To feel sad that all my friends are having kids?

[Kiwiinparis]

I have a very tight knit group of 4 friends. Over the past year and a bit, one by one they became pregnant.

I am so excited for them to embark on the next step of their lives, and so happy to be “auntie” to four amazing little babies.

But. I’ve started to feel more and more sad with every pregnancy announcement. Very selfishly I know, I feel like I’m being left behind by those I love the most and they are all going to be in a different stage of life than me and our friendships will become less important to them in favour of other mum friends who they can share stories and go to advice for.

Has anyone experienced this before? How do you put your feelings aside to be 100% happy for your friends and be there to support them?

Bit of backstory, we are all in our late 20s. I am married and have a plan to start TTC in about two years. Seeing them all go through this journey makes me want to push this timeframe forward, which is just not viable as we have goals in place that we want to reach before bringing a kid into this world. I think it’s more the fear of missing out that’s bringing on these feelings…

@Pawprintpaper haha thank you. If I had worded the OP differently to say that I wanted to bring forward our plans to have children by two years, even though we hadn’t bought a house yet which has been our goal for 3 years, my husband wasn’t ready just yet, and I only wanted to have a kid because all my friends were…I don’t think I would get anyone advising me that it was a good idea!

I know that for us the best thing to do is wait, and that is what we will do.

As for your other advice, all great tips! Ill start looking to book myself into French lessons and cooking classes like I’ve wanted to do for ageees. Might be a great way to meet some other child free friends

OP if it helps at all it’s the long-standing friends, regardless of their personal circumstances, who have been my greatest support throughout the first few years of parenthood. In my opinion, although ‘mum friends’ are nice when your baby is small you quickly run out of things to talk about beyond ‘is your baby doing this? When are you going back to work?’. I personally leant more on the people I knew more deeply where I could be 100% honest.

Hang in there. There might be times when you can’t relate but you’ll get there and be glad you hung on.

You’re using your loaf OP, good on you. You sound sensible.

It all evens out in the end with these good friendships. I am part of a four. We are late 30’s - late 40s. 2 of them have both had a baby a couple of years ago. Obviously they have bonded over that. The 3rd has young grandchildren so she flits in and out while enjoying the freedom of not being tied to little ones.
It’s fine for me…my kids are older and I’m pursuing other interests, happy to leave them to it. They are great friends, always on my side. Xx

I'm ten years on from you and two of my absolute best friends have not ended up having children and are unlike to now. They have always been close and mostly talk about non-child related things - such a breath of fresh air!
When my first daughter was a few months old I started a pottery class with one of them them, one night a week. Your friends with babies should be able to take time away from their babies to do stuff with you too - just ask them.
10 years on, Mum friends come and go, but they are still my best friends.

PP are right, you are going to need to be flexible, and maybe a bit bored of baby and pregnancy talk for a good long while. Do you have lots of other friends that are still baby free? I would be making sure I had a solid social circle outside of my baby group. Dh and I fell of the social scene for four years after having our two little ones, as we were much too tired to even think about going out, couldn't face having anyone to ours. It was an achievement just to eat dinner and get everyone bathed and into bed.
Make sure you have a plan B for socialising is my advice.

It's a completely normal response to getting that news. There is a whole section at the infertility section on how to handle it, in your case it's just that you're so excited you feel you can't wait. You don't need to worry about "not being really happy for them", you can be 100% happy for your friends and think about your own future plans at the same time.

I have a 4 month old and my favourite friends are the ones without babies. My new mum friends mainly talk about baby stuff, it’s so good to chat about other things aside from the baby! Dynamics are likely to change but ride it out with them, they’ll appreciate it 😊