like Camembert, or raw meat, or do any risky sports where I might fall over.... It was all I could do to not scream "FFS I KNOW!!!!!"
I think I have a hard time being told what to do anyway, but I feel like these friends are almost just ignoring my voice, and invalidating my experience. I can't stress enough, these friends are not normally like this and I've never felt about them like this before. I had a tough childhood and one of the things I am hopeful for is that I'll be a better mum that my own mother was. Whatever I say, and however hopeful I am about my parenting, or however much DH and I look forward to being good parents, I get told "well you might have a difficult baby", or "your baby might be a crier and there'll be nothing you can do to stop it" and that's that. As if what I do is completely irrelevant. On the flip side if that, they will also say that if my baby is calm or happy that it's only down to pot luck.
I just want to curl up and cry and it's got to the point that I'm terrified to talk about my pregnancy with any girlfriends. I change the subject and talk about other things because I can't bear it. I feel like I want to keep my pregnancy secret from people, although that's not possible, or just hide away at home and stop speaking to anyone. It's made me feel quite depressed about it all and I'm struggling to feel optimistic as I was before, after trying to conceive for so long.
I don't know if anyone can understand this.