Friend had a baby & friendship has changed

[BVIre]

Hi! So I am currently pregnant with my first baby but have no other kids so don’t know if I am being unreasonable or not & would genuinely appreciate advice!

My really good friend that I lived with all through university & love to pieces- we were each others bridesmaids and everything! She had a baby at the start of August, the baby was a bit of a surprise but her & her husband were super excited and I was delighted for them. Since we left uni, unfortunately we live quite far away from each other (approx. 2 hour drive).

We normally see each-other once a month and we meet in a place that is half way for both of us & it has worked really well our whole friendship. Throughout her pregnancy I offered to come closer to her because she was quite unwell but she said she didn’t mind & made comments along the lines of ‘sure once the baby is here you’ll be coming to me all the time’- which I didn’t really think much about.

Fast forward and she has her lovely wee baby and she is doing so well but the friendship has massively changed. I have only been down to see her once since she had the baby and when I arranged to come down and see her I only had an hour with her before she had arranged other plans to go to her mums for dinner which was fine. So it’s a 2 hour drive to her house, and she’s confused why I can’t come and see her more often. My job doesn’t finish to 5:30pm and with traffic I wouldn’t be able to get to her until 8ish and then have to bare in mind that I am a 2 hour drive away from home so I am kind of reliant on weekends which are incredibly busy for me.

I’d love to see her more but she’s made no offer to meet me even 1/2 hour closer and the baby is now 3 months at this point. I also want to tell her that I don’t mind if the baby doesn’t come if that’s what’s keeping her but I don’t think her husband is at home all that much to give her a night off, I also don’t want to offend her but telling her it’s her I want to see & not the baby.

The other point is I am also now 16 weeks pregnant & she has no idea because she’s the type of person to get offended if I text her that news as she would expect to be told in person. I am now not seeing her to next week and I know she’s going to be so upset that I’ve waited so long to tell her (she told me at 7 weeks) but I’ve always been the more private of the 2 of us and I also feel stuck because I would text her the news but she has made comments before that she would be annoyed if I text her news like that so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

We are also not big texters and I feel like I have been making a huge effort to check in via text with her but I get quite long paragraphs from her back with about 600 pictures of the baby and they feel more like a Facebook post life update than a conversation with a friend and she doesn’t really ask me how I am back.

Just wondering if I am being unreasonable to be upset at how much her becoming a mum has changed our friendship already or if anyone has advice?

It’s difficult to unpick how much of it is baby related and how much is her being flaky/sensitive/selfish in general as a person.

Cut her as much slack as you can for now. But she shouldn’t give you any grief for not telling her you were pregnant… it’s your news to share whenever you want to.

Her baby is likely to be literally her entire world right now. Baby is there when you wake up (usually is your alarm clock), with you ALL day, and ALL night, and you're biologically programmed to be focused on your infant's survival. So she probably doesn't have much else to talk about and finds it hard to think about anything else. It passes, for the most part. If you want her to know stuff about your life just tell her. She's probably not that interested, but in truth you're not that interested in her priorities right now, so it's placeholder communication until you're both in the same zone again.

This is why people meet up with their NCT groups, so they can bore on and on about sleep schedules, nappy brands, feeding routines, that odd rash, smiling and head control and other milestones, with people who actually care about that sort of thing. I know I did, when mine were small, even though its crushingly boring to me now.

Aww she has a tiny baby is is wrapped up in new motherhood. You say that you are busy on weekends and so you are free in the evenings but she won’t want to bring her young baby out on cold dark wet nights and she probably doesn’t want to leave it at home either, most mums haven’t left their dc at 3 months old. Evenings can also be the trickiest time with a baby where they cry and can’t be settled.

I think you are being a little unreasonable but I don’t blame you because it’s hard to understand until you have your own small baby. Congratulations on your pregnancy, I would tell her and just say you waited because you wanted to tell her face to face.

I can see why you're a bit pissed off. I would be too and I have a child. A 2 hour round-trip (assuming you'd meet halfway) really isn't difficult with a 3 month old. How does she manage to go anywhere? It's still early days but she doesn't sound like she's interested in anything other than her baby.

I've got a few friends who had babies and we ended up drifting apart for very similar reasons because it just wasn't worth the hassle. Some of them later appeared back on the scene. Maybe give it a bit more time and accept that she's not going to be as close at the moment.

3 months was the time I started feeling more myself.

Priorities do change once you've had a baby, and time goes very quickly you don't know your arse from your tit.

Totally agree on you having to drive 2 hours each way, what a ball ache.

Regarding all the photos, just send one generic reply 'oh she looks beautiful and having a great time etc'

Congrats on your pregnancy!

YABU your life changes a lot when you have a baby which you’ll soon find out. It’s natural that you’ll be seeing her less. I’d just do a FaceTime to tell her about your baby.

The age of the baby is irrelevant I think because everything you’ve said so far suggests she would find a way to make you do the legwork to visit her even after YOU have a newborn as she wants it all on her terms. Text her you’re pregnant (or call her) but leave the next contact session on her to organise.

The bit about the wedding ring does suggest she's a total diva though. Parenthood does seem to amplify certain personality traits, so someone who was a bit of a diva can morph into someone utterly selfish, never upsetting Darling Child, having unrealistic expectations of friends (even those with their own children) and eventually become that person parking on a zigzag outside the school gate causing traffic chaos every morning.

3 months is still very small and tbh, I wouldn't really want to drive with my 16m old for an hour (unless it's nap time) as she'll most likely scream which is awful being trapped in the car.
She's probably exhausted, sore and still just trying to get the basics done.
But also congratulations!! Give her a call and tell her. How you share your news is no one else's decision.

YANBU at all and I can’t believe she let you travel 2 hours to see her and had made other plans that evening? I visit my friend who had a baby recently all the time but she will invite me to stay over to make the journey easier - I don’t often take her up on it but if I don’t stay over we at least spend the whole afternoon/evening hanging out.

Can you not just phone her up to give her the news? Nice compromise between text and in-person.

Congratulations btw!!

This - why not just call her reguarly for a catch up?

This, this, this.

3 months old is so very small. She won't be wanting (or able, really) to leave her baby for any amount of time yet. She is also still in the phase of omg my world has changed entirely, my entire existence is about this tiny person (or so it feels), I eat sleep and dream them. That'll be why you get long messages and lots of photos all about baby when she replies to you.

My advice is to let things be, go with the flow and drop any desire to make decisions or judgements on/about the friendship for now. Your friend is flooded with hormones, sleep deprived and utterly obsessed with her baby right now, all of which are normal. This same advice is often given to partners who have a young baby and find their relationship strained/changed: don't make any drastic decisions, emotional or practical, for at least the first year of new baby!

I agree with aSofa though that the whole getting offended at being told something by text is ridiculous. A phone call could be a compromise? After all, new parenthood aside, this friendship is a two way street and you're not just there to accommodate her general preferences.

I think you are both going to need to think of different ways to keep in touch because you will both be neck deep in nappies for the next couple of years. When your kids get older, you'll be able to go away with her etc. more easily.
Try to keep the friendship ticking over until that stage which is about age 2/3.

AND big congratulations on your pregnancy!

Okay, I was entirely thinking YABU at first blush - having survived the experience of having a baby who wouldn’t be put down without screaming and seemed to breastfeed constantly. However, your updates paint a different picture. Sounds like she takes you for granted a bit at the best of times and you almost tiptoe around certain things to not upset her. That’s not a great friendship.

Then the whole episode where she asked you to take your
wedding ring off at her wedding is completely batshit crazy! That’s a whole new level of bridezilla entitled attitude, right there.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, I wouldn’t worry much about the friend.

We’re not big phone call people- I spend all day at work on the phone so really can’t see it far enough when I get home.

we tried phone calls over covid and they just didn’t work for us at all, she self-admitted tends to monologue on the phone to me and then I end up multi tasking whilst she’s talking

think I’m happy to wait until I see her on the 4th to tell her my news as it is my news to share as I want- she did get quite cross at her cousin for not telling her that she was pregnant until 20 weeks (her cousins had 3 mc & had struggled to conceive for 5 years). I know this makes my friend sound nasty but she is the type of person to equate knowledge with love so her telling me she was pregnant at like 7 weeks was her way of showing she loved me because she trusts me with that info if that makes sense- she just really likes it when her friends tell her info because it makes her feel loved & trusted. This has always been a bit of a sticky point with us as I am very private but it is my news and I’ll just wait until I see her

@NotTheMrMenAgain Thank you for saying this, I do genuinely believe I am an understanding friend- I have loads of close friends with babies who I have never felt this way before about.

I’m a pretty laid back person so I do think it takes a lot for me to get upset about something hence my updates on the post lol because I do think that there’s different elements to her personality that is making this tough and not just being a new mother

Yes, it definitely sounds like more of an accumulative effect thing, as opposed to you simply being put out that the friendship has changed after her baby being born. I think you give her a lot of grace and understanding in general, and that's understandable - most of us do when it's a friend we love even though they're difficult. It does mean, though, that we get to the end of our tether/patience at some point.

I'm 35, don't have kids so I have had quite a lot of friends have babies! Honestly my friendship with my local friends with kids is still similar in some circumstances... but all my uni friends who live miles away the friendships are just different now. You can either embrace the new friendship, see them less but still feel you are enjoying it. Or let it fade and see what happens in the future.

I'd video call her to tell her your news! But it's understandable for things to be more difficult for a while. Just hold on to the friendship as much as you can and it should get easier as the baby gets older.

She sounds like hard work. Probably better to use your energy to develop nearby friendships.

Edit: just read your updates

Babies can be all-consuming when they're young. Best to adjust your expectations and just enjoy seeing each other when you can manage

Ahhhh... My sweet summer child.

You'll be the same in a year's time, sending photos of your baby, talking about your baby, not being keen on travelling 1hr+ with baby each way at 3 months old.

You'll understand in time.

When you tell her, just tell her you waited to tell her so she could enjoy her baby all to herself in the first couple of months and you didn't want to "steal her thunder" and that's she's the first person to know other than immediate family.