bored of all the negative comments whenever anyone gets pregnant.

[SexlessBoulderBelly]

I’ve just commented on a post and it got me think and would be interested to hear other peoples views or what comments they had that even though may be true makes you roll your eyes and think shut up, you’re not telling me anything I don’t already know

Comments like:
“no one is ever ready for a baby”
“you don’t know what’s coming”
“it’s really hard work you have no idea”
“you don’t know how hard it is until she’s here”
“You will never sleep again!”
“You have this commitment for at least the next 18 years”
“It’s got to be really, REALLY hard!”

The “no one is ever ready for a baby” thing really sets me off, I think it’s because it’s usually followed on from something like “how do you think you will cope with a baby?” - I’ve grew up from a very young age changing nappies, holding, feeding, soothing baby’s that have come into the family, I can confidently do it for other people’s children... yes it will be nerve wracking with my own child because I won’t be giving them back when they’re fed up or just tired, but why do people feel the need to tell me it’s not the same as talk to me as if I haven’t already known that the child inside me is my responsibility.

I think the negativity and general mindset that new mothers are shit for brains who need telling it’s going to be hard as if they don’t already know there’s a big change coming, just makes us question ourselves, why would you want to do that to someone?

I’m a quite strong willed and ahem.. stubborn.. person so I tend to roll my eyes and laugh it off. But after a post I’ve just read I’ve starting question why it’s ok to make a new pregnant mother even more nervous than she already is, why purposefully torment someone into thinking they cant do it.

Why can people say positive things.. or if they’re going to tell us it’s really hard work and how on earth shall we cope?!... offer to bloody help

I just needed a 5am hormonal rant.

Let me know what comments you have that just made you think shut up!

@crazypanda85 agh yes the birth stories! I’m not one to find much that turns my stomach or puts me off as I know everyone is going to have a different experience.

But I do suffer with anxiety and worry about dying often.

So a certain friend tells me that a friend of hers had a baby and her birth was traumatic “but I won’t tell you what happened because I don’t want to put you off”

“Thanks, tell me after maybe!”

“Yeah... but she’s basically almost died as she lost so much blood!!!!!”

fecking prick.

I wish people had been more negative with me when I was pregnant, to be honest. I felt like a failure for not experiencing a rush of love (took over a year) and for not enjoying the initial stages of mothernood and finding them so difficult. I think if people had warned me more I would have found it easier to ride out and felt less of a failure.

I just ignored what everyone said anyway because I thought I knew better and they were being negative ninnies. I also thought I was going to write a book while maternity leave "because now I'll have more time". HA.

I will say that after the first 10 weeks ime sleep deprivation isn't too bad when you've only got the one and you're not back at work yet as eventually they do conk out and you can get a bit of rest as well. So I was sort of right about that.

YANBU.
When you buy a house nobody says, "ugh, so stressful, isn't moving house supposed to be one of the most stressful experiences possible and a major cause of relationship breakdown? How are you going to cope with redecorating and your job? You're going to be exhausted. What if you get trapped in negative equity? You'll be stuck there for 18 years".

I am pregnant. 36 weeks pregnant. Here I also am. At 02:30 am. Here I am, not panicked, not overwhelmed (although would be fine to be so on occasion), but not writing off and writing away the experiences of those who have walked ahead of me. There is naïveté yes, but also an enormous absence of empathy and clear understanding coming across in many of these posts. But perhaps there is not agreement to be reached here, perhaps it truly is just wait and watch, see what transpires, hope for the best and look forward to good things. And if things go well, to bear in mind the many for whom things go less well, and to respond to wider experiences with humility and compassion. I’ve had insomnia for 15 years now btw but nothing quite describes the enforced sleep deprivation with DS1. Up again now at 36 weeks with insomnia, exhausted, but with choice at hand - to Mumsnet, watch something, meditate, have a tiny lie in tomorrow, whatever. I have no doubt in 2-4 weeks time this same insomnia will have alternative effects. But I also recall my first pregnancy - when I surely didn’t have the wisdom of this second pregnancy - I didn’t have such a reaction to people that made me label them “negative ninnies”, or the “doom and gloom club”, or to tell them things “that shut them up”. Compassion flew in ahead of any of those phrases even coming up in my head. And that was pregnancy first time round. Now - second time round - there’s dollops more compassion. I had a textbook birth, long but textbook - and whilst I don’t know what this birth will be like - if someone speaks to me of birth trauma, the least i feel I can do is to give them space and recognition to speak. Or at least not shun or demean them. And recognise that my textbook birth first time around had numerous nuances too. And loads warn me too - of going from 1 to 2, the financial strains to come, the exhaustion to come. I do not write these away as negative ninnies invoking tenets of the doom and gloom club though. I haven’t walked where they’ve walked, perhaps I will walk a different path, perhaps not. The world is not neatly divided into the “ninnies” and “us pregnant ladies” OP. Love - from a pregnant lady wide awake at 2-3 am.

My dc is 2 and I'm on your side OP. So it's not at all a guarantee that you'll "look back on your silly notions and laugh at how stupid you were". I look back on what people said and think what dicks they were!

I wonder if some of it is a reaction to the idea that childbirth is meant to be this wondrous and beautiful thing, and that as a mother you are supposed to be instantly in love with your baby and blah blah.

For many people, thats not the case- traumatic births, PND, issues with bonding etc its extremely isolating to be told well you SHOULD be feeling super happy- wtf is wrong with you? I AGREE that offhand comments are rude but I do think we need to be allowing people to talk about how hard their experiences were and not sugarcoat motherhood- people are allowed to be honest about their experiences and this will encourage others to seek help.

Also- having a child is NOTHING whatsoever like having cancer so I dont agree with that at all.

The British generally don’t seem to like babies much. From restaurants & cafes banning breastfeeding to endless negative comments during pregnancy, to thousands of spineless men running for the hills as soon as a sperm hits the target.

I have a friend who was ranting about his sister having a baby that would not directly affect him. When I pointed out that it was fantastic news,and would give them a life time of happiness, he seemed genuinely stumped.

Just ignore the negativity. People can be so gloomy.

Yeah I mean it's like telling someone who just got engaged "Oh wait until you start arguing over stupid things taking the bins out, and you have to spend Christmas with the in-laws, and your sex life gradually dwindles... but y'know congratulations!"

Thankfully, most people don't do that, plus marriage is different for everyone, so I don't know why the need to do it with pregnancy.

I honestly don’t know where you are all finding these people who make such awful comments. I’ve never had the like.

Conversely I have had to bite my lip many times when hearing from a pregnant friend or acquaintance all about their Very Strong Views on sleep, feeding, screen time etc. My job is to smile and nod and let them work it all out for themselves.

I am the opposite. Everyone told me how great it was and I found it so hard. Rally resented everyone for sugar coating the truth . I am not British

I’ve been a nanny for 24 years. I got it all the time whilst pregnant.
“ you can’t give this one back”
“ it’s harder when there your own”
My DD is 11 weeks now and easier by far than any I have looked after.
She sleeps 20hours a day. Play on her activity gym and rarely cry’s.
My midwife and health visitor have all said she is like this because I know children well. I stay relaxed, I don’t panic if she does start to cry and if I’m doing something I leave her until I’m done, because I know she won’t exploded if I don’t go straight to her.
I’ve just ignored the negative comments and carried on as I would normally do.

LOVE this thread!!
Yes to horrific birth stories - I’ve had one from every person I know who’s given birth, not one positive story!
Lady at work was telling me how she couldn’t sit down for two weeks after because she ripped ‘right through’ 🙄 id rather be blissfully ignorant about birth 😭

Also my manager at work keeps watching what I eat and saying ‘you’ll still have to loose the weight after you know’ whilst I’m 20 weeks pregnant wearing my size 8 trousers still 🙄

Lady at work was telling me how she couldn’t sit down for two weeks after because she ripped ‘right through’

I speak both as someone who had a textbook first birth and as someone due to give birth in a fortnight or so. Pause when you hear that. Listen to her words. She is confiding in you that she has had a fourth degree tear. That moment is not about you. It is about her acute agony. About her most vulnerable, private, intimate areas. It is about her saying that it had changed her daily lived life. Every single thing she had assumed without a blink of an eyelid - peeing, pooing, sitting, driving, walking - is changed, some forever. It has scarred her. It is not about you. I heard these before and after my “textbook” first birth. I hear these now again as I am due to give birth again. All it makes me feel is total and 100% compassion. I cannot imagine having this sort of a reaction to other people’s difficulties.

@thoughtless I think you must be a very positive person to think like that - I was actually saying I wasn’t worrying about birth, what will be will be, it’s got to come out one way or another. This was her saying no you should worry, and this is why.

My birth left me with zero injury. Zero long term effect. It was textbook. It was sheer luck. A differently positioned DS, another hour of pushing fatigue, some other complexity and it could have been completely different. I could have been in the shoes of someone with a fourth degree tear, silenced and unable to speak without being branded a spreader of doom and gloom. I simply got lucky. There was nothing else to it. Not a higher pain threshold, not anything else.

DS slept brilliantly. Once again it was luck. He could have had colic. My low grade PND could have become something that led to a mother and baby unit. It did not. It was all “regular”. “Textbook”. But not for one single moment does that lead me to consider my experience to be either the norm, or somehow my “achievement”, nor does it lead me to respond to someone else’s pain with contempt, derision, fear or anything negative. If someone discloses a difficulty - of whatever kind - either in seriousness or using humour as a device - it’s not about me. It’s about them and their genuine authentic experience. That deserves compassion not eye rolls.

@Thoughtlessinengland
Well said. I
I think what you said was very sensitive and kind.

@Thoughtlessinengland not once did I say I rolled my eyes! I did not want or ask for anyone experiences of birth, as soon as you’re pregnant people think it’s their god given right to tell you every painful detail.
Have you ever thought that we are worried enough as it is without all the gore?

Its not about being a positive person. It’s about how we react to others’ suffering I think. I have to give birth around mid January. I could have a fourth degree tear. My best friend and colleague had a perfect first birth but then a very quick second birth which destroyed her. She is not doom mongering. Her birth canal and her baby are different from mine. Maybe in two weeks time I could be here with a second birth gone badly wrong. I have no way or knowing or guaranteeing how mid Jan will go for me. But the least I can do is listen to her, give her kindness in those few minutes of her speaking and not assume it’s meant to scare me. It’s just about being compassionate

Hi Charlie - my sterol comment referred to the emojis in your post. They appear to be eyeroll emojis. Perhaps not.

Eye roll not sterol

@thoughtless I didn’t even know that was an eyeroll. I thought it was a fed up emoji haha. I’m not going to argue with you but I hope you can see from my point of view. Good luck in Jan

charlie I agree with you. With rare exception, pregnant women aren't all expecting beautiful serene births to whale music, everyone knows things can and do go wrong, so there's no need to share unasked for horror stories.

If you're going to have a difficult birth, no amount of prior knowledge is going to change that, so it can't possibly be constructive. I completely disagree that it's about the other mothers need to share, it's not at all. There are plenty of people that mother could unburden herself to instead of a random pregnant acquaintance.

Plus the horror stories are never balanced out with easier experiences. After mother A has shared her gruesome near death experience, mothers B,C,D & E aren't going to immediately jump in with their average or even easy birth stories.

Maybe have a think about what a "gruesome near death experience" actually means before glibly discounting it as just one more tick in the pregnancy conversation book. I mean, I could possibly be misunderstanding you but I'm guessing from your tone that you've never been close to death yourself. If you had, you might think differently about people who talk about it. Not to be bitches or to burst your bubble or to rob you of your positive empowerment but to pass on female human experience. Which you are of course free to disregard.