Annoying "when I was pregnant" top trumps

[clarissa469]

Does anyone else get really pissed off when other mums/mums to be spout how amazingly active they were when they where pregnant and how "all other women milk it, when I was pregnant I vomited everyday even in my sleep and had to walk 6000 miles to work with 5 kids on my back whilst breast feeding and doing the shopping!"

Good for you, Linda.

I'm pregnant and swollen and hungry and I'm not moving for 9 months. This is my first child. Let me milk it.

(Just needed to vent)

Like I get it as women we have "something in common" but like I do not need your life story plus I didn't ask for it. Just a quick note, as OP I'm not actually pregnant at the moment I was just thinking back to when I was and my ex MIL was just a bit insanely pushy much.

Every pregnancy is so different?! Oh and as for breast feeding my baby was tongue tie, 6 weeks early and wasn't able/didn't have the suck reflex and the midwife took one look at my nipples and how flat they are and said "doubt we will get anything out of those." We had to train our baby over time to suckle on a teat, as our baby had to be tube fed!

At a family party, someone outside of the family a friend, a male whom I'm quite close with asked me if I was breastfeeding and before I had the chance to say "no baby was ill, tube fed, was in an incubator under a blue light for jaundice for a while." He just said "aw that's a shame" oh is it? It would've been a shame if my baby was born in the 1800's and would've starved to death.

Wow, I'm on a rant this morning and it's not even 7am yet 😂

YANBU OP
Just as annoying IMO is too trumps the other way I.e my pregnancy was much worse and my birth much more painful than yours...
You see it on MN all the time.
OP posts asking for advice on a horrific pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding experience whatever it is - and the majority of the replies start with a cursory response to the OP such as ‘it sounds like you’re having a bad time’ and then proceed to type 20 paragraphs about their experience and basically, how is was so much worse. People are so vain.

People are allowed to talk about their experiences.

They should not be silenced, any more than you should be.

Tact and forbearance are both needed, from both sides in this hypothetical scenario. not demands that others shut up.

Oh yes. One person in particular. Every time we speak theres something to be top trumped. Ugh

"are you sure it isn't twins?!"

Fuck you, Patricia.

Yanbu, although I experienced it the other way. Other than horrendously low blood pressure, and intense nausea that lasted until about 18 weeks. I had a pretty easy pregnancy. In fact it was only the last week or so when I couldn’t eat without being sick that I really struggled. The amount of times I was told that ‘I didn’t know I was born’ and had to listen to other mums list every detail of their horrific pregnancies. It was the same after my straightforward labour. It honestly felt like a race to the bottom, everyone falling over themselves to tell me how much worse they’d had it.

It seems to me that whatever our experience, there’ll always be a group of mums ready to tell us that we’re wrong. The sad thing is the judgement from some of these mums only gets worse when the baby is here.

Also OP, you might come to realise a lot of those women are glossing over it and say stuff to make themselves avoid thinking about it. Many of us have PTSD from pregnancy/birth/pnd/whatever else and it's a way of coping and talking about it.

There is no one else to tell apart from other women. Because it's ignored, and it's the only way it's ever heard.

As someone upthread said: this is only the beginning of the Mumupmanship!

It gets so ridiculous with "he's reading at 1/toilet trained at 14 months/running for election at 18 months". Funnily enough, now that they are grotty, spotty and grumpy teenagers there is silence regarding their children's achievements!

Congratulations and enjoy your experience.

"You know what they say. Easy pregnancy... difficult baby!"

Said to me by various people when they asked me how I was finding pregnancy and I said I was enjoying it.

I found that the 'top trumps' aspect was always the opposite of my own experience - I did have rough pregnancies, extended HG both times which meant around half of each pregnancy in hospital on a drip to combat the dehydration and meds to try to relieve the sickness. But even so, I was told I was 'pregnant, not ill by several people. Otoh, I had relatively straightforward labours and births and (often the same) people couldn't wait to regale me with their horrific birth experiences. Same once the babies were born - mine were Ff, on medical advice in both cases, but I was told how awful and selfish I was, but when mine slept through the night their babies hadn't slept for more than 10 minutes EVER!

I soon realised that there was little point talking about any baby/child related subjects with certain people, because their (always opposite) experience would automatic trump mine. Which is why, now that my dcs are in their late 20's and 30's, there are a lot of things that even members of the close family do not know about them.
@clarissa469

I sincerely wish you all the best and hope your pregnancy gets easier and that you are able to enjoy it.

Vent away OP. And congratulations on your pregnancy!

I think older women can be worse for this (haha I'm 47, I don't mean me, I mean our mothers / grandmothers). I think that previous generations often lived closer to their families and had more support during pregnancy and the early months of motherhood, so things might not have seemed so hard for them. A lot of them wouldn't have been enduring undergoing pregnancy while holding down a job, either - it was common for women to give up work when they got married, and certainly when pregnant. And let's not forget the luxurious TEN DAY hospital stays, in private rooms with the baby in a nursery and only brought to you for feeds, that my MIL enjoyed after both her boys were born, in the early 1970s - in a NHS hospital, apparently that was the norm then. She has no conception of post-birth knackerdness because she was actually taken care of by professionals afterwards.

(I am not suggesting that a ten-day hospital stay is remotely luxurious if you're there for post-birth complications or a poorly baby, by the way - I'm talking about bog-standard post-natal care in the 1970s).

My friend acts as if she is the only person to have ever had a baby and always tells me how much I'm going to struggle. It's boring and I avoid talking to her

I was lucky , fantastic pregnancy. Birth not bad. Horrible baby though, I think I’m being punished for how easy I had it 😂

YANBU at all. Birth and parenting can bring out all sorts of odd behaviour. I remember once listening to one of my NCT cohort bragging about how her little one already had all her teeth - I mean, wtaf? Smile, nod, "how lovely", change subject.

Exactly! My ex MIL literally tore my relationship apart after having my baby.

She was on her own at home she was 44 with a five year old and a 1 year old. No family, no friends just her and the kids, husband (lovey yet a bit drippy ex FIL) was working away constantly.

After I had LO all she did was tell me she had to walk miles and miles to get to places, walking her one year old at the time (my ex) everywhere... "we didn't have buggies we couldn't afford them, we didn't have baby sitters or me time we went out to the park and collected leaves and did finger painting and PND didn't you exist we just got on with it, blah blah blah

She would also constantly harp on about the hardships she went through whilst being 300 years pregnant but she still managed to play rounders after her waters broke 🙄🤨

I had PND and I am still recovering, and she used to always tell me I should be out walking and shit. I ended up exploding. The only opinion that ever mattered on how I cared for my child was my HV, my MIDWIFE, My doctor, my Mum and ME! I told her to sling it and I told her I didn't need her advice, after all I'd seen the fruits of her labour!

I hated it when I was pregnant first time and people would tell me to enjoy the rest and I had no idea what I was in for; now I have to actively stop from telling people this.
I’m now on my second pregnancy and having to keep from telling people that it’s so much harder with a toddler.
I’m fully aware pregnant women don’t want to hear this.
I had a horrific first pregnancy (hospital from 27 weeks and premature birth) and it’s still hard to hear people moan about the last trimester but I do understand that everyone’s experience is their own and it’s all relative.

Pregnancy was shit. Giving birth was shit. I don’t feel like I trumped anyone or had it easier than anyone.
People’s stories are different and I don’t think it ever changes.
Growing up my aunties liked to tell my mum that she was doing it wrong, how her kids would never talk to them like that etc or their kids wouldn’t do x y z. Until their kids did worse than x y z and actually a bit of back chat to my mum was nothing. It’s like a weird competition you never escape from because when the are older it’s new comparisons. My darling daughter passed all her exams and yours failed them. My child bought a house and yours is renting.
Ultimately, we all end up the same in the end. The stuff inbetween is just fluff!

@user1493413286 wow, can't imagine what you went through. This too pisses me off majorly. I get it that women suffer, but I hate nothing more than people wishing their babies out early. My baby was 6 weeks early and really suffered, so I can't imagine 27 weeks. I even know someone who near enough self induced and made it her GOAL to get her baby out at 36 weeks. She succeeded, baby was very ill afterwards with jaundice. She still didn't learn her lesson, she's pregnant again and up to all sorts again! Disgusting

I don't entirely agree. Sometimes it is just trying to share experience in the same way if you say you have been to, for e.g., Morocco and I say oh I went there and Ioved the mint tea etc. Or might say be careful I had my purse nicked. Because birth is such an extraordinary experience, we have very strong memories. I try never to mention the bad bits!

No two people or two pregnancies are the same. My first one was strangely easy, no symptoms apart from kicking and the bump itself. This time around I feel like I'm constantly afflicted with something, and just feel generally unwell whether it's tiredness, nausea, cramping. So I know its not strictly a person to person thing, and people are not necessarily just harder than others. Some pregnancies just make you feel like shit for whatever reason.

Many of us have PTSD from pregnancy/birth/pnd/whatever else and it's a way of coping and talking about it.

There is no one else to tell apart from other women. Because it's ignored, and it's the only way it's ever heard.

Yes ^^^

I think a lot of women are total drama queens and incessantly moan about shite when they’re pregnant, hence why others are maybe a bit harsh in their reply? If a few people have tried the pregnancy top trumps with you maybe look at why (and the answer is probably you moaning a lot more than you think you are)

I had a fucking horrendous birth with my first, fucking horrific still haven't got over the trauma 17 years later.

My dsis had loads of complications during her first but didn't find it that bad and didn't understand my trauma.

2nd birth, mine was a breeze, could quite happily have done it all again the next day, my dsis had no complications but was even more traumatised than i was with my first. Her words "I get it now, it's horrific"

I don't think it's one upmanship, I think people who haven't had a traumatic time just don't get it and can't understand how or why it's traumatic, and those that have, just want to share their horrific experience with other people who have been through the same. They're not trying to outdo anyone they're just agreeing and adding their awful story.

!! It's hard work being pregnant and yes, it does sound very annoying that other people around you are saying how easily they breezed through it all.

However - word of caution - although pregnancy is quite hard (very hard if complications etc.) it really is absolutely NOTHING compared to the first 3 months after newborn arrives (particularly if you have a colicky baby or baby that doesn't really sleep in the day (hardly any sleep at night, so that's generally a given!!)

I remember my sister in law going on about how awful she felt during pregnancy. I felt sorry for her but also tried to ease her gently into the idea that actually, while she must feel pretty rough, this was nothing compared with what was about to come. She didn't really hear what I was trying to say - to be fair, most first time parents don't and most (including me) have no clue about just how hard things will be after the birth.

I wonder if some of your friends have small children and are looking back at their pregnancies with fond memories, since those are the last days that you are child free and can actually get a bit of sleep (even if it's not the most comfortable nights sleep due to bump and sciatica and all the rest of it)

Oh sorry ... And completely forgot to mention the actually birth - which can be extremely traumatic and generally pretty exhausting!! (unless you're one of the lucky ones!!)

Dad’s can be just as bad. We had our first baby together nine months ago and DH’s best friend just had his first about three weeks ago. Their baby is obviously absolutely perfect, his fiancée’s c-section went wonderfully and she was up and about within a day or two, their baby never even cries apparently.

Our baby is wonderful, he really is but he did cry a lot for the first two months which is completely normal and I had no shame in telling anyone that. I don’t understand why people think a newborn who doesn’t cry is something to marvel about- I would be so worried! Also it’s really normal to struggle for at least the first week following a c-section (or even a natural delivery!), I couldn’t walk for the first week at all.

In the end, there are absolutely no prizes for the quietist baby or the most natural and serene birth. I find the competitive nature of it quite bizarre. My best friend had a late miscarriage earlier this year so anyone with a live baby should just be grateful imo.