Friend hasn’t brought up my pregnancy once

[Padronpeppersplease]

Just want to preface this by saying that I KNOW other people’s pregnancies are just not that interesting to other people, and also that pregnancy announcements can be triggering for a host of reasons. That said, I’m starting to feel like I’m just not being treated very respectfully by my friend and it’s really starting to get me down, I’d appreciate people’s opinions! I’m currently 24 weeks pregnant - very happy about the pregnancy, am in a happy relationship and relatively OK financially. I told this friend my news after the 12 week scan on WhatsApp, she said congratulations but then met her for a coffee a week later and she didn’t say anything else about it, when I bought it up myself I felt she was quite terse and since then I have avoided the subject. However, I then messaged her again after my 20 week scan to say that I was having a girl - again, she did message congratulations, but I then went to meet her and she didn’t mention the fact I was having a girl at all. This is in contrast to basically everyone else, again I’m not expecting anybody to want to discuss pregnancy at length but even just a basic acknowledging comment like ‘oooh so you’re having a girl!’ type thing would be nice. As I’ve said I’m not insensitive to the fact that people can struggle with this news, I’ve had miscarriages myself and also an abortion and have been triggered by the pregnancy news of friends, however I’ve at least put on a show of excitement for them. Am I being unreasonable to expect my friend who I considered myself to be very close to to demonstrate some mild interest in my pregnancy and not to feel like it’s a taboo subject I can’t mention?

What are the big things in her life right now?

I suspect your friend has infertility problems and being around a pregnant friend is heartbreaking for her.

When I was in the same position as your friend and being with pregnant friends and colleagues wad so hard. Especially hard when they show you scan photos and details about the pregnancy.

Your friend has said congratulations, I think respect her boundaries and keep the pregnancy talk to a minimum.

I don’t think anybody is saying OP is wrong to want to talk about it with someone, just that it’s quite clear this particular friend isn’t the person to talk about it with.

But I disagree that pregnancy and infertility are the same. I would far rather be someone who is consumed in the excitement and planning of pregnancy, celebrating my baby being healthy, getting excited about having a little girl, than be the person who is potentially years into infertility who has lost one or multiple pregnancies.

The latter is always going to find it incredibly difficult to be around & discuss someone going through the former.

I never shared my infertility struggles with any friends IRL. It's personal and people are not always supportive.

I definitely wouldn't tell a friend who had just announced a pregnancy about my struggles as I wouldn't want to make it about me. I'd just put on a brave face and try and appear normal.

YANBU. Having been in a similar situation, I found it annoying too. And yes, perhaps there are reasons why she doesn't bring it up, perhaps she is suffering, but it's not unreasonable for you to feel sad that you're not having these conversations with your friend. Whether to broach the topic is difficult. You either have to decide this is just how it is and move on OR you need to ask her. It's not fair on her to keep judging her for something she doesn't know is annoying, and it's just making you feel annoyed all the time.

So the op should probably just avoid this friend for the next few years? As if she is infertile then it's best to avoid any contact which may trigger her? How can op be in touch when say on maternity leave? How could she not mention the baby then?

If the friend is not going to even hint at sone issue then it's just guessing

So safest to just drop contact for now and see if she gets in touch at any point.

This

No of course pregnancy and infertility are not the same One is e citing and joyous. The other is heartbreaking and soul destroying.

To add to this, I think more and more people are getting bad at asking about life in general. I despair at the number of people I meet who ask no questions, even though I ask loads. For me, that's how conversations work - I ask some questions then you ask some questions - but some people seem to get to the end of telling me their stuff (after I've asked lots of follow-up questions in between) then just wait for me to speak. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like to be asked something; it feels rude to just launch into talking about my stuff.

I agree, but also, pregnancy isn't always smooth sailing, and many women suffer from postnatal depression etc. Which again, is very hard to talk about if no one ever asks.
There is no need to compare the two, no one will ever know everyone's struggles, but surely that's the point of friendships, to have the support there for the different hardships/celebrations that may occur in our lives.

I hope she's taking notice of the normal, thoughtful ones and not the weirdos being nasty to a pregnant woman on behalf on the completely imagined fertility issues of a woman they've never met.

You mean possible fertility issues. No one has stated it as fact. Are you saying you don't think it's a real possibility?

Either way, OP knew she didn't want to talk about it after she initially announced her pregnancy and she still pushed it, then came onto an Internet forum to complain about her friend when she didn't get the reaction she wanted.

I suspect the friendship will fizzle out anyway.

Well I think the fact she hasn’t been back is telling. If she knew for a fact her friend isn’t suffering any fertility issues or had any losses she’d surely have come back to tell us. And calling infertile women weirdos, how lovely.

There are some such bitter, bitter posts on here and I’m not talking about everyone that’s disagreed with me. But I’ll correct you @KimberleyClark and “come back” to tell you that I don’t think my friend is suffering from fertility issues, she has previously said (unmprompted) that she’s on the fence about whether to have children or not, of course this may not be the whole truth but there’s certainly no reason to believe she is struggling with infertility.

When I had my miscarriage earlier this year her response was that children weren’t the be all and end all, I think the likelihood is that she’s just not interested and I’m not going to pursue it anymore, it probably will fizzle out.

I know I came on here and asked for opinions and expected there to be disagreements but to take from what I’ve said that I’m an insensitive bridezilla who is throwing my pregnancy in everyone’s face and am only pregnant so I can see the social media likes rack up… really? 😒

She isn't respecting you??? What type of 'respect' do you imagine you are owed because you are only doing what millions of people do everyday

Alright, sure, next time you have news I hope you expect your friends to not enquire after it at all because it’s commonplace

What's going on in her life at the moment, OP? Do you think she's happy with where she's at?

I recall one of my child-free friends having a very hard time with another friend's pregnancy news. They were happy not having kids but had gone through a horrible breakup, selling of joint property etc, and she wasn't in the best place to (in her view) start losing her best friends to babies. Not a great reaction, but it was what it was and adults don't always behave spectacularly.

I would expect friends to pay attention and behave interested in your life altering news beyond a text message. Friendship involves back and forth and interest and concern in each other's lives.

MN is so weird, even at the best of times

Enquiring and respecting are two different things

“ This. A good friend of mine who is genuinely the nicest person ever really really struggled with having children. Whenever someone was pregnant she would smile and that was all she could muster and then go to a private place and cry.”

This is so true. My daughter and her husband are going through fertility issues at the moment, it is all consuming and pretty much all they can think about. Several of her work colleagues and friends are pregnant at the moment, some days it’s as much as she can do not to burst into tears at work.
Took me a year to get pregnant first time, then i lost it so I know quite well how she feels.

I was the first of our circle to be pregnant, once we'd told people and they'd congratulated us there would be the 'How are you' when we met up and that was it! Pregnancy is a boring subject, even my own, and we tended to have more interesting things to talk about, this was 40+ years ago when being pregnant wasn't considered to be a unique event as it seems to be today. Once she was born they came and cooed, brought cards and gifts and that was enough from them!

Just so you know, I used to pretend I didn't know if I wanted children when I was having fertility issues.

This was because, if I said "yes I want children" I'd be opening myself up to ppl asking me when I was going to start trying. I didn't want to talk about my issues for a whole raft of reasons I won't go into her.

But people would ask me if I wanted children all the time and I would always lie and say "not yet" or "not sure".

I asked for clarificarion on the use of 'respecting, not commenting on whether or not friends enquire about pregnancy progress

'Enquire after' does not require hours of details, pregnancy is very commonplace after all.

As for the distinction between making enquiries and being respectful - I’d say asking some basic questions about a huge event in your friends life is a form of respect. Never said I want it to be the sole topic of conversation or that I want to have at length discussions about it.