Friends have just had a baby and I'm trying to be happy for them

[helpmehelpme]

But am not succeeding. I just can't seem to feel generous. I'm irrational and feel it's a personal hostile thing of them to go and have a lovely baby when I can't have one. I lost my last pg 3 years ago but do have one ds.

I just feel their celebration which is totally valid and right is just vile for me to watch.

Any way at least it does get easier over time. I mostly just feel sorry for myself, dh and ds that we weren't so lucky.

Oh you poor thing I'm so sorry.

Can you keep an amicable distance between you and your friends for now? Limit contact to mail/texting for a bit?

I'm afraid I speak from experience when I say that most friends (except close ones) will have forgotten your grief at losing your last pregnancy three years on.

Feeling sorry for yourself and your dh and ds is perfectly valid.

Thanks Marina, my brother has just had his 2nd too. It is suddenly harder than it was even a year ago. I'm hypersensitive at times. But our society is feels like it looks at one child familes as if they're not quite finished and people seem to feel sorry for my ds sometimes. And say insensitive things like "Oh he's an ONLY child is he?" As if it's a terrible illness of something. And I don't always feel like saying well that wasn't the plan, we're just not all as blessed with endless fertility.
People are strangel

do you think eventually I will be able to be genuinely happy for other people? I assume I will because I'm not a bad natured person I don't think.

Yes you will, I promise, but such is life that some friends/acquaintances/colleagues will always be harder to be happy for than others. I am sure you know what I mean in terms of crass remarks with a subtext "I'm so glad everything's fine for us, unlike poor you" .
Although we were fortunate and went on to have dd after losing ds2, I have friends through SANDS etc who haven't conceived following the loss of their last pregnancy. I know from chatting to them that basically, as you say, the right amount of time has to go by.
You know it doesn't make you a bad person - what you are feeling is normal.

thanks Marina, I appreciate your post very much.

I lost a baby 5 months ago at 20 weeks and am totally jealous of all my friends and family who are pregnant or have had a baby since I lost mine, I think what you are feeling is normal and think I will still feel the same in a few years too, especially if I done manage to have another child. But for some reason everyone seems to forget but you!!!

oh I so know how you feel, it's the same for me.
You have my utmost sympathy and I just want you to know that others feel the same and it's not wrong it's natural. I really wish that you and I and all other women who feel this way could just wish this emotion away but it's valid and justified so please don't feel bad. Saying that we both know that there are pros and cons of only having one child don't we? Try to focus on the pros for now and enjoy your ds. I'm making a huge effort to associate with other people who only have one child too.
I lost my last pregnancy and have health problems so am not TCC again, my ds is only three. I have a friend who has decided to stick at one out of choice I like going to her house, she calls us 'the one and only club' that helps me such much. we've started a college course in horticulture, I'm trying to fill my time plan a new career.
I hope you feel better soon, thinking of you x

I was never PG but infertile I can imagine how you feel. We did get to the point where we were not so sensitive to other people's pregnancies but it was several years before the pain of it faded away. Kind of like the wound healed but there will always be the scar. There was an element of consciously deciding not to lose/distance myself from my good friends over the issue (else I would have been stuck with no kids and no friends ).

But it is completely normal IME to feel really quite bitter/sensitive about things that remeind you of your losses. I remember refusing an invite to a theme park with my sis because I knew there would be lots of families there. she thought I was bonkers but it was real to me at the time. Would not bother me a bit now!