@Wise0wl this is a safe space where we all have at least some understanding of loss. Before I had my son I had a situation where myself and a friend had tried for over a year to conceive. I conceived and had a missed miscarriage and she then conceived and sent me her successful 12 week scan, maybe 3 weeks after my miscarriage. I opened the message and physically fell to the floor I felt so sick with jealousy and so so upset. Seeing her scan and the very visible outline of a baby just filled me with fear that my body could never produce that. The little blob I had seen - 6 weeks gestation, and a very ragged seeming outline of a womb...
Whilst we had both been struggling to conceive we had chatted a lot and I had booked advance tickets to go stay with her in Brighton and go to a comedy show. The date came around 5 months after my miscarriage and she was heavily pregnant. I stupidly went ahead with the plan. We went to the show and then went back to her house. I went to bed. The next morning I woke up and burst into tears. I kept trying to pull myself together but in the end it was just getting weird that I hadn't left the bedroom yet. I could not stop crying. My face was swollen. In the end i just had to open the door, go out there, and sit there crying in her kitchen for a couple of hours in front of her and her partner who were joyously expecting a baby. I felt like a piece of shit.
After that I didn't force myself to be around pregnant people. I had friends who had had children before I started trying, and I was fine with them, but anyone who fell pregnant when I was trying and had a baby, particularly anyone who was pregnant whilst I was - I couldn't bear to be around. It was abject jealousy and there was nothing they or I could do about it.
Now that I have my son I have one friend who has cut me out. She sounds audibly angry with me and she actually said some really hurtful things before she cut me out. I'm so sad her and her partner are going through hell, but I still feel hurt. I wonder if she's cut out everyone with children or if she maybe never liked me that much and it was an easy decision. Although rationally I know it must be my son. Even thinking of her makes me feel guilty for struggling so much with this second round of trying. I know I'm so lucky yet my mental health is actually poorer this time around having gone through severe post partum mental health issues, pretty horrendous maternity discrimination, and a traumatic last trimester and birth.
There are some people with children who've done nothing wrong and there is nothing they could say to help simply because they have what you can't have. Having distance is still OK, and I hope you can see on here that we all have those feelings, they are very natural after what we've been through.
I still rage against people who say dumb absolutely misguided stuff though. Sometimes they are coming from a good place and just have no idea, but sometimes I feel they simply don't want to have to think about how awful the truth is for us and so they almost penalise us for saying stuff. I have adhd and I've told way too many people this time. I regret it but then I reflect on bad reactions and think I've not done anything wrong by telling - and shame on them for being so visibly uncomfortable about something which is happening to someone else and not them - if that makes sense.
It's the same with many taboo subjects- grief, cancer, child abuse etc. A lot of people simply don't want to hear because it makes THEM feel uncomfortable and the astonishing selfishness of that just blows my mind. It doesn't take much to be kind to people and allow them to have bad feelings - simply to acknowledge that the situation is shit! It doesnt mean you have to take on their pain or go home and cry about it - just dont be an asshole, is it that hard?? People who try to insist you should be positive are the absolute worst for me, I have one at the moment, she's made it so clear it's not acceptable for me to have bad feelings and I'm so uncomfortable whenever I'm around her...
Scan 6pm today and I've called in sick xxx