I Don’t Get the Feels, I Cringe and Recoil

[SmidgenofaPigeon]

And I feel a bit odd 😅

It’s sort of come to my attention since being pregnant that the things I’m supposed to find all lovely and warm and nice just make make me cringe and recoil. I have always been like this a bit but there is so much cringy language and things around babies. (Bubba= shivers)

It’s not just about babies obviously because I hate all the Live, Life, Laugh stuff in general, but a few weeks ago my husband and I went to a private scan place (only reason being at the time I thought he wouldn’t be allowed in the twenty week NHS one)

Firstly they try and flog you the gender reveal cannon things but also a teddy bear you can put a heartbeat inside, like at the Build a Bear Factory, obviously we just said no to to all that, but when I went into the scan room they were playing that music from Beauty and the Beast where Belle notices the rose in a glass cloche and is all transfixed. This changed to an upbeat Moana tune shortly after, then ‘I can show you the world’ from Aladdin

I couldn’t help thinking that what on earth do they do if they find something wrong with the baby- cut the music or put on one of the sad Disney songs? Is there a sad Disney song?

I felt like I was supposed to be transfixed and misty eyed at the wonder of it but really just wanted to know all was as it should be and I didn’t need bloody Disney songs in my head all day.

A part of me thinks I’d love to get ‘the feels’ that people talk about from various things but I’m not easily moved in general (apart from maybe those awful donkey charity adverts where they have open sores from pulling carts and then they show the rescued ones running around in a field in Devon)

Other people are like this too I’m sure. Has anyone got any other examples of things that should make you warm and fuzzy and you just thing...bleaugh!

This clinic is actually on to something. Could we extend this idea to musical accompaniment during labour?

I'm thinking maybe start with 'bridge over troubled waters' then, something that builds tempo as the contractions get closer together... 'Hall of the mountain king'? Something motivational for the push, then, my god, the triumphal crowning and birth. You could end with 'I'm still standing'.

Help me out here, we could make millions.

@gurglebelly

Oh god I get you, I want to recoil at anything twee - everything you describe would have made me cringe too!

But then I also can't stand cars being given names or people using 'l'il man' or anything like that. I'm just not very 'fluffy' 🤷‍♀️

Oh you’d hate me, I name everything. My snake plant is even called Norman. The ridiculousness of it just makes me laugh 😊

OP, I am glad that the scanning room that I went into when I was 16 weeks and told there was a serious problem with my pregnancy which caused it to end in premature labour a few weeks later didn’t have this kind of schmalz.

Pregnancy and childbirth are about as far from Disney as you can possibly get. Infantilising the pregnant woman (no I don’t want a fucking teddy bear and wtaf is a “gender reveal cannon” given that gender is an ideology and not a biological fact) is also offensive to me. Why is the NHS wasting money on this BS???

@Aweebawbee

This clinic is actually on to something. Could we extend this idea to musical accompaniment during labour?

I'm thinking maybe start with 'bridge over troubled waters' then, something that builds tempo as the contractions get closer together... 'Hall of the mountain king'? Something motivational for the push, then, my god, the triumphal crowning and birth. You could end with 'I'm still standing'.

Help me out here, we could make millions.

What about ‘Push-It - Salt n Papa’ “P-push it reeeeeal good!”

😆

I had a WTTW scan on Monday and we didn’t get any of that! No upsells, no music, nothing.

I wouldn’t have loved it either

@SallyCinnabon

Nice! I'll add it to the mix tape.

Good job they don’t do births too by the sound of it, I’m imagining lion king style holding the baby up for all to bow down too with the music playing as your new born blinks at the lights.

The donkey advert gets me too. I supported Spana monthly when I was better off.

Yeah that stuff makes me cringe too. My husband and I left a pregnancy education group after an hour because it was full of that shit. All I wanted to know were the basics of how that baby was getting out of me and what I should go once it was here...

*do

Sounds horrendous, when I was pregnant I tended to think of it like having flu, never got all soppy about it and couldn't stand those women who could only talk about baby topics.

Pregnancy and childbirth are about as far from Disney as you can possibly get. Infantilising the pregnant woman (no I don’t want a fucking teddy bear and wtaf is a “gender reveal cannon” given that gender is an ideology and not a biological fact) is also offensive to me. Why is the NHS wasting money on this BS???

It’s not the NHS. It’s private scan companies.

Ah. Makes sense.
So women pay good money for a Disneyfied scan experience??
Give me strength.

I am so relieved to be amongst likeminded people! 😆 I'm not even ten weeks pregnant yet so we have only told close family, but the cooing is already making me cringe. This baby is SO very much wanted and we're really looking forward to being parents, but I just can't fall into the magical, mawkish, fairytale conversations I seem to be expected to twinkle and swoon into. I met my midwife for the first time the other day and told her I was reassured she wasn't some ethereal type who was going to tell me to cherish this magical time, whilst in reality I can barely function!

Cringe away. That all sounds naff deluxe

My DC's school nativity plays always left me cold. The other mothers were in tears and taking videos - and I was just bored.

@Kitfish

I’ve been lucky to have to work. I’ve been the same when it came to dropping my children off at nursery and school for the first time. I just wanted to drop them off and once they were settled and out of sight, skip off and have a child free day. Only tears I had was in happiness that I finally had time to myself.

@Palavah

Conception, pregnancy, childbirth and babies are amazing enough without needing to Disnefy them.

This. YANBU.

Ha ha ha ha oh my days this is a brilliant post you really have slapped a smile on my face 😀😄😊😁 That is weird with the music and i would totally feel the same. I went to mine with no music how odd that they would do that. I'm surrounded by cringy people that do cringy things especially on Facebook for attention.

DH accompanied me to a ante natal session nearly 20 years ago when this sort of saccharin nonsense was first gaining root. Lots of other couples cooing over their prospective bubbas and endless stroking of their bumps.

All the Dads2Be introduced themselves and said how excited they were to be pregnant DH might have been overheard to mutter under his breath 'that he certainly wasn't bloody pregnant'. Then came the soothing mood music.

I virtually had to wrestle DH out of there in s headlock before he exploded in apoplexy.

Oh dear Sprayerheyer, I feel I must speak up for Jane Austen being one of the most unsentimental or twee writer on family life in Eng Lit. She is famous for a most uncharitable remark on childbirth which I won't quote as it is genuinely shocking. I always thought that she ran out on the one engagement she had because she very well knew the natural consequences of marriage in terms of the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth in the 19th century. Not to mention committing to sleep with a man you may not like or fancy for the rest of your life. She was far from the sweet protected cliched 'spinster' you may imagine.

Personally I was put off pregnancy and childbirth by attending a clinic as a teenager which was also part ante-natal clinic. Just the sheer communality of it horrified me - your body becoming public property.

Oh gawd, sound awful - and so much of having a baby comes with that guff, even more so now (had mine 20 years ago).

But - I get emotional whenever I hear Coldplay 'Trouble', because son-in-womb always got all kicky during it and it felt like he was trying to tell me something.

I found Disneyland Paris to be totally magical, even in winter rain. It lit my son up, it was amazing.

And when we went on holiday once he used the hotel TV on-demand to watch Shrek Forever After - I bawled my eyes out.

But put me in front of Titanic and The Notebook and that sort of thing, and I have a heart of stone.

On the other hand, the pea that couldn't get into the Country Club has an eternal place in my heart. That advert was traumatising at the time (granted, I was diagnosed with depression).

@Meirou90

Did you get scanned in Speke, Liverpool? Window to the Womb? Exact same music at my scan place 😂 (I love that tune from Beauty and the Beast though)

Window to the Womb?! That should have given you a clue, OP.

Oh God no. I had a private scan because my EPU wouldn't see me and I was desperate. It was bad news, but it was handled sensitively, having all that cheese on top of a horrible situation would have been too much to cope with.

nobody with any self worth likes the shit you describe you are not as unique as you might think you are - you are just surrounded by idiots

My friend has just shared her grandbaby reveal with a confetti cannon I wonder if they also had the Disney scan 😄