To be upset that no one seems interested

[Liss85]

I'm 19 weeks pregnant with my first child and no one seems excited or interested in it and it's starting to get me down.

I don't get on with my mother. There a lot of long seated reasons and basically she was a toxic person in my life. I reached out with wedding invitations when I got married and she started arguments over it and refused to go, neither did my father. I decided to try again by asking my husband to send her our scan picture. She said thanks but complained she'd already seen it on his Facebook (she didn't look at her messages for several days after it was sent). He replied with lots of info about how I was doing and to text me if she wanted and we never got another response from her.

My sisters ask how I am if I contact them first etc and have given me hand me downs but they have 10 kids between them so I feel like they're not bothered about mine. They don't seem overly interested and don't check up on me or anything to see how I'm doing.

DH's brother and his OH barely mention it if we see them (which isn't often as they live in the south, we live in the north). The OH's sister is 2 weeks behind me but announced much later and when they found out she got a big basket full of baby clothes, toys and pregnancy books etc and we didn't get anything.

We met up with my husband's parents tonight. We see them fairly often. I thought they, of all people, would be excited with this being their first grandchild and they seemed happy when we announced it but they've barely mentioned it. They don't ask about it, it doesn't get talked about, they don't seem excited or interested. They talked about themselves the entire night. Didn't ask how I was. In the middle my MIL asked when the scan is (as it's soon) and if we'd get pictures and that's the only time it was mentioned all night or even hinted at. Last time DH mentioned that no one seemed excited about it and that I'd like it if they were as I'd talked to him about being upset but it doesn't seem to have done anything.

DH is wonderful and supportive but I just feel like no one else cares.

I suffer from depression. I came off my meds to conceive (and they weren't working well) and have been fine up until the last few weeks where I've been seeing the odd symptom. I feel like this is all making it worse but I don't know if maybe it just seems worse because of the depression? AIBU to be upset?

Thanks for reading the long post.

Liss - generally speaking, my generation were brought up to be reserved and keep our feelings under tight control which is fine, but often these days is seen as stand-offish or cold hearted when (in my case) nothing could be further from the truth.
And to Sunday, a gentle reminder that the overwhelming love you feel for your babies, that strong, protective, "walk through fire for them" feeling never goes away.
Never fades, even when they are grown adults with children of their own.
If only I knew how to put a smile on here....

Congratulations on your pregnancy--it really is a lovely time, but can also be a long time to wait, and I know what you mean about wanting others to be enthusiastic while you are in this middle patch.

Your mother sounds like a little bit of a lost cause, but I suspect your in-laws are just more old fashioned. Often older people are wary of getting too interested in the baby until it's safely hereI experienced something similar and found out that there was a family tragedy lying behind the apparent indifference that even my DH didm;t know about. Just scared to be excited in truth. It might be worth talking to MIL about how she felt when pregnant with DHyou might discover something similar...

Sounds like BIL's OH was just going overboard for her own sister with the basketunderstandable she's not as close to youor would be uncertain as to if it was appropriate. People are funny when it comes to social protocol, as a quick trawl through mumsnet will show you!!!

Once the baby is safely here they will all be delighted, I would bet. To be fair you might find it equally wearing if they were all wound up to an incredible pitch of excitement and asking you about your every moment every day! Happy mediums are hard to find sometimes.

Best of luck with it allremember it is your special wonderful time and no-one can veer take that away from you. Your DH sounds lovely and supportivethat is the person you really want to be enthusiastic after all!

Exactly same thing going on here.
We've moved closer in mil and hasn't even mentioned this baby. Her other grandchild lives 3 hours away so thought she would be interested but nope nothing.

No one seems interested. It's dps first baby so I feel so sad for him 😒😪

There have been threads on MN about Parents/In Laws demanding an update every second of every day, demanding to be at scans and at the birth, using their jobs to access the pg womans notes, threatening to gatecrash the labour ward and kicking off MASSIVELY when they dont get their own way.

Count your blessings!

Congratulations, OP. Your relationship with your dreadful-sounding mother is a separate issue, and you sound as if you've done the right thing there - but I wonder whether her obvious lack of interest in your life is making you rely to heavily on interest in your pregnancy from other people? Because, honestly, pregnancy is most interesting for the pregnant person - the only way most other people can register interest is by asking the same bloody questions and remarking on bump size and asking whether it's a boy or a girl and giving frequently repetitive/moronic advice or trying to scare you with blood-spattered tales of the labour of some semi-imaginary friend of a friend etc etc.

You sound as if your self-esteem is low, and you are equating interest from other people in your pregnancy with worth. I think you should focus on yourself and enjoy your pregnancy as much as possible - I spent most of mine in a different country to my husband, family and close friends (for work) - and circumstances meant I didn't tell anyone other than DH till I was 17 weeks) so really spent it in a quite solitary way, which I liked, especially as the baby (astonishingly, who is now my fabulous four year old) started to make his presence felt more and more. If you want to talk more about it and to feel more publicly 'noticed' check out what NCT stuff is going on in your locality - not just the classes, but I seem to remember there were meet-ups for pregnant women too, and you didn't have to be a member to go. Or pregnancy yoga, which I liked.

There have been threads on MN about Parents/In Laws demanding an update every second of every day, demanding to be at scans and at the birth, using their jobs to access the pg womans notes, threatening to gatecrash the labour ward and kicking off MASSIVELY when they dont get their own way.

Count your blessings!

And this, definitely.

Thanks for your input Billygoat- I'm sorry you felt you couldn't share your feelings. It may be the case for us but generally my MIL doesn't have a problem sharing her feelings or opinions.

cunninggarticifer - it could well be the case since this is a high risk pregnancy too. I'm on daily injections of blood thinners and have several chronic illnesses that make it difficult so perhaps that's why. We were definitely quieter about it until the 12 week scan as we were worried there would be problems.
It probably is that BILs OH is close to her sister and given that she's probably the one in charge of sorting stuff like this. She did say she was going to get me books etc when I first told them but she seems to have forgotten since her sister's announcement.

It's definitely true that a happy medium is hard to find!

Harboromummy - sorry to hear you're in the same situation. Parents are funny things!

Bogeyface - I have often thought that actually. Somewhere in the middle would be preferable but at least I don't have to tell anyone to butt out.

Dryshampoo - you could be right there. I've always had low self esteem and problems with it. A lot of my depression stems from it and my first warning signs for depression are feeling isolated, paranoid and feeling like no one likes me. Most of it stems from childhood. I think you're right - if I had the kind of support from my mother that most people get from theirs then I wouldn't be looking to my PIL. I guess I was relying on them to be excited because I knew no one else would be. They have definitely been my substitute parents for a lot of things because I've been with DH since I was 14 and they know what my parents are like. I definitely always seek validation from others because I lack confidence in myself. I also have social anxiety so relationships are difficult for me.

Well, in not very long you're about to enter into a relationship that's like nothing you've ever had before in your life, and where social anxiety isn't a factor because you made the person you're having the relationship with! Not to be facetious, though - and certainly many women find the very first months incredibly dicey (I know I did) - but the best thing you can do for yourself and your child is to work on your own self-esteem and happiness. How self-validating and centred you are will be an enormous help to him or her as well as to you - imagine the difference between having the kind of mother you had and having had a nurturing, happy, confident mother who was in a good place herself and also interested in and supportive of you. You're already in a good place because you've seen how not to mother.

Best wishes for the rest of the pregnancy, and don't sweat other people's attention.

Thanks. I wish I knew how to work on it to be honest. Nothing much I've read about improving it has helped and our counselling services are shocking. I'm sure I can still be a supportive, nurturing mother despite that though.

How are you feeling now Liss?