No friends or family

[Echo21]

FTM here. I am nearly near my due date and realised not one of my friends has made an effort. I kept checking in with all my friends asking how they were, to meet up etc. I've seen basically no one apart from DH during pregnancy and feel so alone. I tried to set up a small meal to celebrate pregnancy early on in the pregnancy but in the end no one could make it so I cancelled it.

in the end no one except one friend has kept in touch or wanted to meet up me despite my constant outreach and efforts. I've seen one of my so called closest friends this whole pregnancy who was then too busy to meet up again and made excuses. Another friend who I'm not close to that much has met me twice over the nine months but she is going through fertility struggles so I've tried not to talk about pregnancy too much.

I have no blood family and DH family live abroad and don't speak good English (they're also not coming to see us anytime soon...) and so it's even lonelier. Even with outreach no one texted me for weeks now and I'm fully prepared to have no visitors. I did join an antenatal class but being in a bigger city the group hasn't meshed and now are discussing their families coming over to help. I know there are far worse situations to be in but I literally have no one but DH and am prepared to have no visitors for months, as no one will be interested. I'm so sad my firstborn daughter has not and will not be celebrated by anyone else.

Is anyone else in the same situation?

I completely understand what you’re going through. My first pregnancy was very similar and I felt incredibly lonely. Once my baby was born I also didn’t have an influx of visitors and whilst I was happy to enjoy the baby bubble in peace, I also wanted to share her and introduce her to my closest friends.

If I’m honest, I distanced myself from friends who barely kept in touch. I also reached out a lot and made loads of plans to do things with them, without the hang, but it was always cancelled and never rescheduled. Once I started taking my baby to baby classes I met new groups of mums who I bonded with and now have a close friendship with. It’s nice to have people going through similar things as me at the same
time.

keep in contact with the friend who is making an effort with you.
Don’t bother reaching out to the others just now, focus on you and your baby, you don’t need the hurt or stress just now.

Mine was the same. Friends (who do not have babies) fall away as soon as you reach later pregnancy I was lonely during maternity leave, all my friends work and were flat out.

You could try another NCT group. Or wait until you start the mum&toddler groups.

I'm sorry this has happened, you must feel let down by your friends. Is it because they don't have kids themselves? Could you reach out to your closest friends and explain how you feel? They might assume you're caught up in your new situation and not realise how isolated you're feeling.

I was in a new city when I had my first and had to start from scratch friend-wise. I did get lucky with my antenatal group - but I also met a lot of people through mum and baby groups once my daughter arrived. I do remember feeling quite lonely at times because having a baby is such a life change... but there was always a class / group to go to where it was easy to get chatting to other people. A lot of my friends now (my kids are teens) are people I met in the baby / toddler years, or at the school gate from age 4 up.
Wishing you all the best 🌺

OP, a baby doesn’t know if they’re “celebrated” by one person or 50. I am
not saying this to diminish how you feel, because I do understand, but to encourage you to drop any guilt you’re feeling. It seems as though you feel guilty for not having close friends as though it will impact your baby - it won’t.
With regards to making friends for your benefit, have you looked at any pram/buggy walks in your area? I moved location while pregnant so also had to start from scratch to build a social circle. I found lots of antenatal/baby classes were taken up by activities and apart from a quick hello/goodbye none of the Mum’s really interacted with each other. Buggy walks were wonderful though, lots of Mum’s, with babies in tow, walking around a park with nothing to do but chat. It felt casual and relaxed and I’ve made a couple of good friends from those groups. NCT run some but there may be some more informal ones arranged by Mum’s themselves, social media would be a good place to look for advertisements.

Are you saying all your friends suddenly dropped away when you told them you were pregnant? Or were those friendships drifting before this?

I have friends and family but they are 80-100miles away so admittedly it takes more effort on their part. I had no local friends.

I started to make friends at a baby group when ds was 12 weeks old. By the time he was 6/7months old we were meeting after the baby group for lunch every week. We have now gone back to work so it’s harder to meet but they were the ones we celebrated ds turning 1, not with my original friends. Having a ds has helped us to make local friends, we had none before I had him.