To ask you to snap me out of it? Viscerally envious of pregnant friend after hideous mat leave

[Jelandguilty]

I know I’m selfish and horrible for feeling this way (have NC as don’t want associated with my usual account.

I had an almost 1 year old DS (born March last year) and going back to work in 4 weeks. We live far away from my family and the last year has been awful. DS was a long awaited IVF baby and likely to be my only child. I had so many dreams of my mat leave when finally pregnant- NCT friends, family, groups. Finally it was my turn! Then covid happened and the last year has been PND mixed with joy at watching my son develop and sadness at the lack of support, socialisation etc. We did NCT but we only had a couple of sessions before it went online and although we message we aren’t close as a group.

A very good friend is due in June and TTC during covid- absolutely fair enough. I had been open about the highs and lows but she was ready for a baby and didn’t want to hang about. She messaged last night so excited at how things should be normal by the time the baby is here. I am so happy for her of course, I wouldn’t wish my mat leave on anyone. But the message made my stomach clench and I honestly felt sick with jealously. My brain was screaming ‘She is having a baby on purpose during covid and SHE gets the lovely mat leave! The friends, the groups etc! You’ve sat alone in your house crying most days and will be back in work 4 days a week and never get that!!’

That’s not fair. It’s not her fault I know that, I’ve spoken to DH who’s supportive but just like it’s one of those things, you and DS will benefit on your days off, you can go to baby groups on your day off and on weekends we can go to soft play swimming etc.

I just feel so sad looking at the year that wasn’t. I’ll never do baby sensory or baby massage. I’ll never sit on a friends sofa having tea while the babies kick on the floor together. I know it doesn’t matter, DS doesn’t care but when I think about it I just feel so envious and I want to be able to be a kind supportive friend not a green goblin.

Please talk me out of it, anyone feel the same??

Maternity leave rarely works out the way you imagine it will in my experience...mine hated classes and screamed the place down at baby massage, but I do understand!

Be kind to yourself, it is easier at the moment to distance yourself from your friend for a time if you need to. Do you have good support for your mental health?

It must be so hard after IVF. I know people will think you're lucky for it to have worked, and would give anything for a baby, but at the same time, you've been through literal hell to get him (I say this as someone about to go through IVF.)

I guess you expected a reward at the end for the awfulness you've been through, and when it wasn't like that it must have felt like a burning injustice as so much does with IVF. You had to fight for your baby and now you have to go without an experience of a real maternity leave while seeing people blithely get pregnant around you. It's so hard especially as you had pnd.

You do have a beautiful DD however and that is wonderful. I'm sorry you didn't have the experience you wanted and deserved though.

I had baby 3 last year. It has been such a mixed bag I think it's totally fair enough to feel like you do. I was looking forward to lots of that too. On the flip side my baby is super chilled because all needs are met and we never have to go out screaming in a hurry to do anything. Grieve away but also look forward to the awesome fun you can have ahead. Toddlers are a lot more fun to hang out with! Not less challenging though...

@Timeforabiscuit

As someone who has had two children, the sensory baby massage and cups of tea NEVER BLOODY HAPPENED.

I mean I thought they would/should - but they were very much a fiction, I think an amalgamation of pampers ads and sitcoms where real babies are dolls.

I do treasure the memories of doing a quiet feed as dawn was breaking, of going for frosty walks, but though there were moments of joy, overall it was punishingly brutal.

I'm not saying that covid hasn't made a tough situation worse, or you can't grieve for a closing chapter - but you'll be able to take your new toddler to the zoo! To the beach! Have an ice-cream! You truly have some tremendously good times ahead.

^^ this Just never happened, attempted these things DD hated it, screamed her head off the whole time and in the end I gave up.

My toddlers were much more fun to get out and about with, and working PT means you treasure your days off with them and make the most of it. My happiest memories of the early years are not from age 0-1 but age 1-4, whilst I worked PT and had days out with them, and coffee meets, play centres etc

I get it but you are much better off having the looser restrictions now when your baby can appreciate it than you would have been having a baby in 2019 and a 1 year old through all the restrictions.
I never had an NCT group, baby massage or baby yoga because I couldn't afford to join when my babies were little. I still feel like I missed out on making mum friends. If that is important to you then make the effort to meet up on your days off.

I guess what I mean is, the best may be yet to come. And you’ll have freedom to enjoy it.

@Jelandguilty Of COURSE YANBU.

You poor thing

So many people have been robbed of so much, and some of the have suffered much worse than you, but that doesn't take away your distress and sadness.

You have lost out on a year of what should have been mixing with friends/other mums/baby groups, day trips and picnics, and after your long awaited baby, it must feel like shit.

But you have soooooooooooo much more to look forward to! Summer 2021 (GODWILLING) will be so much better. And you will have a wonderful toddler to have fun with.

Onwards and upwards. It's all uphill from now on. Try not to dwell on the past.

I feel for you OP, in a similar situation with baby born last April and I’m back at work next week. With DC1 I had all the baby groups, cafes with cake and cups of tea at friend’s houses, it was lovely and I feel bad for poor DC2, it has sucked in comparison (although I feel super lucky I haven’t had to deal with juggling work and home schooling etc.) It’s ok to feel a bit cheated and your friend was a little insensitive.

However, I also know that you (and I) have lots of fun things on the horizon, groups on your day off, swimming on Saturdays, meeting with friends on the weekend etc. In the long term it shouldn’t matter, be kind to yourself x

Also my NCT dropped me like a hot brick when I went back to work so although it was nice for a year, long term it doesn’t matter.

I hear you, OP. DS was born in April 2020 and I'm due back at work when he's one, just when everything is opening up.

We were two years TTC. I used to see mums in coffee shops or at library classes and feel like it was a club I wasn't invited to. I still feel like that because we never got to do those things. DS doesn't know his grandparents. I haven't met other mums. So sad.

I know how you feel OP, my daughter it 9 months and I go back to work next week. My heart sinks when I think of all the family members (including my parents) that I didn’t allow to hold her before she was 4 months old, they’ll never experience holding her tiny body or be able to smell that lovely baby smell. I’ve been locked in the house for 9 months resenting every moment counting down the days until the next announcement.
I know previous posters mean well but it doesn’t offer much just to say baby clubs etc are rubbish anyway. I think the main thing I feel that has been stolen from me is healthcare and support. I still haven’t seen a health visitor and on the occasion I did ring for advice she was useless. Also no one checked my stitches (3rd degree tear) and they’ve never healed correctly.

It’s shit.

Yanbu at all but as others have said it’s impossible to know what your mat leave would’ve been like normally. I loved mine with DD and did lots but still remember seeing other people’s snot-spewing toddlers at playgroups and making a daily trip to Sainsbury’s just to get the hell out of the house.

I think the covid and pregnancy/birth/parenting experience is multifaceted - there’s all sorts around experiencing pregnancy (and loss) over the past year, life at home with no “props”, issues around care... it’s not straightforward and it’s fine to find that difficult or frustrating.

Your child is going to grow and become more and more interesting, and you’ll have plenty more time together to enjoy one another .

Hey op, yanbu for feeling the way you feel. I posted on another thread a while ago where the poster was saying how she felt jealous and resentful of her friends who had good labours because hers had been difficult. I felt the same way about my labour and was jealous of others I knew who had easier ones, even though I knew it was ridiculous and unfair of me to feel that way. I think this is quite similar.

I can imagine how horrible it felt to have a baby during all this. I have to say though, my favourite memories of dd in the early days are things like me and her at home, relaxing watching box sets while feeding her and early morning/late night feeds and cuddles. Going to baby groups doesn't feature at all. I did go to some, but I was a sleep deprived zombie and didn't find it enjoyable for me. I don't believe they were of any benefit to her and the main reason I went was to feel as though I was getting out and doing something, but I didn't enjoy it. It was boring, stressful because I breastfed but wasn't very comfortable in public situations, and because I worried about things like nappy changes, and mostly like I said I was so sleep deprived I really did feel like a zombie. And I looked like shit. I occasionally would "allow" myself a day of staying home doing nothing and those really were my favourite days of all.

Thanks so much for all the messages so far. I’m not usually a crier but I’m getting misty eyed. Thanks so much for the reality check- yes the mat leave I’m imagining wouldn’t have been the one I got regardless and I’m definitley looking at others with rose tinted glasses. I am so excited to be able to take DS out when he really gets what’s going on. In the midst of PND one of my worst thoughts was always that family hadn’t met him = would never bond with him = wouldn’t care about him. DH and I have agreed that when restrictions lift we are going to make the most of seeing family and building those relationships which has made me feel better.

Thanks for not all just saying I’m a dick. I would never ever say anything to my friend obviously! Perhaps that message was insensitive of her looking back but I think she’s just in that excited pregnant baby bubble and just unaware as she’s usually lovely.

Like others on this thread, I’m certainly not going to ask you to snap out of it! I can’t imagine having had a newborn this year, it must have been extremely rough.

But, like others, I would agree that those classes and your vision of mat leave is a little idealistic. DD1 couldn’t have been bothered with baby massage (thankfully free) or baby yoga (really not free), so I spent most of them bouncing her outside the room so we didn’t disturb anyone else. We did one baby sensory and I didn’t go back due to the aforementioned competitive parenting.

DD2 arrived 16 months later so got none of the above

DD1 was also an IVF baby OP - after the 4th try and 2 MCs so believe me when I say I know what the imagining of perfection feels like, and the let down when it doesn’t materialise. You’re doing great - and as someone else said, toddlers are more fun to hang out with. Hopefully it will all look up a bit as you can get out and about a bit more.

@Jelandguilty I feel you OP ❤️ I found out I was pregnant at end Feb so went through my whole pregnancy with nobody at appointments etc and with us in some form of lockdown the whole time. Was alone for most of my labour. And now I’m navigating life with a 15 week old baby with no health visitor visits, baby groups, friends/family visiting 😓 it sucks! I’m due back at work at the start of July so I’m hopeful that if all goes to plan my DS will at least get to meet our families before I go back to work 🤞🏼
I appreciate everyone saying that the classes weren’t that good or relaxing etc but it would be nice to find that out for ourselves 😅 What I wouldn’t give to have to leave a restaurant half way through lunch because my baby was having a meltdown or a nappy explosion 🤷🏻‍♀️🙈 and that’s something I never thought I’d say!

The year would have been crap regardless, it’s been a crap year for everyone. It’s a crap year to be pregnant because of the restrictions on maternity services and the worry about catching covid, it’s a crap year to be young or self employ or old etc. However on your day off you now have a good friend to spend it with, lucky you.

I appreciate everyone saying that the classes weren’t that good or relaxing etc but it would be nice to find that out for ourselves

I have to agree I would love to have taken DS even if it meant he fell asleep or was miserable. He hates being stuck inside always has since day 1 so I didn't even get the lovely snuggles and netflix days. I think that meeting at least 1 other parent whose child was like DS would have made the world of difference and made me feel less like I was failing.

I said YANBU because you can't help the way you feel. Hopefully, in time, you will come to see what you do have rather than having all this time (don't we all!) to focus on what we are missing. You will have a gorgeous toddler taking their first steps as spring is about to arrive and know that you have the summer ahead to enjoy your DS and he talks more and is interested more and more int he world around him. You will be able to do so many things with him this summer that all preoccupations of what you feel you missed out on should disappear.

It sounds like you will be going back to work 4 days per week, so you will still have 3 days to spend with him Join a group on your day off. You only need one group and at this age, it might be easier to meet other parents because the toddlers interact with each other and you have more interesting things to talk about with your baby.

I only had 5 months maternity leave with my first but made great friends through NCT. With my second baby we had moved to a village and I was a SAHM and I made no friends or acquaintances despite my efforts to join in things! It doesn't always happen.

Also, the past year might have felt hard and isolating but you've still had a year off work to be with your baby and to him, you are the most important thing , not baby massage class or lying on the floor with another baby while you drink coffee.

You are not being unreasonable to feel sad and angry at the way your maternity leave has not lived up to your dreams, @Jelandguilty - and I'm sure you are by no means the only person feeling this way. Covid has taken so much from so many.

As @StylishMummy says, you need to grieve for the mat leave you didn't get - and, for me, that starts with accepting that your current feelings are valid and justified, and not beating yourself up for them, as you seem to be doing, judging by your first post - and your nickname.

It is only by spending time with your feelings, and accepting them, that you can move on from them. You tell yourself that it is OK to feel this way and then hopefully you will start to see that your feelings are not monstrous or terrible, and you will be able to see them as they are - normal emotions - and seeing them in perspective will make it easier to move on from them.

There will be so, so many things in your baby's life for you to look forward to and enjoy - years of them learning new things, saying funny things, doing mad, impulsive, infuriating things - there is joy in every part of your child's growing up. And just because the first few months have not been as great as they could and should have been, doesn't mean that the rest won't be amazing.

So you need to say to yourself that it is OK to feel bad about how your mat leave has been, and then decide to look forward to all the good things that are to come - things you can't even imagine right now, but I promise you are coming.

I was taught an exercise by my cognitive behavioral therapist, which I found helps me, and might help you.

Sit quietly, with your eyes shut, breathing slowly in and out, and focus on your breathing until you have relaxed. Then mentally picture all the bad stuff from your maternity leave, and all the negative feelings this has given you - picture it as a big, black cloud. Then, as you 'look' at the cloud, you can see that it is getting lighter at the edges, and you picture that lightness gradually spreading, so the whole black cloud is getting lighter and lighter, and the dark patch is getting smaller and smaller until it vanishes. For me, the darkness in my head felt like a physical weight, but this visualisation helped me to 'feel' that weight lifting - and as I practised this more, I found I could recognise the weight/cloud approaching and quickly visualise it lifting - which made me feel better.

Yanbu to feel sad about missing out. I had 50 50 mat leave, half before covid half during. It was nice to get out and meet people and just do normal things. (As others have said it's not likely to have been as good as you imagined though!).
However, it's not too late, your baby is only 1, he is just getting to the age where he will actually enjoy some of these groups, and hopefully things will start up again in April or May. Can you work p t maybe 3 days a week, planning around when local groups are on? You can still have loads of fun and meet new people. It's a year that's gone but to be honest it's a year when staying home is not the worst thing in the world. I would rather have done lockdown with a baby than with any other age child up to mid twenties.

You were robbed of the chance to figure out all these groups and classes etc for yourself. I had a similar situation because I was ill for months after my first (and ill with my second before moving country!). It was life altering in some ways. The thing to remember is these classes weren't happening for anybody else. So there's a likelihood that some groups and classes form post lockdown for all the other mums who want to make connections etc.

And on the massage front, a few years on from you, last night I massaged cream into DDs hands and then she wanted to do the same to me. It was incredibly sweet and made me smile thinking about how sad I had been when she was born that the baby massage classes never happened for us either! Turns out, it doesn't matter! (Wish I'd known that then though!)

I just think jealousy is a complete waste of energy whatever the focus.

Sorry to all the PPs in a similar position or by the sounds of it have had it worse. It’s been so so tough.