Bitter friends

[SydneyRose]

Hey guys. I’m currently 16 weeks and overall doing well. I have a couple of friends who sadly are going through fertility challenges at the moment. They were both unaware my partner and I were trying. I didn’t message them directly to let them know my happy news as I didn’t want to flaunt my news after being really lucky on our first couple of months of trying. I popped a coy and pretty understated photo of me on my socials with my little bump rather than doing a big announcement etc but wanted to let everyone know, especially being in a local lockdown and generally not being able to see many people face to face now. I’ve had so much love and well wishes but the two friends in particular have just completely ghosted me and ignored me ever since. No congratulations and one of the friends I work with has pretty much blanked me ever since my boss announced it. Even after sending some lovely messages checking in with them Ive had nothing back in response. Just feeling really crappy that I’ve upset them. I obviously understand their pain and bitterness and wish them loads of luck and love too but it’s getting me down. Just wondering if anyone else has any advice on situations like this or has experienced a similar thing. It would be a shame to lose friendships :(

Also I'm not sure secondary infertility is the same as someone not being able to have a child at all, surely?

@CoronaIsShit

This is such utter bullshit and I had never heard of it before MN!

OP you handled this perfectly fine. You didn’t do a big SM announcement which you were perfectly entitled to do, if it was up to the snowflakes on here you’d have covered yourself in sackcloth and ashes and hidden away for the whole 9 months, then given up your baby for adoption so no one had to see him/her. How very dare you get pregnant when you knew other people were trying to!

I’m sorry but having experienced baby loss and secondary infertility, people who wont even give you a brief kind word, let alone try to be happy for you in these circumstances because they are so absorbed in themselves, are really not worth bothering about.

Snowflakes? Really? You're only showing yourself up there.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, op .

Some people will want a personal phone call, some will want a personal text or email, some will not want to be singled out for a personal announcement at all, you cannot ever be sure that the way you deliver sensitive news like this will be the right one.

Their pain is their pain, it's not about you; at the same time it is perfectly valid for you to feel sad that they are not able to engage with you.

When their time comes they will want to do the same, and they are also entitled too.

Their time may never come. For lots of us, there is no happy ending.

@PurpleDaisies ok and that’s devastating, for the people that affects. No one else, and it shouldn’t do either! As brutal as it sounds it is not their problem.

People are entitled to announce/celebrate however they chose, that does not make them horrible/thoughtless anything else, the OP has actually given it some thought ( she definitely didn’t HAVE to ) she just got it wrong this time.

People are entitled to announce/celebrate however they chose, that does not make them horrible/thoughtless anything else

I disagree. Sending a scan video to someone who has just had a miscarriage is thoughtless. Telling someone whose Ivf has just failed they’re pregnant at their birthday party is horrible. People are entitled to behave how they want but that doesn’t make it ok.

I've also been on both sides of this and I texted a close family member and my two friends who were having infertility issues first before telling everyone else. I've never done big announcements on SM though as I couldn't really relax throughout my IVF pregnancies until the babies were born.

In my experience I found it extremely difficult if a friend announced a pregnancy I would actually go home & cry id be distraught for days... I'd say just give them time they will come round eventually, I felt like I was in a little isolated bubble and everyone around me was pregnant and I was grieving for this baby I could never have I found myself pushing friends away to be honest because it was too Hard for me
It took me 7 year to finally conceive my boy but I can definitely see it from both sides

ok and that’s devastating, for the people that affects. No one else, and it shouldn’t do either! As brutal as it sounds it is not their problem.

People are entitled to announce/celebrate however they chose, that does not make them horrible/thoughtless anything else, the OP has actually given it some thought ( she definitely didn’t HAVE to ) she just got it wrong this time

I have seen it happen when a "friend" sends a picture of their scan to another friend who is having a miscarriage, the person knew, explicitly, that the other was currently miscarrying, and still chose to send their scan picture. It was public and she was given the cold shoulder by most and the relationship never recovered. That can only be described as hideous behaviour. Thoughtless and horrible.

You wouldn't send a picture of you hugging your Mum with "how wonderful is my Mother!" To somebody on the day of their mothers funeral.

The OP here was perhaps, tactless, and thoughtless, rather than cruel. She thought, in her easily pregnant bubble (that is a privileged position in itself), that everybody would and should be delighted for her regardless of their own struggle. So if, like you said, their reaction is their problem, then OPs attitude and reaction is surely only her problem.

@Ragdoll27

I don't think you sound very caring towards your friends calling them "bitter" in your title. I think it would have been kinder for you to let them know privately. I don't think there is such thing as a coy understated announcement on Facebook!

I agree.

Give them time, they'll come round. They're not bitter, just sad because it isn't happening for them.

@PurpleDaisies I honestly think you have issues you need to work through, they are quite extreme examples, OP has not done either of those. I’ve miscarried, yes it hurts, the girl I worked with was pregnant at the same time, my miscarriage doesn’t give me the right to dictate to her or take away from her excitement or scrutinise everything she does with regards to her pregnancy.

I honestly think you have issues you need to work through, they are quite extreme examples, OP has not done either of those.

I wasn’t responding to the op. I was responding to your comment that people could announce however they wanted and it wouldn’t be thoughtless or horrible. Those are not made up examples. They are things that have happened to people on the infertility board.

@aToadOnTheWhole God, that is such an awful thing to do

my miscarriage doesn’t give me the right to dictate to her or take away from her excitement or scrutinise everything she does with regards to her pregnancy.

But they're not dictating, taking away from her excitement or scrutinising the OPs pregnancy, they're blanking her.

@PurpleDaisies they aren’t really USUAL examples though, those examples are pretty heartless, I’m simply saying and I think you know this, that people can announce on fb, Instagram, text, call etc however they like.

This is a tricky situation OP.

I have been in your friends situation although I am now nearly third trimester with my first healthy baby (I have lost many babies before this).

As much as people like to say things like 'a true friend would try and be happy for you' or 'it doesn't take much to say congratulations' etc... It really isn't that simple.

I had to remove myself from every piece of social media I had at one point because of posts like yours. I'm not saying you're wrong to announce your news, you're excited and happy and want to share and I get that. But it was that painful for me that I couldn't even stomach just scrolling past things like that on Facebook, I had to remove myself for my own sanity.

Avoiding pregnant people or friends felt like literal life of death for me mentally. It wasn't about being bitter (really inappropriate use of the word but I think you know that) or a rubbish friend. I genuinely didn't care what people thought about me, it was for my own protection. I was depressed, on medication, I wanted to kill myself and would often fantasize about ways to do it, how if the next one died too I was just going to end it after this one last try. That's how serious it was and can be for people going through stuff like this. It's really no small thing for a lot of people and simply congratulating someone can seem utterly impossible when you're there.

I couldn't watch films or TV shows if a character ended up pregnant, seeing a pregnant women walking through the supermarket could have me leaving my trolley where it stood and going home to DH to cry for hours on his shoulder.

It isn't always logical but my mental state was in absolute tatters. I'm sure I was a shit friend to my pregnant friends during that time, in fact I know I was when I look back now. I made constant excuses to avoid seeing my best friend when she was pregnant because the thought of seeing her bump whilst I sat there with my flat stomach which should have matched her round one by now if my baby had just lived, was too much. It would have sent me spiralling.

Sometimes you have to put yourself first. And I'm so glad I did. In this situation I think you just have to accept that these friends aren't able to be here with you on this occasion. It doesn't make them bad or bitter people, they just aren't the people who are able to share in your joy right now and that's okay.

they aren’t really USUAL examples though, those examples are pretty heartless

I was responding to what you wrote in your earlier post, not what was in your head.

I’m simply saying and I think you know this, that people can announce on fb, Instagram, text, call etc however they like.

People can do what they want. It doesn’t make it kind ac thoughtful behaviour though. Sending a scan photo with a text message is a pretty USUAL way for someone to announce. You don’t think it’s thoughtless to send one to a good friend who is struggling with infertility?

*Life or death

*Woman in the supermarket.

Excuse typos!

Sigh. I've been on both sides of this. Five miscarriages. During my second one, the day after I'd seen my baby dead on a screen, someone sent a scan photo to my WhatsApp. I congratulated them, deleted WhatsApp to avoid it happening again. It was a shock, a trigger that was so unexpected, it took my breath away.
For that reason alone, I never send scan photos. The person didn't know I was miscarrying for the second time but had known I had had a miscarriage earlier that year.
Around the same time we would have both been in early pregnancy (without telling the other) she called me to ask me if I was cracking on with getting pregnant due to my age, I was 30 at the time, she was 26 and was telling me that I must be feeling the pressure. At this point, I told her I'd miscarried earlier in the year and was seeing how things went.
She still sent the photo, knowing I'd had a loss, stupid.

In the OP's situation, as simple text would have done. I know people with no fertility problems who would have been blindsided by finding out on social media, let alone "friends" going through fertility problems.

To call people who would find this situation hard "snowflakes" is the epitome of lack of empathy or sympathy and I'm amazed that someone's need to "share" on Facebook, for likes, acknowledgement, just to share or whatever is put above someone else's grief.
@PurpleDaisies examples and analogies are all perfectly valid IMO.

@PurpleDaisies

People are entitled to announce/celebrate however they chose, that does not make them horrible/thoughtless anything else

I disagree. Sending a scan video to someone who has just had a miscarriage is thoughtless. Telling someone whose Ivf has just failed they’re pregnant at their birthday party is horrible. People are entitled to behave how they want but that doesn’t make it ok.

These are examples of hideous behaviour and not remotely the same thing as the OP You are projecting other things here and that is not fair at all

It’s all right and good to highlight the need for tact and sensitivity but some of you are going too far with associating the OP with things like these examples

@SugarSW7

Sigh. I've been on both sides of this. Five miscarriages. During my second one, the day after I'd seen my baby dead on a screen, someone sent a scan photo to my WhatsApp. I congratulated them, deleted WhatsApp to avoid it happening again. It was a shock, a trigger that was so unexpected, it took my breath away. For that reason alone, I never send scan photos. The person didn't know I was miscarrying for the second time but had known I had had a miscarriage earlier that year. Around the same time we would have both been in early pregnancy (without telling the other) she called me to ask me if I was cracking on with getting pregnant due to my age, I was 30 at the time, she was 26 and was telling me that I must be feeling the pressure. At this point, I told her I'd miscarried earlier in the year and was seeing how things went. She still sent the photo, knowing I'd had a loss, stupid.

In the OP's situation, as simple text would have done. I know people with no fertility problems who would have been blindsided by finding out on social media, let alone "friends" going through fertility problems.

To call people who would find this situation hard "snowflakes" is the epitome of lack of empathy or sympathy and I'm amazed that someone's need to "share" on Facebook, for likes, acknowledgement, just to share or whatever is put above someone else's grief.
@PurpleDaisies examples and analogies are all perfectly valid IMO.

The examples might be valid in that they have occurred which is awful but they are not what the OP has done

Some of you need to rein it in with this woman
After all she is pregnant

This has clearly moved away from the original poster's dilemma. She's pregnant and shouldn't have to read such mean statements.

Anyone who wants to continue, start your own new thread!!!

Some of you need to rein it in with this woman

After all she is pregnant

Lol. To be fair, the OP flounced ages ago in order to not absorb stress or something.

If the OP finds the discussion stressful because she is pregnant. That's unfortunate as that's not the intention.
I'm also pregnant and could have this conservation without effect if I'd initiated it. I appreciate your comment that she may not be able to.
I think the point people are trying to make is that, in exactly the same way, some people may be able to have fertility issues and not be affected by announcements etc, but many are. So tact all round is needed.
I honestly think that if the OP had not used the word bitter or seemed confused as to why she was being blanked, she probably wouldn't have gotten harsh responses.
If we need to be careful with the OP because she's pregnant - not a medical illness by the way, then surely we can see that we need to be careful with people who are grieving losses or having difficulty conceiving.

@aToadOnTheWhole

Some of you need to rein it in with this woman

After all she is pregnant

Lol. To be fair, the OP flounced ages ago in order to not absorb stress or something.

It’s not remotely funny Nothing to laugh at your response is asinine