To roll my eyes at pregnancy excuse

[Fuzzyduck31]

It must be my age but recently I’ve had more friends and acquaintances being pregnant and I am surprised (bemused?) by the ideas some people have.
I get that morning sickness/ nausea is bad but I have a friend who is acting completely incapacitated by it? It’s not HG just the normal nausea sicky feeling in first trimester.
I have another friend who can not organise a baby shower for her sister because she is also pregnant?!
Another friend has just had a baby and has called her mum to look after the baby while she sleeps all day?
AIBU as I went through this twice not looking for the type of complete support that these other women feel entitled to?
I am happy for them all and feel like a bad person thinking this but just wondered if anyone else has noticed a trend towards this complete incapacitation as a pregnant/ new mum?

The drip feed of all drip feeds! 😄😂 just kidding. Op, it may be like you and pp said, an age thing. It’s harder when you’re older (generally speaking). And the mother who ‘sleeps all day’ is probably not sleeping at all at night. And the other women are having a tough time. Personally I think all women who are pregnant, yes they’re strong and can do whatever they want and don’t need to be coddled blah blah, but they all deserve extra consideration and we don’t know really how they’re feeling. Everyone is different. What’s the same is that they’re carrying another person inside them and their bodies are nourishing and protecting their growing bodies. It’s not something to dismiss as nothing much. I think you’ve forgotten how you felt back then and you might resent them getting help when you didn’t. When you didn’t even ask for or expect it. I understand that. I felt like I had no help either.

This is me. I lost 6kg in first trimester. Still not put much of it back on as it comes back and still have food aversion. Even when I know I'm hungry there is nothing I fancy eating. I'm exhausted, I push through work in the week but I end up having 2 naps a day at the weekend. I still can't cook. The sight of food cooking makes me heave, even making a sandwich starts it off.

I don't have HG, and I'm very blessed to be pregnant but man it sucks. And everyone keeps telling me to enjoy this 'fun bit in the middle' - I'm yet to find the fun! I don't have the energy back, I don't feel myself. Thankfully I have an awesome DH who is incredibly supportive. Without him I'd be really struggling.

I think people and how they present with illness is so variable and people's judgements on that affect it all.

I was very ill with HG but was berated by my mum as how on earth would I have coped at work - I was studying and managed to do so, so the argument was moot.
My sister then went on to have HG and she was given such sympathy for the whole thing by our mum despite her going off sick with it - Im not saying she was wrong to, but our mums judgement of the 2 situations is based entirely on how we presented with the same condition.
I have faced illness throughout my life and have learnt to just get on with it as much as possible. My sister had never been an inpatient in hosp before childbirth and never had any major illnesses and tends to come across as quite dramatic and needy when ill. Instead of recognising that, mum sees me as less ill and my sister as more ill.
Its incredibly frustrating

YABU. I had such severe HG that I wasn't brave enough to have a second child but attitudes like yours meant I forced myself to continue working/ 'doing life' and made myself mentally and physically unwell.

On behalf of pregnant women struggling everywhere, fuck off and mind your own business.

Yeah Yanbu
I get some people have pregnancy conditions that do incapacitate them BUT I’ve had 3 pregnancies, no help, still had to move house on my own as husband was working, still had to do all the cleaning, cooking and drag myself out of bed with morning sickness, crushing pelvic pain and look after my other 2 little ones.
so when I hear the excuses from some women it really does annoy me. Same with after birth.
I had a 28 hour labour with episiotomy, forceps birth and still did the school run less then 24 hours after as had no choice . My SIL had a straight forward birth and was in bed for 2 weeks with everyone running about after her like she was some precious rose.

Its depressing to see some women say they had easy pregnancies and dismissed other women's experiences until they then had a tough one themselves and learned compassion. Why is the default for so many people to assume pregnant women are making an undue fuss? I wish there was more understanding of how very bad it can be. Those of us who had easy labours don't roll our eyes at women who undergo emergency surgery or haemorrhage or experience birth trauma or the countless other things that can go wrong. Pregnancy sickness, injury in childbirth and post-partum depression can be horrific and have far-reaching consequences. It's not always possible to just 'get on with it'.

Tell me your clueless in life without telling me your clueless in life 🤦🏽‍♀️

There are two types of people in life, IMO. The ones who say, "I had a rough trot & I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that", and another type who believes just cos they had it hard, everyone else should too, & rolls their eyes at anything they deem to not be worth their sympathy.

I had a 28 hour labour with episiotomy, forceps birth and still did the school run less then 24 hours after as had no choice . My SIL had a straight forward birth and was in bed for 2 weeks with everyone running about after her like she was some precious rose.

Let's assume you do indeed know exactly how her labour experience affected her and she was definitely more able than you were.

You had no choice. She had a choice, and chose not to take on the shit.

Why is she obliged to choose shit just because you had to take shit? Presumably some people do consider her a precious rose....

So bitter. I'm sorry you weren't cared for; you should have been. But your SIL is under no obligation to refuse all help just because none was offered to you.

Wouldn’t you have quite liked the choice, though? Straightforward birth is still like being run over by a truck and she had the option of staying in bed, so took it. Was she supposed to martyr herself because your husband didn’t take paternity leave to do the school run? Why not be annoyed at whatever circumstances led to you having to do the school run the day after a forceps birth rather than being annoyed at women lucky enough to have the help we all need.

I think every pregnancy is different, and for some it can hit like a tonne of bricks. With my first I had awful pregnancy sickness/nausea that lasted all day, could barely eat anything, and it was just grim. I couldn't do anything for the first few months of that pregnancy as I just felt so bloody rubbish. Once that passed, about 18 weeks, I sailed through the rest of the pregnancy and worked right up until my due date without a single complaint. With my second, my morning sickness wasn't as bad, but by 30 weeks, I was struggling with tiredness and just couldn't wait to finish work, and would take any offers of childcare I could get for dd1, as I just needed to sleep. And once dd2 was born, my mum used to come to hold her, and watch my toddler every morning so I could nap. I don't think I was a lazy mum for taking that help. It meant once I'd had a rest, I could be 100% present and focused for my children, instead of feeling like a zombie 24/7. I

Yes, this is it.

I'm not going to make my life harder than it needs to be just because some other people haven't got a choice about it. I wouldn't expect anyone else to feel obliged to ensure they're as miserable as I am when they don't need to be, either. Why would I?

If they're not asking for my help, it's nothing to do with me. If they are, I won't refuse solely because I never got that help and therefore don't want them to have it.

So because your husband treated you appallingly your SIL’s family should have done the same for her?

The only thing your story shows is that you need to raise your standards of what you expect from your husband.

Doing the school run the next day after that doesn’t make you better than your SIL. It makes sad that your husband didn’t do it, or organise help for you.

It does women no favours when people like you pretend that doing the school run like that is remotely a good thing.

Yeah it's attitudes like yours that made me miserable during my pregnancies.

I had horrendous nausea and vomiting but because I didn't have IV fluids no one would call it HG. Few people had sympathy because they hadn't felt as horrendous as I did and thought I was making a meal of it. Only now talking to lots of people who have been pregnant I can fully accept my sickness was off the scale and was as horrendous as I felt at the time. You say 'normal' nausea I say 'all day every day overwhelming nausea'. You can't possibly know until you've experienced it.

I was a project manager before I was pregnant. HG left me literally unable to think more than a few minutes into the future. Sounds ridiculous but I couldn't even think about the evening in the morning. DH would ask questions about any plans for that evening and I was unable to think that far ahead. There's no way I could have planned a baby shower. Incidentally I was signed off from my job for most of the pregnancy but few gave me sympathy because they didn't understand why pregnancy should interfere with my ability to plan. But it did and wishing if didn't wasn't going to make it change.

My eldest didn't sleep from 8 weeks till 16 months. It nearly killed me. My mum was too far away to help but if help had been there I would have grabbed it with both hands.

Until you've walked a day in their shoes please don't judge them. I'm glad you didn't have to suffer with your pregnancies but don't deny the experiences of those who do.

Every person and every pregnancy is different. My first pregnancy I still went out partying up to 7/8 months (totally sober of course but often out until 6am), plus worked a part time job and was studying full time. My second pregnancy I was off work sick from 18 weeks til my mat leave and slept 14-16 hours a day. My third pregnancy I was fine, split up with the kids dad early on and juggled work, toddler and school child, running a house all on my own with no help and no problem. Doesnt make me somehow a better person when pregnant with DD3 and a lazy malingerer when I was pregnant with DD2 - was just a different experience and circumstances

And if your husband/ someone you trusted had been around to help with the house and other kids for a couple of days, would you have refused that?

This is pretty funny with the context that you bang on about how amazing it is being a sahm and how awful it would be to work and the whole time you have an utter shitbag for a husband who couldn’t even do the school run for you the day after a forceps birth!!
Wow.
There is a better life than that, have some self respect and don’t drag other women down because not even your partner would help you during pregnancy and after birth.

Your SIL sounds like she’s is in a much better situation and you are probably bitter.

Competitive gestating, whatever next

Bloody hell, im not a mum but even i know each woman, and indeed each pregnancy is different!

You sound lovely a real delight!

you struggled so no one else can? You soldiered on bravely with no support from others so everyone else must also?

who are you to say that what someone else feels is ‘typical nausea’ for some people it’s not HG but it’s still completely debilitating, as is the exhaustion. My first pregnancy I felt fine, but had awful ante natal depression and anxiety, my second I had awful nausea and extreme exhaustion into the 3rd trimester and then terrible PGP and swelling but mentally I felt fine.

maybe if you feel like a bad person it’s time for thinking in such a way, and objectively how you’re thinking is quite woman hating it’s time to do some self reflection as to why other people’s pregnancies seem to bother you so much.

After I had my triplets by DIY emergency C-section in the back of a car on the gridlocked M1 in the snow, my PGP hadn’t disappeared but I used my crutches to do the school run on my way to work. Left a little snail trail of lochia in the snow but you just get on with it, don’t you? Husband couldn’t help, he has a manly job. When I think of those other bitches with their NHS tea and toast, recovering in a hospital bed for an hour or two, I grind my teeth into stumps at the sheer audacity. They ought to limp a mile in my blood-filled shoes.

Yes, completely agree.

And quite often you are most knackered when you aren't even showing yet. My commute which was pretty easy before absolutely slayed me at 10 weeks in and I would fall asleep on the sofa as soon as I came in from work.

Also someone looking after the baby while you sleep? Hell yeah. Good on them.

I had fabulous pregnancies but I'm not looking for a medal for them. I also wouldnt look down on anyone for not having a good time!

But did you have to lick road clean with tongue?