To be jealous of people having babies outside of a COVID world

[Shaveacave]

My daughter was born literally the day we went into lockdown, 23rd March 2020. Not one person held her other than DH or me until she was nearly 10 weeks old. DH was a key worker so worked throughout so from 2 weeks on DD and I sat at home all day, every day. I had a very difficult birth resulting in an emergency cesarean which seemed to take forever to heal and I wasn't well enough to even get out for our allocated one hour walk a day until DD was 6 weeks old. There was only one 'group' I could eventually attend which was an outside only walk together in a park but everything I had hoped to do; baby massage, baby sign, stay and play, not one of them existed.
We had 3 lockdowns that year, when the third one was announced I sobbed and arranged to go back to work 2 months ahead of schedule because I couldn't cope anymore.

We're obviously fine now. DD is a wonderful, funny, bright 4 year old and I love her more than anything. But I was the first of my friends to have a baby and a few have started their families now and most recently my sister-in-law just had her first baby. And I feel like I'm seething with jealousy at the experience they all get to have that I didn't. My in-laws are going to stay with sister-in-law as her husband is going back to work tomorrow so she won't have to be alone. I couldn't leave my bed the first day on my own and I just sobbed all day. I remember the next day my husband planting food all over the house for me to make sure wherever I found myself I ate something because I literally didn't eat that first day until he got home; the idea of having my Mum there with me to help those first few days on my own would have meant the world to me. And I just feel so sad about it. I work full time, I was always going to go back to work full time, we can't afford for me not to. And now it's just 4 months until DD is in school anyway so that's it, these early years are pretty much behind me and I'm suddenly feeling very sad about it.

I don't really have an AIBU, just ranting I suppose!
I'm so happy for all my friends, I'm beyond thrilled to be an Auntie for the first time!! Truly I am and I don't wish any of them anything but wonderful things. But I just feel a bit sad for me and DD tonight.

Are you me!!
My DC were massively impacted.
My Yr6 went to high school with zero transition events.
But the year above had an awful
Yr7 where all classes were in bubbles once they were back in.
Millions of teens missed vital social transitions

Op @Shaveacave I honestly think the only way is to accept the situation as it was and focus on the future

Just to give another perspective, we started trying for a baby in late 2018. Still haven't been able to conceive. Spent the covid years (and all the years since) having IVF and in and out of fertility clinics. To no avail.

Honestly, I don't want to be rude, but just some perspective. Be grateful you have your daughter at all. You will have the rest of your life to enjoy your relationship with her.

Oh come on, all the grass is yellower people. You don't have to win the worst situation in the world award before you're allowed to talk about something you found hard.

If you can't have sympathy or empathy for OP, fine, but perhaps better to move along than come and make her feel bad?

Look at it from another point of view - some of us had toddlers in lockdown. Now THAT was hellish.

Those times were really hard for most of us in many different ways.
7M people died of COVID so shit could be worse.

Count your blessings, OP, and stop whining.

She was robbed from an important time of life. Of course she can feel that. But according to the last 3 comments you can't. Not dead from Covid, had to have IVF that didn't work or got forbid you had a toddler.
Any new mum would feel the same as you!

It sounds like it was very hard OP and it is sad to think that you missed that time being perfect and how you dreamed it would be. We are all told to expect everything to be perfect these days, or we are justified in feeling short changed.

My two DC were very short changed by Covid and the lockdowns. One missed their GCE exams and one their final degree show at art college. The art student DC does get down about it occasionally and wonders what opportunities were missed ets. But we don't indulge in the what might have been. It's done and nothing can change the past.

In twenty years or so your little one will have added it to the interesting facts about their life and you will all reminisce about it.

It's time to put it to bed now and look to the future.

Millions of babies and innocent people are dying all over the world... so maybe you should be grateful for what you have or stop trying to destroy other people. Think how you would feel being told that.

It was shit. It still is shit.

but it was shit for most people. Just in different ways. No one has a monopoly on the level of shit.

I think you just need to accept that it was what it was and move past it and count your blessings.

Yup. Toddler, 5 year old and an intense full time job which I suddenly had to do from home on very short notice (not a key worker). I swear to god I am not yet recovered from the stress of it.

Every sympathy there were certain life stages who definitely had it worst. Felt so sorry for university students, new parents like you, children and young people at the wanting to socialise and meet potential partners stage.

Remember picking Dd up from school when the first lockdown announced the teachers were saying it’s all fine - she’s smart and realised fast it wasn’t and that the year 6 she had been looking for to for literally years wasn’t going to happen for her. Remember her quietly crying on realising that know it’s not massive in the grand scheme of things but broke my heart.

YANBU OP - my first baby was born 11th March 2020 and DH is also a keyworker so I get you. It was really rubbish and I identify with all of your post.
All I can say is that you are made of strong stuff. You did it and it sounds like your DD is thriving. Mine is too 🥰
I think it is a trauma that we will talk about forever. Much in the same way that my grandparents always retold the same stories about life in the war, we will retell stories about registering our babies over the phone from the car park and other crazy things from that time.

YANBU OP. I often wondered about all the new mums during lockdown and how on earth they were coping. You were robbed of all the support of the family visits, health services, baby groups and mum networks that helped others through. It's such a great shame. I don't know what to suggest but there are probably so many people out there who feel like you do. Maybe there is some way of connecting with them now and sharing your experiences together to try and help each other come to terms with it. Are you thinking of having another baby? You will probably find it a healing experience if you get to do it differently the second time around.

While lockdown was horrible for most children of any age, and their parents, I can see how missing out on close family support and meeting other new parents would have been especially difficult.

On the plus side, you had an excuse to spend huge amounts of one on one bonding time with your baby. That would have been incredibly good for her development. I think with the perspective of raising babies in normal times, I would have appreciated that in some ways, rather than going here there and everywhere, and rarely just hanging out together and connecting.

I'm not trying to jolly you up OP, just looking for some positives :)

@IVFveteran This isn’t fair. I’m truly sorry to all those posting who have experienced infertility, failed IVF attempts, stalled IVF due to lockdown, children born with genetic conditions etc. Your experiences sound awful.
Im sure @Shaveacave is incredibly grateful to have her DD, just as I am to have my DS but it doesn’t take away the fact that giving birth during the pandemic was a really traumatic experience for a lot of people, myself included. I always imagined that if I was lucky enough to be able, I’d have 2-3 DC. I now have one almost 4yo who will likely be an only child as I can’t get past some of the trauma and am terrified to put myself in that position again.

It doesn’t have to be a competitive “who had it worst” thread. I get it, in the grand scheme of things I’m the lucky one - I left hospital with a healthy baby and I’ll be forever thankful that is the case. Others left without children, people were unable to get to dying loved ones, people died alone, nurses took the brunt and had to cope with patients dying alone while refusing entry to family members etc etc etc. I can acknowledge all of these things while still holding my own trauma from that time.

@Aswellisnotoneword Due to covid etc, the first time I met a midwife at all was at 32 weeks pregnant (that’s how shit the prenatal care was btw 🙃). I walked in and sat down quite excited to finally be doing a “normal” thing during pregnancy and she handed me a leaflet and gave me a lecture about how i was doing a terrible thing by having a baby during the pandemic and how my child was going to completely lack social skills and have severe speech delay due to everyone wearing face masks and him not being able to see facial expressions and people forming words. I was pregnant before the pandemic struck btw.

I agree with you too - spending huge amounts of one on one time was definitely beneficial for my DS in some ways. He was very advanced in speech & walking by 10months etc. But, it was an incredibly lonely and isolating experience. My DH worked offshore as an essential worker and I had nobody to “bubble” with so it literally was just me and DS and our one walk a day for months on end. DH and I had bought our dream “forever home” a few years prior to TTC and I ended up selling it after lockdowns etc because I couldn’t look at those walls any longer.

I’ve been to some baby groups and they’re mostly boring and repetitive, and faintly patronising (“mummies” ugh). One just seems to be an instagrammable photo shoot yet it’s wildly popular with massive waiting lists. I gave up on it after 2 weeks despite paying for a second term when I realised the activities and songs were EXACTLY the same as term 1, week in, week out. I don’t get why there’s such a mad
enthusiasm for it. I do take her to a French sensory singing class but I promise you - my baby loves sitting in parks/pub gardens and going for walks much more!

if you have a happy child and a good relationship, then you did it all brilliantly!

OP thank you for posting this. My DD was a Covid baby too and I still struggle so much with the resentment I feel towards people who haven't gone through that. I know it's not about them specifically, it's about the situation. The fact is it is unfair, it shouldn't have been like that (I gave birth without my partner and still feel traumatised by it, it was also totally unnecessary). I get you on every level and share your feelings of sadness.

I had a covid baby and one after. It was tough during covid, especially having a first baby. My husband was shielding, there was no PPE at the time, we genuinely thought he may die if he came to the hospital for the birth (he came anyway). It was an insane time. There were benefits for us because we were at home together, furloughed for some of it, but if he hadn't been there I think it would have been really rough, so I do sympathise with the OP. The grinding endless lockdowns over winter with a crawling baby and nowhere to go were really awful.

But having a baby outside of covid - everyone was so busy they didn't meet the baby anyway. Baby groups are really pretty dull. Partners are working so you're still just at home with the kids most of the time. It's not that great.

I think you need to let go of the anger about it. We're sold a vision of a perfect birth and maternity leave but it's really not like that for many people - the reality is we have babies whatever's going on in the world and the experience of becoming a mother for most women the world over and throughout history is a hard one. But you did it and lived through it and that is amazing.

OP, I completely get where you are coming from. I had our only child (IVF, and many years in the making) child in May 2020. I remember so vividly how the pandemic impacted my mental health towards the end of my pregnancy, feeling anxious about the world he would be brought into and if he would be safe, worried that it may take months for our families to be able to hold and know their only grandchild and missing out on those newborn cuddles and bonding which made me very sad, and depressed that I wasn't having the experience I had longed for (simple things like a couple of weeks to myself to do nice things before the baby was due, all wiped out, having a maternity leave that was stripped of any interaction with other mums). The reality of then having my son then compounded this, with the realisation that not only could I not show him off to the world, that nobody wanted or was able to interact to provide support professionally - NCT went online, but was not prepared for it so it was quite useless, GPs and nurses refused to see me and my baby in person for his most basic and important checks, and I had to fight for him to be checked in person - his 8 week physical check was finally done in the August of 2020. I was never seen in person once discharged by the midwives, so my post natal care was also non-existent. As a new mum, how would I know if my baby was not developing normally? I felt totally overwhelmed and unable to access the system. I could go on. In a professional sense, I have had interactions with many families who have missed the benefits of HV and other services who disappeared overnight, and referrals for things like SLT, and other issues have been delayed for their children, impacting their development.

I totally appreciate that everyone had their own experiences and that many are still carrying those with them, and that some of course may have preferred the hands-off approach, but that doesn't minimise the cohort of families who lost the time they thought they were going to have with their newborns. I still get upset when I see photos of our families 'meeting' our beloved son through a window, with masks on. It breaks my heart. I understand the pang of jealousy you describe - I've seen friends showing off their little ones and being able to share those early precious days with family and friends and I am sad that we never experienced that as a family. And that we had the extra pressure of worrying about covid and if our child was developing normally on top of that. Yes, we benefitted from time together as a family, my husband being home a lot was a wonderful thing for me and for him. And our son is happy and doing well, which is the most important thing. And when I've broached the discussions above with my husband or family, all I hear is how our son's introduction to the world was different but not a bad one as I shouldn't feel negative about his early months, and to see the benefits. But that doesn't erase the scars and the sadness deep down that many of us are still carrying with us.

Be careful of this idealised vision of that newborn period, OP. It's not unreasonable to grieve, but even without covid, that newborn period can be pretty awful. Don't get stuck on "how it should have been".

Definitely do not want to miniseries your experiences as your feelings are totally valid and it was a really weird, eerie time.

I used to live in the Middle East, and when I had my first baby, I got 50 days maternity leave. My c section scar had literally just healed and I was still at that stage of having big wet patches through my t shirt. It was pretty awful and when I got pregnant with my next child, I quit work but I was at home with a newborn and 2 year old as we were too skint to send the 2 year old to nursery. The government in the Middle Eastern country doesn't give any maternity benefits if you have a baby and don't work, and things were really hard at home with a newborn and toddler.

During covid, I remember people trying to get the government to extend maternity leave so people who didn't get a chance to bring their babies to meet relatives and go to soft play could. I felt like I was seething with rage about that, as to me the thought of spending all day with your baby with no interruptions sounded totally blissful.

I had a third baby in a different country. Both kids at school, full year maternity. It was bliss: baby and I didn't go to any clubs or classes. It was just me and her, pottering about, a daily walk to the shop or maybe to meet a friend once every blue moon. My perspective meant that I enjoyed every moment of having her to myself.

I'm sorry that you had a hard time and not trying to compete with you. Maybe some counselling might help as this might also be connected to havinga traumatic birth?

I had a baby during lockdown. It was horrendous. I can't think back to that time without feeling sadness and then when it all came out about the Boris party for the first time I felt anger about it. I really struggled with seeing those who had babies just after the restrictions were all lifted and "the new normal". Who didn't have to keep their kids home from nursery and test for every cough. But it isn't their fault, that's how the world should have been. I hope you find peace with it. I find it best to look forward.

she handed me a leaflet and gave me a lecture about how i was doing a terrible thing by having a baby during the pandemic and how my child was going to completely lack social skills and have severe speech delay due to everyone wearing face masks and him not being able to see facial expressions and people forming words. how horrible! I'm sorry!