Why do some pregnant women become so self absorbed?

[bobbypinseverywhere]

Genuinely curious, this is inspired by my own experiences (infertility) and also it seems a few others on here today have felt the same recently.

Why, when pregnant, are some women unable or unaware of being considerate of other people? eg endlessly talking about their pregnancy or kids to others who they know are either infertile or post miscarriage? I don’t mean the usual pleasantries eg I’ll always ask how’s baby, how are they sleeping, how’s nursery etc etc, but seemingly being unable to talk about anything else the whole time or be aware of the effect it may have on others.

It is pretty obvious that people post miscarriage for example are going to find it difficult to listen to someone’s pregnancy stories all evening. I do also think that conversation topics (regardless of the audience) should be varied - out of politeness, eg it’s rude to talk about your work all evening so why are babies any different?

I’m not talking about when people don’t know, as that can’t be helped, but when I think they should know better and be more thoughtful! It’s like some women become so self absorbed and don’t care about anything or anyone else - but then expect all the support in the world themselves? So AIBU?

Well, no, but I think you'll find women who do that were pretty self-absorbed in the first place.

Often people just don't get what it's like to struggle with infertility or miscarriage unless they've been there. I know it wasn't on my radar until I started having miscarriages.

Not an excuse for twatish behaviour though.

I think some people are very self absorbed generally and when something big is happening in their lives, it gets multiplied, no matter what the experience is. Speaking from my own experience, I have a friend who was always quite self centred, but now there's something big happening in her life (not pregnancy), it's all she ever talks about.

@phineyj funnily enough my friends seemingly go back to normal in between pregnancies! But I do appreciate what you are saying and I’m definitely not saying all pregnant women are like that

@Waitrosescheapestvodka that’s definitely true, it’s been a shock to me how difficult it is and I didn’t understand it before. Some of my friends have even gone on about how the fall pregnant too easily

I’ll repeat what I said on the thread that likely inspired this one... it’s not all pregnant women. It’s a certain type of woman who feeds off being the centre of attention. They type of women who organise lavish birthday parties for non milestones.

It usually starts with engagement and runs directly in to wedding - it’s all the can talk about as it’s all that’s important in their world. I honestly think some have babies just because they’ve come down so hard after their wedding they’re desperate to be centre of attention again.

These type of women will always be self absorbed and don’t tend to age well 👍🏻

I’m 6 months pregnant with my first DC and don’t act like this- I didn’t as a bride either. I never ‘announce’ anything on SM or throw parties for myself 😂 it’s not all women.

Not pregnant, never have been, never will be, but settling in here with popcorn....

It’s far from universal. Other people seemed far more obsessed with my pregnancy than I was, and wanted to talk about it more. I was ferociously busy trying to finish a big project before I went on maternity leave, and tbh, I was much more about that.

I think when you know “the first woman who’s ever been pregnant” she’s usually also the first woman who ever got married or bought a house, went for a new job, etc and people who get obsessed with their pregnancies are usually like that about everything.

i don't think you can understand infertility unless you've experienced it. Even TTC, I had two early losses and it only took 6 months to conceive but I was like a basket case. I can't imagine the state of my head if I'd gone through years of it or treatments.

Similarly being pregnant was the most amazing and overwhelming experience that I couldn't wrap my head around and just felt disproportionality huge. So I can imagine I was an insensitive dick head. In fact I know on one occasion I was beyond insensitive, and went back and apologised.

I don't think it's always a case of them being self-absorbed, but when you have kids they literally take over your entire life. When you spend all night waking up to deal with your dc and all day looking after them, putting them first, making decisions based entirely on them, sadly sometimes the interests you had pre-kids crumble away and all you have left to talk about is your kids.

Often people just don't get what it's like to struggle with infertility or miscarriage unless they've been there.

But sometimes it’s people who have struggled. I find that even more difficult to deal with. My only infertile friend who used to be someone who would understand how hard scan photos etc were kept sending them to me when she got pregnant.

I think women like that were probably inconsiderate before pregnancy as well

I think some pregnancies and definitely most newborns can be all consuming. It’s like being in a bubble, I honestly had some brain freeze the first year of my child’s life, I didn’t endlessly talk about her but I struggled to hold a decent conversation due to lack of sleep probably.

My only infertile friend who used to be someone who would understand how hard scan photos etc were kept sending them to me when she got pregnant.

I can’t get my head around that. How horribly disappointing and hurtful from someone who knew better. Did she then deliver the messiah? People can be dicks.

I also suffered from infertility and so am not trying to hurt you - but have you considered that it’s our silence around infertility / miscarriage / stillbirth that’s wrong? I ttc for 10 years before I had my DC recently, and found I was unable to talk about my pregnancy at all. When labour started I even became silent so the midwives during my induction had no idea I was even labouring until my waters broke and I called them (I was 4cm by that point).

I think instinctively I was dreading the worst.

I also suffered from infertility and so am not trying to hurt you - but have you considered that it’s our silence around infertility / miscarriage / stillbirth that’s wrong?

So it’s up to the ones suffering to talk about it more?

Genuinely not sure. Yeah lm sure it’s quite consuming but surely not to the extent why you may not realise others may find it boring or distressing. Being brutal but lm not sure it ends with pregnancy, they then have children and all they talk about is them. My BIL and his wife were genuinely convinced they were the first people ever to have 2 children

I have a “friend” who loves to tell how easy my life is compared to hers, as she has 2 children and works. I have had fertility issues for a couple of years, now unemployed thanks to poor physical / mental health after IVF failed. Even when l was ill and queasy from fertility drugs then l still had it “easier” she thought and she told me that. Not sure how, especially as they didn’t even work. It’s not just one big competition, surely more than one person can be struggling?!

When l was doing IVF then l admit it took up 90% of my waking thoughts. I only expressed a small percentage of this and mainly to my partner. The whole infertility experience has made me realise how tactless and thoughtless a lot of people are

@Igotmylipstickon good points

If you are struggling with pregnancy and living day to day it can be hard to think about anything else.

Is another possibility.

I think that this is a relatively new thing, I don't recall, 40 years ago, encountering the attidute of 'I'm pregnant, adore and worship me' that seems to be the norm, certainly it was never a subject I had with friends in great detail nor did we agonise over the most trivial decisions. My attitude was How hard can this be, it's happened all over the world for years.

Quite agree op. I used to have a couple of friends who I would meet up with regularly. Honestly the only thing they could talk about were pregnancy, childbirth and their bloody kids. Not only was I struggling to conceive, which they knew about, it was so fucking boring. No longer friends needless to say. There's something about having kids that makes some women so damn smug, like they're saying ooh look at me, I'm sooo clever.

I will say this- whilst some women can be very self absorbed in their weddings/pregnancy’s, they are NOTHING on the women I know who ‘don’t believe in marriage’ or ‘choose not to have kids’.

In my personal experience wedding ^ these women not only dominate the conversation but also ram their opinions on everyone else’s choices down any throat they can find.

😒

They're usually just self-absorbed about everything and it's the latest one - which hurts more as it constantly hits at something that is really raw for you. Been there with a combination of crap fertility and recurrent miscarriages and I can still remember the hurt - I dialled it right down when I was finally pregnant with my sticky one as a result.

@ PurpleDaisies - The stats speak for themselves. Women who suffer from infertility are more likely to get anxiety and pnd after a successful pregnancy. I had my DC last week and all throughout pregnancy I was convinced I would miscarry or have a stillbirth and so didn’t talk about it. I didn’t even tell friends I was pregnant. And now DC is here and I still can’t enjoy him - I am convinced something will go wrong. Luckily for me my midwives recognise that women with a history of infertility do react like me and I have been supported excellently. But it is wrong that when I was going thru my infertility it felt like I was wrong to talk about my losses - to the point where some of my friends (pregnant or not) would try to brush the comments off. So eventually I stopped talking. I think a lot of infertile women do this. And this means we are shoring up problems for the future.

Sorry, your post read like infertile women should feel obliged to share their struggles. I see where you’re coming from now.

It’s wrong for others to shut down conversational about miscarriage, still birth and infertility but nobody should feel they need to share if they want to keep it private.