Spending time with friends with babies makes me sad

[Youngatheart00]

Just that really.

But I’m at a stage where literally ALL my friends and family have children. All of them. New announcements every month and no one seems to struggle.

10 years of infertility struggles here and still no baby. Trying to accept it probably won’t ever happen now but also to deal with the loneliness.

Do I have to find a whole new set of friends? Surely it’s only a matter of time before they get pregnant too. Spending time with mums just depresses me as they just go on about their kids all the time, and it’s rare that their kids aren’t there anyway. With the world unlocking I’m reminded how painful it is for me to socialise.

I just don’t know what to do 😔

I’m really sorry @Youngatheart00 it’s just so tough, I feel exactly the same, I luckily don’t have many friends with babies except a close friend who was ttc from the same time as me and now has a baby. She was my best friend but I can’t have contact with her, it’s too hard. This isn’t a long term solution, but I just can’t face people with babies right now. Others are probably better at dealing with this. The pandemic has worked out quite well for me since I don’t have to go out and see people, which is the last thing I would want to do. I have some older friends who have older kids that I’ve known for their whole lives, I find that’s a lot easier. I guess I see the goal as having a baby, so it’s mostly babies that I need to avoid.

Thanks for your reply @Gardenlady543

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head - during the pandemic I could delete / restrict social media and ignore (well try to, enough got through) all the bloody lockdown babies and homeschooling etc.

But now the world is opening up again and it’s harder to avoid people and be confronted with the reality that every single person I know has moved on and had a family and I haven’t.

I just feel like if I don’t have a family, what’s the point of me? So much of life is focussed towards family this and family that.

@Youngatheart00 I feel the same I have had a huge amount of tests done in the last few weeks and seem to be collecting diagnoses, all things which I’m sure are common and most people just don’t know they have. I always thought I was super healthy, but now I just feel like something that isn’t even human. It feels like I now have this mountain to climb that just seems impossible and I think of my close friend and how she is sitting around holding a baby right now. Pregnant women and new babies are in every news story. How does everyone else seem to get this so easily?

I’ve accomplished everything I could have ever wanted to in my career and found the perfect husband, but nothing matters when you can’t conceive. My friend who had IVF before I knew I had fertility issues said something similar and I just said “nonsense, you weren’t put on this earth with the sole purpose of having children, look at everything else you’re doing with your life”. But yet here I am attacking myself, unable to see logic.

Something that isn’t even human is a good way to put it. I certainly don’t feel like I belong.

I hope your tests are going ok and aren’t too intrusive.

I understand your friends point but what about the barrage of ‘I didn’t know what love was until I had a child’ ‘I felt like I was living in darkness and now light’ and ‘everything I do is for my children’ comments (all of which I hear regularly)

@Youngatheart00 that was me that had said that to my friend lol, and now I’m in her situation and I’m being hard on myself. I assumed this would be something that would never affect me, I have always lived such a healthy life, but infertility can affect anyone.

You are right, people say those things all the time about how being a mother is their biggest achievement etc. I was in tears watching 24 hours in a&e when the mother of a 19 year old who had been in an accident was speaking, clearly that mother-child bond just goes on forever. I was so upset thinking I may never achieve it. I went into IVF after 12 months TTC, I assumed it was still early days and IVF would work, but after 2 unsuccessful transfers and having produced a lot of high quality euploid embryos, the issue is clearly me, they just don’t implant. I have paused to have investigations, I thought it would be relaxing not to think about conceiving for a few months, but it’s very stressful. I just want to hide myself away from the whole world.

Have you got any treatment planned?

@Gardenlady543 no treatment currently planned, we are taking a break after many years TTC naturally, then surgery for endo which saw me lose both tubes, and 2 failed IVFs. We may try again but my head isn’t in the right place to cope with another failure.

So I know exactly what you mean about wanting to pause. The grief and yearning doesn’t go away but sometimes you do get sick of being poked and prodded as well as the emotional rollercoaster

Ah bless you @Youngatheart00 it sounds like you’ve been through a lot. It’s very strange being a patient, like you say being poked and prodded all the time.

Hi ladies...
I'm confused and don'treally know who to turn to, I've just started downreg for a FET after a failed fresh transfer last year, and I'm feeling anxious about lockdown easing.
My hubbys cousin wanted to do a garden visit next week with her new born (6months old ) and I'm feeling so guilty because I don't feel up to it. I said no, but I'm so annoyed at him for making me have to explain it all... having to make excuses twice over the past 2 weeks to his cousin why they can't come over!! Makes me feel sick saying that i feel uncomfortable being around babies and mums, especially when we have started treatment :( just sucks having to explain yourself, saying these raw emotions out loud, makes me feel shit for thinking this way. :(

Bless you @fullyloadednachoes I think it’s sensible not to go, not only are you having fertility treatment but you’re in a treatment cycle right now. Is the cousin a close relative, if so could you tell them that you’re having treatment. I’m quite honest with people these days at the get go which seems to help a lot, essentially making some boundaries rather than make excuses. You could say that you’re really happy that they have their baby but that at the moment it’s quite difficult for you to be around babies with your treatment and that you hope you’ll be successful and when that happens you’ll be able to have meets ups to catch up on everything then.

Don’t feel bad about protecting yourself, you have to do whatever you can to maintain your mental health so that you’re in best possible headspace.

@Gardenlady543 thanks for your advice. She's a very close relative yes, and tbh, i can't tell anyone, I just can't deal with their comments... "try to relax, don't worry, it all wprks out in the end" all that crap, i judt can't deal with. So i know, my mental health was priority during the first cycle, but it feels like i have to explain myself again to hubby to make him see that again, my ment health is important right now, and I want to just lay low for a while. I'm so sensitive lately, just seems unfair all of it, to have to go through treatment, deal with anxieties of it and have to explain mysekf why I'm feel anxious or want to keep away from lots of people. Hubby behaves like this FET is just another regular day, think he's trying to play it cool, but its not helping. Its highly anxious time for me, so I thought he would protect my mental wellbeing like he did first time round. I'm just venting here, just don't know who else to vent to, no one else understands unless you in the same position i guess. Just frustrating. It can feel like a very lonely process most times :( I know I'll be ok after I've vented, always am.. but its hard!
Thanks for your advice, i appreciate it.. I'll just say how i feel, i swallow any frustration i feel, and just get on with it. I guess its hard on hubby too, probably feels he needs to tiptoe around me. 🙈thank you for listening.. x

Oh bless you @fullyloadednachoes I think it’s hard for men to get their heads around all this. Like think of everything a woman goes through in IVF- the injections, side effects, invasive scans, worry about responding, invasive procedures, the 2ww, the psychological impact. I don’t think many men will understand it, their whole input is usually ejaculating in a cup and then 9 months later a baby arrives. You could always say you’re having treatment so you’re isolating or something, that way nobody knows it’s to do with fertility treatment but can be used as a long term excuse.

Don’t be hard on yourself, I feel the same as you, there is no chance I would hang out with a baby.

I know exactly how you feel, I felt like I was back at school waiting to be picked for the sports team waiting hoping and then being disappointed, upset, jealous, angry and all these other unpleasant feelings that meant I turned into a rather horrid person.

I have come to terms a bit with how I feel and accepted that it’s up to fate if we have a family. We can be as healthy as possible and it still may not happen but in the meantime I’m not going to waste some of the best years of my life feeling like a little ball of unpleasantness pushing my wonderful DH, DSIS and friends away just because I can’t have a family.

I have taken my aunt and uncle (who are 68 and childless) as a role models and booked amazing weekends away in child free places, I’ve joined a book club, I was a member of the WI pre-COVID and I’m on the committee now and I do a bit of volunteering. A lot of my new friends are older/younger than me but it doesn’t matter, we make each other laugh. I can now see my mum friends and I don’t get upset, we don’t only talk about babies, we talk about what I’ve been doing and they are interested (or appear to be ).

It helps that my best friend is older than me and her children are 12 and 17 so she isn’t bothered about babies either.

It has taken me a while to get to this point, I was married first and being content with what I’ve got was hard and initially, I had to really work at it. I can now take pleasure in the fact I can lie in bed until 10 or decide to pop out for an impromptu lunch with DH when lockdown ends without having to organise anything 2 weeks in advance and go to a Toby carvery for the kids!

It really is so tough when it comes to seeing close friends and family who have had a baby.

You can’t avoid it forever (I say that from experience....I’ve tried!) so my strategy now is to agree to a visit but keep it very, very brief. Like - literally pop round for 45 mins. Don’t hold the baby but just be generally chatty without (if this is possible!!) making all the chat about the bloody child and birth etc. Take a gift, do your bit and then leave, and do something nice that you enjoy for the rest of the day.

Otherwise I find it hangs over you and the guilt kicks in too.