I have mulled this situation over for almost two months and I don’t know whether I should say something or not. Need perspectives.
My girlfriend is 6 months pregnant with her first child after 3 rounds of IVF and will not stop complaining. I have been there the whole time, through the ups and downs of each IVF, 2 miscarriages, and all the difficulties supporting her and holding her up as I kept her focused on the right things to keep going. But I have to admit I am tired now.
She is not eating properly, gaining tons of weight, and says she is constantly nauseous. She hasn’t been vomiting, but says she is so sick that she finally got her doctor to write her a ‘work from bome’ letter and has stopped going to in work (which she hates - even though it is a really good job, that she could easily lose with this behaviour). Her diet is now causing issues digestively, but she is not connecting the two and helping herself as she needs to but instead talks as though no one has even had a tougher time than she has.
When I text her to check in, it is complaint after complaint, talking about how ‘no one understands how bad this is’. Yet a couple of times now I have bumped into her out, smiling and laughing with people, and they seem to think all is well, so she is obviously saving the ‘shit’ for me.
I am probably having trouble with this also because I myself am a 5 time IVFer with two miscarriages under my belt. I got my three kids through dicey pregnancies, one that nearly ended badly with placental failure and a twin pregnancy at 40 that I was convinced was going to go south like the first. There was pain, fear and deep concern the whole way through but I kept it together, and I didn’t have someone like me around to help.
My big thing though, is whether I should say something because a few times now, she has said, ‘I just want this baby out!!’ And I am fairly certain she has no idea what is coming next. In my experience and in the experience of other IVF moms, we are more prone to PND because our expectations are so high, and if you don’t go into the birth in a positive headspace, the whole thing can go down even harder.
But what do I even say? And how do I say it? ‘Get your head up? You need to be up, for when the baby comes?’ I am guessing she will just feel judged.
But she is exhausting the living hell out of me. I am annoyed, disappointed and really put off -yet as her friend I probably have no right to be, can I get some thoughts here?