How to deal with others' pg announcements

[muchchocolate]

Hi,

I had a miscarriage a fortnight ago now at 8 weeks- in some ways I feel like I'm doing ok, physically the bleeding seems to have more or less stopped but emotionally I'm a mess - some days I'm fine and feel quite chirpy and others I feel so low and angry.

My real problem just now is that one of my closest friends found out she was pregnant the day after me and we were over the moon that we'd get to go through it together, as we were pregnant together a few years ago and it was lovely having someone to compare notes with and sympathise with the aches and pains.

We have a group of about 5 friends and meet up regularly with our kids, the others never knew I was pregnant and she is planning to tell them that she is pg this weekend and I am absolutely dreading it - I am so worried I burst into tears as they all squeal with excitement for her. I decided that I really didn't want to tell them all about the miscarriage (pg friend obv knows as I'm closest to her and had told her as soon as I found out) as I didn't want everyone to feel that they couldn't talk about my friend's pregnancy and be excited and ask questions in front of me for fear of upsetting me but now I'm wondering if that was a mistake and I should tell them as I'm just not sure I'm going to pull off the 'yes, isn't X's news great, how exciting!' in front of everyone else. I hate the idea of everyone feeling sorry for me so just not sure what to do - part of me is tempted to avoid them all for a bit but not sure if I'm just going to build it up and make things even worse.

Sorry for the ramble - not even sure that makes sense but I feel better just for getting it out.

To be honest I'm not sure I would be able to be present if a friend was to make the big announcement in the near future. Do you not think your friend is being a little insensitive by making the announcement in this way knowing what's happened to you. Could she not contact the others individually? Without knowing the dynamics of your friendship group it's hard to advise - are you planning on letting the others know that you've miscarried?

Sorry I haven't got much advice to offer - it 's a really difficult situation. I've told my closest friends about my miscarriage but am not sure what to do about the others in our group. It doesn't help that one of the others is pregnant and let's say is very keen on reminding us of the fact ( I swear I wasn't like that with my daughter!)

Good luck and I hope the day isn't too painful for you whatever you decide to do x

Hi, sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I had several miscarriages when my DD was small and this was one of the hardest things to deal with. I used to congratulate my friends and I was genuinely pleased for them, but often would go home and have a little cry to myself. It is not at all easy to deal with feeling jealous of people at the same time as being really pleased for them. One thing that I found really helped was not spending all my spare time with other Mums. I still have lots of really happy memories of days out with just DD and I. It helped me to keep things in perspective.
The other thing to say is that you will have a healthy and successful pregnancy in the future and your friends will be over the moon for you.
Take care of yourself, it is early days. If you don't want to be there when your friend makes the announcement, don't force yourself to go. You can always invent a stomach bug to get out of it.
Good luckx