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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Trying not to be - just feeling like <snorting> at friend about to have dc 1 who thinks it's all going to be perfect!

95 replies

weegiemum · 01/08/2009 15:57

Not a very close friend but I end up bumping into her most weeks.

Her dc1 is due in a fortnight.

She's had this "fabulous" pregnancy and says she knows "nothing can go wrong now" (tell that to the 2 people I know who have had 40+ week stillbirths).

She's "definitely" having a home waterbirth and thinks you are "letting yourself and your baby down" if you go to hospital/have pain releif etc (well we all know people for whom the pain-releif was a lifesaver - me, for example!)

She "doesn't understand" why people don't breastfeed exclusively for 6 months (I was a very keen breastfeeder and did do this but I have sat with friends crying with bleeding nipples - I know its not all plain sailing).

Her baby will be in a routine and will sleep apparantly.

PND is just a frame of mind - getting out for walks is the best cure (not the most tactful thing to say to me who ended up in hospital with it ....)

She is going to go spend her maternity leave baking and making homemade food (I didn't make a cupcake for 4 years! Too flipping tired).

when she goes back to work she has already picked out the "perfect" nursery and doesn't think there will be any bother for her or baby adjusting to it.

All of this is volunteered information (I stopped asking her about things a good while back after she told me that morning sickness was purely psychological! )

I'm just king of nodding and smiling and ignoring her about it all - it doesn't affect me. But I get cross for all those mothers (all of them?) who are not perfect, and I also worry a little about her - how is she going to be able to ask for help if things to go tits up??

OP posts:
VelvetPlum · 01/08/2009 16:01

Yuk.

I was such a ignoramus when pg with ds. Probably would have said all this kind of stuff.

If I could go back and kick myself, I would.

maggievirgo · 01/08/2009 16:02

let her enjoy that stage. i remember sitting in starbucks with one sleeping baby in her buggy, I was back in my size tens, life was good. roll forward 7 years and my mob are squbbling over a recorder and the mothers of one perfect child in a bugaboo are giving me the judgy eye!! but I have to find something I'll fit in to for niece's christening! i HAVE to. none of my clothes fit, so i must shop on! even though it's a nightmare.

Original poster
weegiemum · 01/08/2009 16:05

Yes, I am probably just jealous as I am a fat, exhausted mother-of-three primary school age kids 5 weeks into the school holidays!

They give you the judgey eye - just give them back the "just-you-wait" eye!

OP posts:
dilemma456 · 01/08/2009 16:05

Message withdrawn

Hassled · 01/08/2009 16:05

She is deranged. I'm all for thinking that the glass is half full, but if you go through life in complete denial that anything bad will ever happen, then it does affect your ability to cope when shit happens.

You're right, though - she may well need some nice, non-judgemental support in a couple months time.

Bumperslucious · 01/08/2009 16:06

Grrr I hate these sort of people, like the people who told me their wife was cycling right up until the day before they gave birth, while I struggled to walk due to sacro-illiac joint pains from 12 weeks.

maggievirgo · 01/08/2009 16:07

The just-you-wait eye! i like that one! will cultivate that eye!

Overmydeadbody · 01/08/2009 16:08

she'll soon learn

TheCrackFox · 01/08/2009 16:09

Just nod and agree with everything she says. She will soon learn (like we all bloody did) that once you become a mum you actually no longer have the answer to everything.

Original poster
weegiemum · 01/08/2009 16:09

I think the "just-you-wait" eye is sort of with a kind of a knowing nod, which mutates into when they turn their back!

OP posts:
pooka · 01/08/2009 16:10

I was going to do an OU course and learn to knit during my maternity leave with dd.

Because babies sleep lots of the time and I didn't want to get bored

Flash forwards 6 years and now have 6 yr old, nearly 4 year old and No. 3 due in 5 weeks. I'm thinking that surviving unscathed without permanently damaging a child will be the best possible outcome of the next 6 months or so.

herestoabetterfuture · 01/08/2009 16:12

OP can I just do this
HAAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

She is so funny. And maybe a tiny bit self righteous and stupid.

I had some friends like this. Fast forward two years and a few more babies = not like that now.

I can't wait for the shock she is in for. Although.....I do feel very sorry for her. Expect the worst and you'll be pleasantly surprised was my methodology (or whatever) on childrearing .

She really is going to need some long suffering friends soon.

When she has bleeding nipples, PND, a wee wee problem, stretch marks, a child who wont sleep, junk food all around her and is gagging to have a bath.

BelleWatling · 01/08/2009 16:13

How is she going to exclusively breastfeed for 6 months AND have her baby in a routine and sleeping through? They just don't add up to me.

I used to be judgy about those dreadful mothers who gave their children junk food on the bus - instead of teaching them to have patience while walking them home for a nutritious home-cooked dinner. Yeah, that was me with the biscuit smeared baby on the bus last week.

MrsBadger · 01/08/2009 16:13

pop round uninvited when dc is 6wks

offer to do the washing up and make her a cup of tea

she'll have been keeping up a bright brittle cupcake facade for her NCT mates and will break down in tears and love you forever

Pruneurs · 01/08/2009 16:14

hahahahahahahhahahahahahaha
I am quite a lentil-weaving natural childbirth sort of person and frankly, as someone said, she sounds deranged.

Best case scenario: the endorphins that she is producing in clearly GREAT quantities - rendering her stoned enough to come out with this level of..of...there is not word - might actually benefit her during the birth.

Might.

blissa · 01/08/2009 16:17

She's in for a shock!

I agree with what hassled said, it's great that she's feeling positive but she may well come crashing back down to earth in a big way when reality hits her. I hope she feels able to ask for support when if that happens.

I was never dissolutioned with dd1, I really had no idea how it would be. I saved all that for when I was expecting dd2 and thinking I'd have another happy, enjoyable and relatively easy baby hahaha

Original poster
weegiemum · 01/08/2009 16:18

I know a lot of people with children (in fact, sometimes it feels like I only know people with children) and I have never come across someone so certain about what it is all going to be like.

I don't want anything awful to happen. But just a teeny bit of something not quite to plan ......

OP posts:
herestoabetterfuture · 01/08/2009 16:19

I'm still laughing.

WHAT DID I DO WRONG? WHY DID MY CHILD NOT JUST FIT IN EASY PEASY INTO MY LIFE?

Original poster
weegiemum · 01/08/2009 16:27

I think I will start now making cupcakes to take some round for her.

It was the sleeplessness that got to me - my kids were all pretty good sleepers, but combined with the PND I was a zombie for about a year ....

OP posts:
KIMItheThreadSlayer · 01/08/2009 16:33

She is in for one hell of shock

proverbial · 01/08/2009 16:34

Well you neved know, she might get lucky! I did learn to knit on maternity leave with DS1, and I did a lot of baking, and I did start my OU degree on maternity leave with DS2 (and breastfeed for 1year plus both times). But I also suffered with bad PND the second time and almost had a nervous breakdown, and am now about to have DC3 and worrying about how I will cope.

You just don't know how its going to go. She does sound pretty smug though....

shoshe · 01/08/2009 16:36

I had a friend like this when Ds was tiny (so 29 years ago)

She used to raise her eyebrows at me, walking around with a colicky baby, who screamed for 6 weeks constantly, who I fed with a bottle (we all did then) and used a sling with (really not done back in those days)

She was going to have everything perfect (she was after all a Norland trained nanny, and I had trained at the local college)

Hahahahahaha she had surprise twins, who didnt sleep for the first 3 years, were put onto bottles straight away, then threw up most of it, and her beautiful posh Silver Cross Coach Pram, had to be exchanged for a Mothercare double HUGE pushchair.

We are still friends and both now Grandmothers, and both Oh so more laid back

Pikelit · 01/08/2009 16:36

I had a ridiculously easy delivery with ds2. A cup of coffee was delivered at 11.50, followed by baby at 12.02. Conveniently, I'd had the time to drink the coffee. Outside my room a friend, having ds1 of 1 was in to be induced and was at the "wander around with drip in arm stage". Having seen my name on the door, at midday, she asked a nurse if she could pop in and see me. Midwife suggested it might be best to wait a few minutes but that she was sure I'd love a visit later that day. At 12.20, having drunk a second cup of coffee and realised that chaos was ruling, I suggested that I pop out and wash given that I was minus drugs or stitches. An offer gratefully received so, leaving ds2 bonding away with his father, out I popped and literally, ran into friend.

She was utterly thrilled that childbirth was so easy and went into worryingly naive raptures about what was to come. I couldn't dissuade her from the likelihood that things would be different and as I went into the bathroom, she drifted off in a rose-coloured cloud of prospective maternity.

36 hours and a CS later, reality had set in. (Oh, and for some perverse reason it was my fault)

HumphreyCobbler · 01/08/2009 16:40

But anyone who says that about pnd to someone who was hospitalised for it deserves to be laughed at to their face. How insensitive can you be?

ilovemydogandmrobama · 01/08/2009 16:41

Problem is for people who are such control freaks is that they will be the last people to ask for help, as if something doesn't go according to their perfect plan, the default is that it was within their control.

Can you imagine her as a mother? Have you asked her what happens if her DC doesn't sleep per what it says in the book?