How do you get over pregnancy announcements?

[announceno]

When you are struggling with infertility?

They're everywhere - every celebrity, everywhere I turn there's a bump.

How do you get over it? Does there become a time after so long when you no longer feel angry to see pregnancy announcements?

They make me feel sick and sad. Appreciate it makes me sound mean but I'm just speaking honestly.

What can I do?

I’ve never been in your position....but I don’t think it makes you ‘mean’.... you can’t help how you feel.....hope you get some helpful responses

@Kitkat151 thank you ❤️

It takes years and years. In my case, it took for friends who had met their partners, moved in, decided to have a baby, then move on to their 2nd/3rd before I started to think, this might not happen for me, and I am aggrieved all the time, and I had to almost move past the want for a baby, by that point I must have been 8 or 9 years I'm to my struggles to conceive #2.

I'm so sorry you're going through this, it really is so painful and it doesn't make you sound mean. It makes you sound like you are struggling to go through something, and you probably feel quite alone because at times it feels like the whole world and their mother is pregnant and you can't escape it, and it's the thing you want most, but can't have for yourself.
I'm so sorry

As someone who took three years to get pregnant I get it. Pregnancy seems to be everywhere. I had times where it was just irritating and times when it was devastating.

I didn’t find announcements hard like you do, but just seeing babies out, being asked if I wanted kids, internet algorithms marketing fertility treatments and Clearblue products at me because I’m a woman in my thirties…

I know this doesn’t answer your question. But it’s a burning feeling of being constantly reminded of the thing you want the most and it heartbreaking. Just wanted to say you’re not alone and wishing you all the luck in the world in whatever path you take next.

It is so hard, and I don’t really have any decent suggestions I’m sorry. It does kind of take the edge off it a little bit to remind myself that there isn’t a set number of babies allocated to each month/year, so them having one has no impact on whether I’ll ever get to have mine, but sometimes nothing really helps. I do find I’m much less bothered when I know they’ve had a tough journey to motherhood as well, and I guess with celebrities we don’t always know so it can seem like it was easy for them when maybe it wasn’t.

You’re allowed to feel like this, it doesn’t make you a bad person, life can seem really unfair sometimes. Just don’t let it eat you up if you can help it…

I can't say I know exactly what you're going through as I do already have one dc, however I have struggled for 10 years to get pregnant again due to PCOS and pregnancy induced endometriosis.

I'm grateful for my dd and you're absolutely not mean or wrong for feeling the way you do, its hard watching someone else's bump grow.
I don't on what to say to make you feel any better or to not sound patronising, but I hope it happens for you one day.

Sending big hugs, you're definitely not being mean and it's completely normal that you would feel this way. My situation is slightly different in that I had a missed miscarriage last year and then it seemed like everyone I knew was suddenly getting pregnant. I had to unfollow quite a few people on FB because I couldn't bear to see their scan pics and updates about their pregnancies. It's so hard hearing other people's good news when it's the one thing you want most in the world. I found The Worst Girl Gang Ever group and page really helpful. They post a lot about TTC and all the difficult emotions that come with it.

Please don't feel bad for feeling this way. It's hard, really really hard, dealing with pregnancy announcements, and I would often end up in floods of tears after finding out someone was pregnant whilst I was still struggling. I would unfollow friends on social media because I couldn't handle seeing their excited posts about being pregnant. It was such a hard time for me.

I eventually managed to have two children after years and years of fertility struggles, but even now I still get that same pang of upset/envy when I see a pregnancy announcement, which sounds silly, but I suppose it was such a strong and immediate response for such a long time (7 years) that it is now ingrained in me, just like the sadness I get when my period turns up (even though I am not trying for any more children and haven't had sex for months).

Been over 3 years for us and it's just exhausting.

My husbands sister recently had a baby and the level of resentment I feel makes me feel physically sick with myself. I can't find it in me to be happy for her and I hate myself for it.

It took me over 5 years. One thing I realised quite early on in my journey was that I might never succeed and I needed to be able to envision a good life without children to stop the lack of them seeming so devastating. So I regularly spent time day dreaming about good things that would be better without children. Foreign holidays and two seater sports cars. Sundays in bed with DH. Evenings out on the spur of the moment. Weekends away with friends. Volunteering abroad for a year. Stuff I knew we’d have to give up on or cut right back on if I did get pregnant. I’m pretty pragmatic anyway, so maybe it wasn’t to do with this. But I credit it with increasing my resilience and helping me be happy when it looked like nothing was going work. It can be hard to do at first if you aren’t used to forcing yourself to put thoughts aside and think about something else. And it takes time to develop ideas that become familiar enough to slip into to distract you from other thoughts. But it may be worth a try.

It's just incredibly difficult. I can't have children and never will, it's just so hard, some days and some announcements are easier than others sometimes quite randomly. If I feel prepared/know it's likely to be coming it feels easier than when it's a total shock.

I've already accepted it is unlikely to happen for me.

I'm in that 1 percent of people that are struggling to conceive - I guess you always think it will be someone else.

I don't even know why I feel like this as I am also relieved at the same time - very confusing emotions that are conflicting.

Thanks for Kind messages

Your feelings are valid and you're not mean.
My story is a little bit different but my DS was stillborn and the pregnancy I've had since has ended in MC.
Pregnancy and birth announcements sting, even though I'm happy for them.
I have many good things in my life and although I hope to have another baby (I'm 30, there is time to hope) I know I will enjoy life either way. Its a very tough life lesson to learn but its a very important one and it's that you are enough

Be kind to yourself. You already have enough upset and pain without adding guilt and self loathing. I tried for 7 years before I had my first. She was my last frozen embryo. I couldn't bare seeing pregnant people. I had such a strong response of jealousy, anger, guilt, self loathing, failure. It was very intense. I guess all my feelings around that time was intense what with the cycles of hope, excitement, failure and loss and all of the drugs. I think reminding myself that I wast angry someone else was pregnant but sad and angry I wasn't helped.

Following

How you feel is completely normal OP. Allow yourself to feel it. It isn't that you aren't happy for your friends but how could it not hurt?

Hi @announceno I'm so sorry you're going through this. You are not mean at all, you are going through something very difficult so you need to be kind to yourself. Please know that your feelings are completely valid, and despite it not being immediately obvious (as infertility isn't spoken about publicly enough) there are so many people who will understand what you are going through.

Myself and DH are 15 months into TTC no 1 and have been told it could take us a while. It's becoming so so hard, like for example I saw the other day who has only been in a relationship since September announcing she's 3 months pregnant, so it clearly only took them a couple of months at most. It just doesn't seem fair. However, I've found it helps to come away from things like Facebook, or unfollow pages that are triggering.

Sadly there are a lot of couples going through infertility (as many as 1 in 8) so believe me when I say you are not alone. It's helped me to reach out to others going through similar online, there's a lot of TTC Instagram pages, apps such as Peanut and of course lots of chats on Mumsnet for example. So maybe something like this would help you too - talking to others who are going through similar and can completely understand.

There are lots of lovely ladies over on the Conception/infertility boards on here who can offer further advice too xx

@announceno

I've already accepted it is unlikely to happen for me.

I'm in that 1 percent of people that are struggling to conceive - I guess you always think it will be someone else.

I don't even know why I feel like this as I am also relieved at the same time - very confusing emotions that are conflicting.

Thanks for Kind messages

I hear you. Long after I accepted I would never be a mum I would still feel a pang when someone announced a pregnancy at work and seeing the fuss and cries of congratulations they got, and when the photo of their newborn was going round and the congratulations card with all the lovely things written on it.

And I get the relief as well.

Honestly, therapy.

I started seeing a therapist shortly after it became obvious that it wouldn’t be easy for us to conceive. It was so helpful to have an hour a week when I knew I could just complain and bitch about everything and everyone with no judgement. It also helped my marriage as there were definitely times my husband thought I was being mean or overreacting when I got upset about things, so it meant I could save up my frustrations and vent to someone else!

I don’t have a solution to this, but I want you to know you’re not alone, and there are certainly more than 1% of us (I think it’s now 1 in 5 women dealing with involuntary childlessness).
At one point more than half of my Facebook feed was either scan photos, pregnancy announcements, birth announcements or photos of babies. Plus every single film or telly programme featuring a birth or someone falling pregnant with no trouble whatsoever.
It was absolutely devastating and impossible to explain to anyone who wasn’t in the same situation.
I used to cry every time I saw someone pregnant or pushing a pram, and had to stop going to social events where there would be babies or pregnant friends. Sometimes when I drove past a pregnant women I would shout at them (from the confines of my car knowing that they couldn’t hear me) because I was so angry and jealous. I hid every one on Facebook who had recently started a relationship or had small children.
I appreciate that this makes me sound loopy, but 12 rounds of IVF will do that to a person!
All I can say is that after 15 years of this the pain is much less raw now, and although I still feel desolate some days, I can usually deal with mixing with babies and pregnant women and live a fairly normal life again.
I’m sorry that you are going through this.

I had to come off Facebook for the same thing. Family members and friends popping up everywhere. It was turning me bitter and I've never been resentful but it made me so so sad. Amd grieving badly. You aren't a bad person and it's completely normal to feel that way. I'm 4 years in and very overweight. So right now I'm trying to loose weight then looks like we are going to need help. So I've felt this for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, I've still felt wonderously happy for people yet still felt a bit of me die inside when I would think why is it never me.

My advice to you would be come off of social media. I still have instagram but Facebook was far worse for this kind of thing. You can never heal whilst still picking off the scab.

I found it gave me a distance and I could breathe. I also became a lot less obsessed with it and now I'm focusing on my fitness and a beauty page I run.

You are okay just breathe. We will get there.

It is really hard I felt exactly the same. Took 16 months to get pregnant with my daughter and have been trying for over 5 years for a second with 3 miscarriage in that time. It feels like everyone at work was pregnant. One of my colleagues announced she was pregnant I had to go cry in the toilets then I found out it had taken her 4 years and IVF to get pregnant and I felt awful.

Accepting that other people getting pregnant wasn't preventing me getting pregnant helped. It is so hard with social media as it seems to be in your face all the time.

I think coming to terms with the fact a second child isn't going to happen for us has helped and most of my friends are past that phase of their life now. Blocking triggering words on social media also helps and I follow a counsellor on Instagram that specialises in pregnancy loss and infertility who posts some useful stuff.

It's the hardest thing. It took us three and a half years and IVF to conceive and I still bristle at people who 'have it easy.'

It is really hard. I tended to let myself feel everything for a set amount of time and then push it away.

That and unfollow people if needed.

It's really hard, I've just had another friend surprised at how quickly she was able to conceive. I normally get over it quietly and privately, which is shit but I would feel worse if any of my upset got back to her.