Friend’s reaction to my pregnancy news

[sarahjane7777]

Hi everyone,

I’m seeking some perspective here because I can’t tell if I’m being unreasonable or not.

I have a group of friends from university, we all ended up across the country. We stay in contact everyday through a WhatsApp group and meet up regularly.

I have been battling infertility for three years now. They are aware, and have always supported me. After a long IVF journey with multiple losses, I am now 17 weeks pregnant with a baby boy.

I had wanted to wait until our next weekend away to tell everyone, but the way it fell just meant I would be nearly 30 weeks. So I decided to text them the news after a private scan today.

One friend immediately responded with “oh I’m so glad to hear that, it’s just the news I needed because I’ve been having a rotten week”, and she then went on to explain why it had been so bad - a hospital admission, work stuff, etc etc.

Nobody else responded and instead started asking her how she was etc.

AIBU to have my nose a little out of joint with that? It’s just really upset me

Congratulations!

As regards the friend, I think it deoends on what the hospital admision was about.If it was something really serious or life-threatening, then I can understand her reaction and that of the others. If she's just someone who turns everything into an opportunity for a woe-is-me whinge, then it's annoying.

She’s the only one to respond to the ops pregnancy. Even when called out. The rest have not.

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP.

I'm going to go against the grain and say that you are really focusing on the wrong stuff here. You don't need your friends to validate your pregnancy for you- just be happy for yourself that after such a difficult time you're growing that baby you so longed for ❤️. Many people struggling with infertility or involuntary childlessness will never get to that point.

Pregnancy announcements can be difficult for people for all kinds of reasons. You never know what is going on for someone else.
In my experience the only people who are typically that invested / joyful about pregnancy announcements are the parents to be and grandparents. Sometimes wider family. You don't need anyone else. Just be happy for yourself and enjoy your preg

xx

Many Congratulations. Wonderful news and little boys are so loving. Put another post on saying thanks to everyone who congratulated you, especially as its been such a long time wanting a baby. They will know if they did or didn't. Hope you have a wonderfully smooth pregnancy and birth.

Congratulations @sarahjane7777 - this stranger has everything crossed 🤞🏻 for you x

just saw that you have followed up by calling them out :/.

OP do all your other friends have kids?

Maybe one or more of them is also struggling and your preg announcement has also brought up stuff for them? Maybe that's why people don't want to fawn about it in a group chat...

Congratulations!!!

As someone who has been through IVF and was also quite open about our journey, I would have been upset if my friends had reacted in this way when I finally announced I was pregnant.

Enjoy your pregnancy (I wish I had worried less throughout mine) and all the best for your precious baby’s arrival x

Your friends should have congratulated you. No excuses, especially knowing that this journey has been so hard for you.

I think that unless you get a slew of apologies and belated congratulations, you should reconsider whether these friends are worth your time and energy, especially now you are entering a new chapter in your life and your free time will now be at a premium.Do not let their indifference and rudeness take any shine off this wonderful news.

Many congratulations

I imagine your message got lost in hers - people may not even have read your as it opened on hers? They may have absorbed her 'congratulations' bit when reading all her problems. She is selfish.

Also massive congratulations. It's huge news.

I think she gatecrashed your announcement and made it awkward for the others to respond happily.
I don't know if she did it knowingly or if she's simply lacking social grace.

They are being shite. You deserve to be congratulated. You are not being self absorbed or any other tripe mentioned here.
something like that would get immediate responses from everyone on my group chat- sounds like it would the norm for yours too.

if it was me having the bad day I’d had held off posting. And said something like

‘Lovely congratulations! that’s made my day after a tricky one. But I will tell you all about that later as it’s time to celebrate’ or similar.

Has your friend been admitted to hospital?
Are your friends just being cautious about going hard on the congratulations after you’ve had so much struggle? When I was pregnant after loss I hated people saying ‘congratulations’ like everything was guaranteed (I’d had a very late loss though so it was different).

It sounds like you called out all your friends rather than the attention grabbing one which probably made them all feel a bit awkward, but I can see why you did it

I am delighted for you OP. I know how hard infertility is. Massive congratulations!!!

sorry but this groups of friends are all bellends! Even if they do feel awkward, they could have messaged you separately- they are cunts!

Eh, you are annoyed at the one friend who actually commented?

No, she called out the friends who didn’t comment

I don't think the first friend is that bad. She did send a nice message.

The others are mean.

Massive congratulations BTW.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be annoyed at the person who basically messaged ‘nice, anyway now about me..’ tbf!

Well massive congratulations from me! We also had a shite time trying to have our first and it was nerve wracking and amazing in equal measure when I got to this stage. It takes it out of you announcing it. I wish you a very boring healthy uneventful rest of your pregnancy 💐

I wouldn’t be annoyed at the friend who actually congratulated you, even if she spoke about herself afterwards.

But I would be extremely upset about no one else bothering to congratulate you!
They can acknowledge the other friends problems as well as your pregnancy.

There must be a back story to this, more than they simply don’t like you.

Have you had multiple pregnancy scares before?
Do they all say congratulations and then you end up losing it?

I always see threads where the OP asks if posters can see the almost invisible line on the pregnancy test and multiple posters say yes and congratulations mummy etc and it’s shocking to me because these OPs are desperate for a baby and saying congratulations almost confirms it in their head.

I wonder if it’s anything like that - I can’t think of any other reason why they wouldn’t congratulate you.

I’m annoyed at all of them to be honest.

The ones who didn’t say anything have really upset me. They know how much this means to myself and my husband.

The friend who made it about her has annoyed me too. It was literally a day by day breakdown of why her week had been so bad, two or three paragraphs!

Everyone making out OP’s news is run of the mill etc to a group chat is wild! From what I can make out, these are a supposedly tight group of friends, always in touch, all good.

OP announces a major life milestone on the chat, to be met with a v low key congrats from one; who straight away brushed over it and talked about herself, then the other supposed besties, just ignored OPs amazing news, nothing back?! Id be gutted. My friends were lovely and soo happy for me when I told them I was pregnant, felt really special.

I have had sad times, illness etc but when a friend announced a pregnancy I was genuinely happy for them, and kept back any problems I was having and let them bask in the limelight and rightly so

We’ve had one other loss they were told about before we lost the baby, a miscarriage at 14 weeks.

The thing is, this is not only all that to you, but you’ve told them this, they know how difficult it’s been and they still glossed over it.

She sounds fucking insufferable. I loathe people like this and have one in one of my friendship groups. I don't know if they just lack any social skills or simply don't care about anyone elses lives. I would cut her out but that would probably mean never seeing the others again.

Congratulations OP, wonderful news and I've no doubt you deserve it 💐

Yep! My sister is like this any story you tell she intersects and over talks with a similar story about herself or someone she knows its very frustrating! But we cant change the way these people are unfortunately.