To feel cheated that my pregnancies/births were so difficult?

[MetalGuru11]

Some people just breeze through conception, pregnancy and birth. It literally seems so easy for some in comparison to others. One of my friends literally sneezes babies out then returns to normal pretty quick. Another friend is just sailing through pregnancy with no symptoms, no problems at all.

I had so many worries and complications in my pregnancies and birth traumas. Plus pnd. So much distressing stuff happened that I now associate pregnancies with negative experiences. And part of me feels cheated or that I did something wrong (when I know I didn't). My children are now 4 and 1 and it still bothers me, I still feel traumatised.

Is it normal to feel a bit cheated by this or aibu?

I’d give anything to have a difficult pregnancy and birth! Because I’ve been pregnant 12 times and never carried it past the first trimester!

Do I feel cheated? Sure I do, and angry about it! But I am expecting to come out of years of fertility treatment childless. So you are one of the lucky ones in my eyes. At least you got a child out of it.

The fertile unicorns are the weird ones if you ask me…just having sex and getting a baby with no difficulties, I don’t trust them and wouldn’t be friends with one! (Joke, sort of, not really).

YANBU and cannot control how you feel OP. Be kind to yourself and try to think about the positives and good in life rather than dwell on the bad.
I ‘failed’ at breastfeeding both times and that caused huge sadness and PND which has subsided with time. However I conceived without having to try at all, had lovely pregnancies and good deliveries so I feel incredibly grateful for that. There’s good and bad, easy and hard on most parents stories (and peoples lives too!). If you can’t come to terms with it and can afford counselling I would. I had to get over feeling I was ‘owed’ successful breastfeeding by the world (I wasn’t) and that helped me.

I get you. I felt so cheated by not being able to conceive naturally and easily like everyone else I know. And then on top of that I had a higher risk pregnancy that resulted in a pph. And nobody gets it or even tries to understand me.

I wonder if time will be a healer and as we move into our 40s and so on, they'll be less baby talk and triggers.

I hope time will prove to be a healer for you. You’re absolutely right that the conversations change as you and your child get older. I’m in my mid-40s and a lot of my conversations with other women my age now centre around the perimenopause and menopause! We do talk about our kids (who are now mostly teens) but we also talk about our partners, jobs, politics etc. I can’t remember the last time I heard a birth story.

I was very lucky to have straightforward pregnancies and births. The births were experiences I’d have liked to have talked about but I rarely did because so many of my friends had difficult and traumatic experiences. It would have been insensitive for me to talk about birth being an empowering experience for me, so I had those conversations with my husband and my mum instead. If other women asked about my births, I would just say that I had been lucky and had a straightforward time of it.

I still had PND mind you, so the baby and toddler years were a bit of a mess. 🤷🏼‍♀️

My pregnancy was not too bad (but definitely not breezy) and my birth was pretty traumatic, but somehow I'm fine with all of that.

What I feel robbed of is the newborn phase where you spend all day in the couch and cuddling newborn baby, breastfeed and watching Netflix while you recover from everything that's happened and you get breastfeeding established. Instead, I had a baby who needed to be in motion as soon as she was awake, who couldn't do cuddling while being sat down (still can't) and with whom breastfeeding didn't work. She also had what sounded like colic, ALL DAY LONG. She just cried, hysterically, all the time, so no hanging out with other mums in cafes or long strolls in the park for me. On the bright side, I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans pretty much within a month, thanks to all the pacing around.

All this rant to say that I know how you feel, but we all struggle in different ways. Maybe it'd be useful to work through how you feel with a therapist.

I think, to some extent, lots of women "forget" lots of the horrible stuff that pregnancy and giving birth does to them. Some, don't like to admit that it wasn't all roses and sunshine like it is in the movies. I think women need to be honest with themselves and each other just how tough it can be.

I had a crap pregnancy, followed by PND. And I tell anyone how crap it was. Someone I know, breezed through her pregnancy (or so she said!) and had a very poorly baby who has global developmental delay as well has physical disabilities. My baby was healthy. So, the shitty pregnancy and stressful birth was worth it in the end.

I felt a bit like that with my first. Horrendous pregnancy and horrific birth. I’d read so much and thought using hypnobirthing techniques and having a PMA would see me through. I had surgery afterwards to basically put everything back into place and repair posterior and anterior prolapses. . I didn’t want any more, just going to the hospital where I had him caused a panic attack. When he was 7 I fell pregnant again. The fear was ridiculous and I’ve never felt so relieved when the consultant said I’d have to have an ELCS, it was such a lovely experience I had another baby 14 months later.

i love positive birth stories but I did have people tell me I should gave done this or that and of would have gone better. Also when I hear people say some women have higher pain thresholds and deal with it better I get frustrated. Yes that might be true but for some women it just hurts more too! The pain was like nothing I could have imaged. I’d rather have a c section every day for a year than ever give birth vaginally again.

I had 2 long, difficult, instrumental births which (I believe) contributed to pnd. Having a completely unsupportive or understanding dh was also a factor in me feeling 'cheated' out of the birth/newborn stages.

I agree with you op - as much as I can (now) talk about my experiences, I still feel that mine were 'lesser' experiences than friends who just popped out their offspring, or whose partners ever changed a nappy.

Complicated by my new dp being an amazing dad and his ex even admitting he went above and beyond with their dc; we're not having any more but yeah, we'd have made a great team.

I find it so strange that some of my friends haven't had morning sickness! I was absolutely sick as a dog for weeks and could hardly leave my bed, so I find it crazy that they're going to work and having a normal life whilst they're pregnant!!
I wouldn't say I feel jealous or cheated or whatever though, I just find it really weird