We were pregnant at the same time

[blackpoolhouse]

I’d like some advice please. Last year one of my very good friends and I found out we were pregnant at the same time with very similar due dates. Sadly my friend went on to have a miscarriage relatively early on at 6/7 weeks and I went on to have my baby boy in December.

During my pregnancy she found it difficult to be around me due to her loss as it felt like a constant reminder which I totally understood.

We didn’t talk about my pregnancy at all when we chatted which I was fine with as I was concerned about how she may feel too. She didn’t attend my baby shower either, which I was disappointed about but equally understood how it would have been very hard for her.

When my baby was born she didn't come to meet him and I wanted to make sure I gave her the space she needed so didn’t reach out or ask or tbh have the headspace to do so with a new baby.

Having been lucky enough to never gone through a miscarriage I can’t even begin to imagine her loss or what she has had to go through. Especially as she is now still trying.

However I really miss my friend. I also feel let down by her but feel I don’t have a right to have these feelings either in the circumstances.

Now that my baby boy is here I thought it may make her feel differently and want to meet him but that hasn't happened yet.

I feel like this situation which is no one's fault has driven a wedge between us and I don't know how to overcome it.

Any advice or thoughts?

Can you be in touch in a low key way and talk about things you used to talk about before you were pregnant? Can you at some suitable point go for a night out without the baby?
It’s not your fault but a baby the same age will be a very tangible reminder.
If you keep the door open, she can get closer when she’s ready.

Well have you reached out to her? Your posts seems to indicate you haven't to give her space. Maybe she's had enough space.

You could ask to meet up with her without your baby. Tell her you miss her and have an honest conversation about how you both feel.

She’s still grieving the life she lost. As much as she will come to love your little one, it will just be a really rough reminder of what she could have had instead.
Reach out to her and check in. Try to arrange a catch up and maybe not take the baby at first just so you two can try talk and check in with each other.

My SIL and 2 other friends were pregnant at the same time as me. I miscarried that baby and another by the time theirs were born,then another 2 months later. It was hard meeting up with them during their pregnancies and after for a while. 2 years after that first due date I had my DD. I still found the first year after that hard as I would see the other kids playing with her and feel sad that she didn't have her older sibling to grow up with. Now she is 4 and I am past those feelings. We can't have any more and I sometimes feel a pang of guilt or grief but mostly I just enjoy what I have. Pregnancy announcements now just fill me with pleasure for the people involved. I hope that your friend eventually reaches that place in her life, for her sake as well as yours, but there are no guarantees. Not everybody can move past it, especially if they never end up having children, and not every friendship can survive periods like this. Everyone grieves in a different way too. I felt like I couldn't let it make me bitter and push people away, so I deliberately hid my grief from those other friends and family who were more fortunate and kept up the contact until it got easier as I wanted to keep the relationships and also because I felt like it was a bit unreasonable to have any negative feelings in the spirit of there not being a finite number of pregnancies going around etc, so their good fortune wasn't at the expense of mine. For some people, though, it just hurts too much and they can't and I can't blame them for that.

If she does try and rekindle the friendship in the future, please try and see it not as her rejecting you and your child, but just being in too much pain to be able to put a brave face on and fight the grief. Hopefully that way your friendship will survive.

It's a horribly sad situation, but it just may not be possible for your friendship to continue as it was before. At least for now anyway.

Obviously it is not in anyway your fault, you have done nothing wrong but your baby will be a constant reminder to her of what she lost. And that reminder will hurt so much.

Also, the friend you miss, may not be who she is anymore. Having been in the situation myself, it is soul destroying. It takes over your entire life, and the effort of pretending to be ok for other peoples sake, is just too much to bare sometimes. You have to pick and choose the social interactions which will take the least out of you. Perhaps she feels this is what it would be like around you. You could have a lovely day together, and you'd go home to your baby, and she'd go home and spiral into a depression because of spending the entire day putting on a brave face and being reminded of what she almost had.

If she's still TTC then she needs her energy for that. She can't be spiralling or put herself in situations where she'll inevitably feel like crap. It could just be she hasn't got the mental capacity for the situation right now. It's sad but it happens.