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?

It depends what makes you say they feel "entitled" to help and are not just genuinely struggling?

Pregnancy is hard. My first one was like a really bad hangover, everyday, for 3 months. Second one was thankfully easier, but still exhausting at times. It can go either way and everything in-between.

I actually thought the older generation were more 'protective' of women? My parents, in their 60s, were constantly telling me not to do too much, not to stress etc when pregnant.

Pregnancy nausea is awful and really depressing. I've soldiered on each time to get through the 'keeping it a secret' stage, but it's really rough.

Surely there are loads of things in motherhood and parenting that some people find difficult but you don't? I can't understand why some people have such trouble keeping a clean and tidy house or being on time. They wonder why I have a lot of trouble dealing with the terrible twos/tantrums etc. Everyone is different.

And at one time "lying-in" was thought to be desirable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying-in

"A 1932 publication refers to lying-in as ranging from two weeks to two months.[3] It also suggests not "getting up" (getting out of bed post-birth) for at least nine days and ideally for 20 days.[3][4] Care was provided either by her female relatives (mother or mother-in-law), or, for those who could afford it, by a temporary worker called the monthly nurse. These weeks ended with the re-introduction of the mother to the community in the Christian ceremony of the churching of women. When lying-in was a more common term, it was used in the names of several maternity hospitals, for example the General Lying-In Hospital in London. Until the 1970s, standard NHS postpartum care involved 10 days in hospital, with the newborns taken to the nursery overnight, ensuring the mothers were well rested by the time they returned home."

I didn't stay in bed after I had DDs but I didn't do much more than feed the baby (and sometimes us) for a few weeks and rested as much as possible.

THIS. The start to motherhood experienced by my own mother in the 1980s was completely different to the shitshow of ante-natal care I received, which appeared to be informed by the attitudes of people like the OP who value suffering above all.

Post* Natal

@DrSbaitso I know people who gave birth in the 90s who stayed 7 and even one who stayed 10 days after totally straightforward births!

I didn't stay in bed after I had DDs but I didn't do much more than feed the baby (and sometimes us) for a few weeks and rested as much as possible.

Same here. I was a bleeding, stitched up, sobbing, postnatally depressed mess. Had both mums round and they and my husband did basically everything except breastfeed. And it was still fucking tough.

Couldn't care less if someone thinks I'm weak or a moral degenerate for it. I'm not a martyr. If I'm struggling and the help is there, damn right I'll take it. And then I'll have some reserves to offer help myself when someone else needs it, because I don't believe they should suffer just because I did.

It was the same in the early 90s. You spent a week in hospital for a normal, easy birth. Babies were taken away so mothers could rest.

Now is a woman has a nap while someone else watches her baby in the early weeks she’s an entitled princess apparently.
I think these comments are always made
by people who are fundamentally unhappy with their situation and how hard their life is with no support so they try to drag other women down to make themselves feel
mildly better.

Rather than criticising other mothers perhaps you could turn your attention to women getting decent postnatal care @Fuzzyduck31? It’s utterly shocking that postnatal care 50 years ago was superior in every way to its current iteration.

Not at all, perfectly understandable. I had a very straightforward birth each time. You still need to rest up as much as possible.

ODFOD

Babies used to get taken to nurseries so mothers could actually rest. Now we are expected to just get up and on with it at the expense of our own well-being. I have high risk pregnancies and could care less what someone like you thinks about how I manage them OP. My mum is planning on coming out for 3 weeks to help me after the birth of the latest one, I don’t care if you didn’t have support, I have someone willing to help me and will take it! Having a lockdown 2020 baby nearly actually killed me. Mind your own damn business.

So, basically what you're saying is that just because you had a really shit time, you want everyone else to have a really shit time as well? What a horrible way to see the world.

Well said.

What a shitty thread.

I had a dream pregnancy and never had any symptom except a belly getting gradually bigger. I also had an EMCS which went smoothly, healed with no complications and successfully breastfed from day one.

But even I wasn't that fucking blind that my experience was luckily very different from most other mothers and that many of them were in chronic pain or floored with nausea, food aversions and fatigue.

I know that there are some that milk their delicate condition within their workplace or their families but they are few and far between from my experience.

Firstly, it's not a trend 🙄.

You don't know she hasn't got HG so you're being unkind.

So what if someone is willing to have their newborn grandchild for a few hours so they can let their daughter rest! That's a lovely gesture actually.

I have 3. A toddler DS and 7 month old twins. If my mum said to me she'll watch them whilst I catch up on sleep I'd have taken it too.

I don't have any help except DP when he comes home at 6pm and honestly don't care what other help people get.

Stop being so bitter and judgemental.

Not everyone experiences pregnancy, child birth the same way.

Not all babies are the same.

Not everyone has the same experience as you.

I hope you keep your mouth zipped when talking to your 'friends'. They don't need your lack of empathy/superiority to make them any more shit.

Ffs.

I've had several really shitty pregnancies where I was totally unsupported and HAD to do it all alone.

When I see other women not having to power on through, managing to rest, asking for help and getting it, it makes me so bloody happy that they have that support, and, when I'm in the position to, I form part of that support system too.

I can't believe you suffered and are now using that as a stick to beat other women with rather than being glad other people don't have to go through what you went through.

Nobody is going to be on their death bed wishing they suffered more and had less support in their lives.

What a horrid thread - full of women trying to out do each other in their pregnancy heroicness!
Everybody experiences pregnancy differently - everybody has a different tolerance for pain and illness.

I was really lucky to have had 2 pregnancies where I wasn't sick once and as a severe emetophobe I was bloody grateful of that and took whatever else pregnancy threw at me

Does it really matter if someone has a bit of support popping in to look after their baby for a bit (I'd have given my right arm for that sometimes). Does it matter if someone is having a moan because they're feeling shit for the 6th month in a row - none of it is affecting any of you judging them, and there are no medals for heroically doing it without moaning, without help, with 3 other children in tow - whatever reason you're giving for putting yourself on a pedestal because you did it better than your "friends" who are moaning!! Try being a friend and rock up and offer help if they're needing it, buy them the pack of crackers if they're the only thing they can stomach, check in on them if all they can face is collapsing on the sofa - be a friend to them rather than slate them on here.

I was "just" sick several times a day for several months, while also feeling nauseous most of the time, and being horrendously tired. I used to wake up, throw up, get ready, throw up, get through work (perhaps being sick there once), come home, throw up, and go to sleep on the sofa. DP used to wake me to eat something and get ready for bed. It was miserable. I worked through it, but I really couldn't manage anything else. I can actually remember the day I felt better enough to look around my house and notice how DP had been coping with everything. It was like waking up from a dream.

I'm not someone who takes time off easily and I usually soldier through most things. It's a significant part of why I have 2 children, not 3.

You've been lucky, OP. Try being grateful instead of judgemental.

I agree it’s totally gross when women get help when they are struggling, take it easy, set boundaries and put their health first instead of being total run-down martyrs to everyone around them.

They should just hand their Woman Card back in really.

You sound vile, frankly.

Oh and separately to anything else, one of the advantages of pregnancy is that if it really is just a minor thing, then yes, you can fuck it off guilt free if you want because you're pregnant.

I skipped the ILs family get together for mother's day, because I couldn't be around food smells and they always did buffets.

The fact that I'd have wanted to skive anyway was just a bonus.

Work wanted me in the office 40% of the time - but they let you pick and choose, and my team kept cancelling on me, so I'd have schlepped to London for nothing. So when HR said we don't want you coming in from 20 weeks - yup, I took that opportunity. Team mates who let me down asking me to come in? Jog on, you were always bailing on me. Sorry mate, HR say no.

The fact that travel made me tired, sick and dehydrated was a bonus.

I'm not going to be noble about this. I'm going to take the advantages as they come.

Your pregnancy was fine, so I'm alright Jack, right? And everyone wise is just lazy and selfish...