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??

its so hard when your head says no need to be jealous but your hear is like aaarrgh.
agree with pp about doing a journal/photo album/scrapbook sorry can't quite remember- of baby's first year.
also on the visualisation, you need tlc for yourself, that's essentially what jealousy is, a feeling of lack heightened by someone else's (perceived) gain

I say perceived as you just don't know how life will turn out for anyone. we are all riding on fortune's wheel.

Don't beat yourself up OP, it's ok to grieve the experience you thought you'd have. I had horrible PND and I spent a lot of time being jealous of others who seemed to have the best year of their life.
It's taken me a few years and a few honest conversations to realise that most (if not all!) people weren't having the time of their lives. For one thing, being with a baby all the time is pretty dull and (in my opioion- not everyone's) going to bloody baby sensory etc is pretty soul destroying for a grown woman.
Your sadness is totally justified, but there are so many reasons maternity leave isn't the time it's cracked up to be- maternal mental illness, premature babies, ill babies, worries about finance etc. Your friend could suffer any one of these (hopefully not but no one knows what's coming when it comes to motherhood!)
Also, as others have said- there's so much more fun to come. Babies don't add a whole lot to trips out etc, but toddlers- wow! Try taking a toddler to the zoo or beach, it's a thousand times funner!

I just wanted to echo others that this idea of leisurely lunches with new mummy friends and making memories at baby sensory isn’t everyone’s mat leave experience by a long chalk. I had moments of it w DC1 but mostly I was exhausted on the sofa watching box sets with my boobs out (v 2020). With DC2 my MIL died when I was pregnant so was mostly clearing out her house and supporting DH while juggling 2 little kids. Didn’t go to a single class! Both times I was pretty happy going back to work.

I don’t mean to say it’s not been exceptionally tough this year - covid has taken so much from so many - but just you’re mourning a dream that really might not have been so try not to dwell on it too much.

YANBU to feel like this, mainly because you have acknowledged in your OP that it’s not quite right or fair to hold on to this for the longer term or hold it against your friend.

It’s been a shit year for everyone, relative to whatever circs we are living in. We are all allowed to vent and grieve for what we lost.

Try and write it all down, write a fuck off bastard letter to covid that will never get sent but will allow you to vent and maybe move on. And then write a list of the positive things about going back to work.

• hot cups of tea
• mental challenges
• socialising
• baby will thrive at nursery and you’ll love seeing this
• you will make lovely new friends through nursery (can sometimes take a bit of time but as mine for older I made great friends who are still in our lives)

LOOK FORWARD OP

I had half a mat leave before Covid and half during Covid so had similar feelings of missing out and mat leave not being what I expected.

What I told myself was- Covid has happened and would I have preferred it to have happened at a different point in my life?

TTC - we had fertility treatments so I’m glad Covid didn’t hit then because our appointments would have been cancelled and we may never have conceived or it would’ve taken much longer

While pregnant - I would’ve been really worried about catching it and the impact on the baby. This would’ve been on top of the existing anxiety I had because the baby had taken years to conceive and I didn’t believe it would result in me bringing a baby home until it actually happened.

After mat leave - the nursery we chose actually fully closed during the first lockdown so if this had happened while I was back at work I would have had no childcare and wouldn’t have been able to work.

Toddler years - being trapped in the house with a toddler who’s had no exercise is really hard

School age - HOME SCHOOLING!

So I think it sucked but I can’t think of a better time for it to have happened. Apart from maybe when I was 21, just come home from uni, would have been furloughed from a hospitality job, had no responsibilities and could watch Netflix all day in my parents house haha.

As a parent of 4 girls (one 11 months old) I can honestly say I do understand why you’re feeling like this BUT the idealistic maternity leave doesn’t exist in the most part!

My first was a really hard baby and I didn’t make it to any groups for the first three months anyway, just went on lots of walks to try to get her to sleep! The NCT groups I did end up making it to were really clique and I just didn’t seem to get on really well with any of them - lovely people but not my sort of people who I’d be friends with!

The past year has been crap but I haven’t missed the baby groups, the chatting to people who I don’t really want to chat to.

As someone else mentioned I think you need to look at the positives - your baby has had your undivided attention for the past year and they will have benefited so much from this.

maternity leave sucks a lot of the time anyway.

And OP, as a fellow IVFer, I spent much of my 30s being jealous. It’s horrible isn’t it. Jealous of my friends getting pregnant easily, even jealous of people on my IVF forum getting pregnant before me. And jealous of women with husbands, because I did it on my own.

It’s such a pointless emotion, if only we could turn it off at will.

I think it's absolutely OK to feel like this. I did get the NCT group chat, meet ups, pub lunches, baby sensory & sitting on friends' sofas and it was absolutely fab. Many people don't get that but I was lucky to have it and I took it for granted really. So yes, you are allowed to feel crap that you didn't get a nice mat leave experience, not even able to go out to a restaurant or cafe for lunch with a napping baby. I really feel for you. Maybe when things are back to normal you could take some time yourself when the baby's at nursery - not the same, of course.

Having said that, for the most part I did not enjoy mat leave; but the nice bits helped keep it bearable. I hated being at home with the baby the whole time and even though I had an "easy" baby, I still found it very tough. I was delighted to go back to work at 9 months.

I would try to stop idealising mat leave. The first year is very hard for everyone, even getting to a baby group is a logistical nightmare, that's assuming you can afford them. Those nct friends may end up not to be friends too

Yep I understand. Also have a baby turning one in March. Went for a walk with a pregnant family member this morning and just felt so jealous and sad. Just keep reminding myself I have a happy healthy baby and that's all that really matters.

I think that’s natural. Don’t be harsh on yourself!

I had a similar feeling yday about weddings. I got married 6 months ago in a micro wedding which, whilst absolutely lovely, was not the wedding the planned. When I saw social media going crazy with brides who were excited they will now get their days, I felt sad and a tad jealous.

We’ve been deprived of things that matter to us, and seeing other people enjoy them is hard and painful. We just need to try and not let those thoughts get to us.

You have my sympathy OP, as does everyone else who has struggled or had difficult times during Covid.

I just wanted to say that I had a baby after a decade of IVF and miscarriages. During that time I pictured what mat leave would be like. Now I was lucky with timing/Covid but all the way through I’ve been thinking about if DC had been a year later.

As with many people who have had their plans and/or lives ruined (death, illness etc), you have been robbed and I think it’s ok to accept that and grieve for a while before you make plans for the next stage.

14 month olds twins so by the time I could get us out the house between school runs it was lockdown. With a 5 Yo.

DS was also a v poorly baby so his first 18 months was in and out of hospital and yet we have so more "special" memories despite months at a time in hospital.

So yes, full empathy because it sucks. But it's one year out of a lifetime.

Can you afford to drop another day or work compressed hours?

It is, unfortunately, a suck it up buttercup moment xx

You wouldn't have had that cup of tea, baby would have screamed the minute they were put on the floor. And the baby groups would have been full of judgy people who made you feel crap. Does that help?!

Definitely grieve for it but it really might not have worked out that way anyway so for all you know you've had a lucky escape from disappointment that also made you feel shit whereas this disappointment is totally out of your hands. And honestly they do get better as they get older, you will have so much more fun going forward than that cup of tea could ever represent. I promise

Irs hard to make friends with strangers when the only thing you have in common is giving birth a similar time. I had a pre covid mat leave and I definitely didn't do cups of tea round a friends house with babies kicking on the floor! I did meet some friends but we aren't that close and only really met up at parks and things. I did a baby sensory but the class couldn't be booked in advance so ended up being a stressful event to try and park somewhere nearby in time else have a wasted trip. You've had a tough time for sure but I think you are overestimating the joys of mat leave a little!

Also before a year old babies don't really appreciate classes anymore than they appreciate being at home being cuddled, played with and sung to. So don't think your baby has lost out.

Sorry to pick up this message because I’m not reacting to this one, but to the general vibe of “babies only need their mums to 18 months”.

This sort of tone utterly fucks me off. Those of us who had lockdown babies - yes it’s been shit. The worst bit for me was not being able to hand the baby over to my mum for an afternoon while I went and had a nap. The most time I have been apart from her has been for a few hours when my husband has her. The most he’s been away from her has been when I had her. There has been absolutely no middle ground, so it’s not just the baby groups and stuff you miss out on but all the “oh you have a new baby let me fuss you and ask about the baby and bring you cake”.

DD DEFINITELY got bored of just being at home with us and did so well at the few classes we go to go to.

I’m with you OP - had some lovely days last summer in the pubs and at baby groups when they were open but it was so utterly shit to have everything closed and spend your maternity leave during winter just sitting inside.

OP YANBU - I got married last year and whilst I feel very grateful that the wedding was able to go ahead at all, I am beyond envious of my friends who have normal weddings going ahead this autumn. It’s just not fair.

But it helps me to remember that life really isn’t fair and that whilst I had this experience “stolen” from me, there are so many others in much worse positions due to the pandemic - it’s just one of those things where everyone will have suffered in their own way, some more than others.

Everyone will have to take some time to process what they “lost” during this time but do remember that you don’t actually know how it would have gone without COVID and may not have been as great as you are imagining.

My mat leave was not what I expected as I had a severely disabled baby and spent most of my time at Great Ormond Street.

I would politely suggest you count your blessings.

I feel for you, really I do. The sense of what might have been.

I would say though, I’m due in July and it’s extremely likely NCT will still be on Zoom as pregnant women are higher risk and won’t be vaccinated (emailed my local coordinator about this last night saying I had a strong preference for in person, and got quite a snooty reply about risk). And nobody knows what the summer and winter will actually look like - yes, it’s likely to be more open, but so was last summer. I can’t imagine that it will be much more open than last summer to be honest. So while I appreciate and understand your jealousy, your friend’s experience likely won’t be hugely materially different to yours. And anyway, you need to find a way to move on as unfortunately every pregnant friend you have will make you feel like this. I’d focus on the positives of having so much more time to bond with DS and having more time to rest. But I know it’s hard.

I get where you're coming from. We've been trying for a second baby since before our almost 4yo turned 2. Had a MC last year during the first lockdown. I've been referred for investigations, but it's likely to take months if not years due to the Covid backlog. Not quite the same as ML, but missing spending all this time with friends and family has been very painful, especially as we try to resign ourselves to ending up as a family of three (which is great, but not what we envisaged). We're sad at the thought that our DC won't have a sibling and the loneliness and lack of emotional support from family has made it worse.

The only thing I would say is that being a parent just gets better and better. I'm sure you think your little baby is wonderful, but toddlers are adorable, 2 yos are so much fun and 3 yos are just fantastic.

I'm trying to focus on making the most of the time I have with my beautiful DC. We've just booked a few days by the seaside for May - can't wait to get the buckets and spades out and do some paddling, even if it's chilly. Your LO will be on the move properly soon and then a whole new world will open up to them - just try to embrace it, even while you grieve for the lost time.

I think all of us have our own grieving process to go through for this last year. We've all suffered in very different ways and acknowledging the suffering is the first step forward. And, regardless of what anyone says about being precious, a lonely and isolated ML at a time when you're trying to get to grips with parenting and a new baby is suffering. There's a reason why so much support is usually provided to new mothers.

Really feel for you, but if its any consolation, when I had my first 7 years ago, I had just moved, and didn't know anyone or any baby groups and the only thing I did out of the house was a few weeks of baby swimming. I wanted to make friends, but all the other mums were an nct group and were really standoffish. My mother was overseas, and my mother in law rang me most days just so I'd have someone to talk to. My voice was hoarse every time she rang, because I didn't speak to anyone all day long.

I’m probably just repeating what everyone else has just said, but the 1st year isn’t ever what you expect - mine hated baby classes and didn’t want to lie and kick about anywhere - he wanted to be held and on the move!

But your baby got the maternity leave they needed - i.e. you 24/7! And if they are lovely and chilled then they absolutely got what they needed. So at least take heart in that.

I really hope things get back to normal, and then your family and friends will bond with your toddler. And toddlers are a lot fun, there are a lot more toddler groups you can still go to, and there will be lots of mums / parents for you to connect with in the coming years!