My friend ditched me when I became pregnant.

[Angelle2]

A long story. Had a friend who I've known for 15 years and was my Maid of Honor at my wedding last year. She had stillbirth at 31 weeks about 18 months prior my wedding. I tried to be supportive but she never wanted to talk about it and I was even kept in the dark when it all happened so I never really knew the whole story or even the outcome of the investigation at the hospital. She did explain briefly but after that I respected her wishes and how she wanted to deal with it. My husband and I were trying for a baby before we got married and it wasn't happening. Unknowingly then I had high prolactin levels which stopped me from ovulating. And I went through a year of tests, medication and uncertainty which as a friend we spoke about and she was always encouraging and supportive of me becoming a mother. Much to my joy and surprise I fell pregnant on my honeymoon and that we were expecting twins.

So I tell all friends and family at 3 months including her.It did cross my mind that she could be still grieving but I thought she's been so supportive of my situation she'd be ok and she even visited a friend of hers who had a baby around that time. Anyway on the day I told her, she was in a funny mood and she also had the flu. We actually had a brief disagreement because I was late meeting her but we quickly sorted it out and carried on to find a place to eat. So I tell her the news, she says congrats etc etc. Then all of a sudden she tells me she's not feeling well and wants to go home. I'm assuming its the flu so didn't think much of it.

Weeks after I was trying to get dates in the diary to meet up but she always had something going on, a date, study, yoga. But we'd always still have long conversations on the phone and we would talk about pregnancy, work, men and the rest. Just like normal really. Then it dawned on me she's been avoiding me. She made it impossible for me to come to her birthday drinks. She text me the night before knowing that I live outside London and often work from home due to me not travelling by train as much because of my twin pregnancy. Then one day in a conversation she starts crying and telling me the day that I told her of my news it was her anniversary. Of course I didn't know because I knew very little of what had happened in her situation. I was devastated too as I would never be so insensitive If I knew she was still hurting.

So I decide to back off and give her some space. My baby shower was up and coming and she was suppose to be helping so I assumed I'd see her then. She never came, she never called and we haven't spoken since. Don't get me wrong I am sympathetic to how she is feeling but my babies have since been born and I'm angry and hurt she hasn't even bothered to call to see how we are, if I am ok or they are ok. I know she knows they are here, it's been 6 months now and we have the same circle of friends. What should I do, should I call her to confront her or let her get on with her life? My family and friends are all very angry with her too as she been a close friend of mine for years and she has come across as self centred. She's also been posting photos and messages on FB saying how happy she is and appearing like everything is fine so they suggest I don't call her.I agree to a degree because I haven't done anything wrong and I feel like she has erased me from her life because she is unable to think outside her own situation. If it were me, I know I would be there for her despite my own pain. For example when I was trying and couldn't get pregnant another close friend of mine conceived. That didn't stop me calling or visiting her and I didn't even think about me.Therefore I want to have it out and move on. I can't get over this very easily. Any advice, anyone been in the same situation, what did you do, what was the outcome?

Why should she be on her knees? what has she done wrong? get married and start a family, how dare she?

1. Not reading the signals
2. Insisting she help with the baby shower
3. Touting for sympathy amongst family and a shared friendship group
4. Not recognising that people are different - prioritising her needs for wanting to 'have it out' over the friend's needs for privacy

She hasn't done anything wrong, she supported her at the time.

but what felt worse was the radio silence. There were literally people who never spoke to me again.

this is what I am wondering if your friend thinks has happened OP.
maybe she thinks you feel too awkward to speak to her and you think she is avoiding you. Hence suggesting that a friendship card may be the way to go in case she thinks mistakenly that she has been ostracised because it does happen.
grief is such a very visceral thing and it brings out such strong emotions as can be seen on this thread, that many people do not know how to deal with other people either around their own grief or that of others.

FWIW I think some of the posts on this thread have been a bit strong. it is one thing to point out just how devasting a still birth can be. it is unimaginably difficult. and that may give the OP helpful insight into how her friend may feel which can then inform her actions.

but IMO the personal attacks and character assassination are not helpful either to the OP or her friend.

When we were trying to conceive and ultimately going for IVF two women in my department became pregnant. Though I was really happy for them I often had to escape from the office as the baby talk just got too much for me - part of me wanted to celebrate each stage of their pregnancies because they were both good friends but a deeper part of me resented them for having something I desperately wanted and, if I'm honest, I sometimes hated them because they both seemed to get pregnant so quickly. Goodness knows how many directions your friend is being pulled in.

When I finally got pregnant my best friend, someone I've known for 25 years, sent her husband round when I was four months pregnant with a card for our anniversary. He had a message from her which said she hoped I'd understand that she couldn't see me for a while. She'd had to have a hysterectomy the year before. I'd rung her husband in the first place with the news of my pregnancy as I needed his opinion about how to tell her, so of course I accepted and understood her need to avoid me. I called her on and off over the next few months and discuss everything but my pregnancy. Within a few months she felt able to cope and we met for a coffee, but we went at her pace, not mine. She is now our son's much loved Godmother and, boy, does she love him in return.

And finally, my mum lost her first baby when she was four months pregnant. She was thirty at the time. I arrived two years later, then she had two more daughters. A couple of years ago I went round to visit and found she'd been crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said 'today would have been your brother's birthday' (she was convinced her first baby was a boy as her pregnancies with us felt different). Turns out she had a little weep every year for that baby. She's eighty four this year. 'He' would have been fifty two...if you saw her you'd think she was the life and soul of most parties but that day is always hard for her. She won't forget.

I'm not making any judgements OP. As you said relationships are too complicated to put down in a few words but I can't, thankfully, imagine what my friend and mum go through at their low points as I've never been there and hope I never will. I know my friend, who had wanted children for a long time, has said sometimes she forgets she'll never have them, then it hits her like a hammer and she just wants to stay in bed and leave the world outside. It must break her heart. Your friend is probably feeling the same.

This was not a miscarriage. When a child is born still at that age of gestation, you must register both their birth and their death. You give birth to a dead baby, whose birth and death must be recorded.

Her baby died.

If only I could 'get on with it' after my child died. Well, no, actually, I'm glad I don't. I'm glad I see the death of my dear friend's child, born still, as the loss that it is. She lost her daughter, same as I did. A woman who is far better than I could ever hope to be. Her daughter was born still, a month before my living daughter was. I think of that often, when I speak or post about my living daughter. I realise, what loss is. How it doesn't truly go away, when you lose a child, how everything you do, even having another child if you are so lucky, is filled with so many emotions, and the bittersweetness, and try to be sensitive to her, because she is my friend, and I love her. I put her before me because of that, when I can, or at the least try to take her feelings into consideration. Isn't that what you do, when you love someone? Think of them always, speak to them, ASK them? Say, 'If it's too much, you tell me no and it is no problem because I love you'?

No, no one did anything wrong.

But it is what it is.

The death of your child is like no other thing in the world.

When you are friends, don't you love them enough to try to see how much things might hurt them, and even ASK?

We lost one of our twin boys at 32 weeks. That was almost 2 years ago and I feel that pain just like it happened yesterday. I will grieve for the rest of my life. I will never "get over it". I find it difficult dealing with others expecting twins too - there was a lady at work who had hers just a few days before me and I can't look her in the face anymore. While our surviving son was in Scbu there were 3 sets of twins in there and I couldn't look at any of them,

Op, your friend is not being selfish, she is grieving. You have been insensitive, telling her your pregnancy news in a public place - I would have made excuses and left too so everyone wouldn't see me fall apart. However, one thing that has really stuck with me is the "radio silence" I've had from some and that really hurts. I can never see those people in the same way again. Stop thinking of your feelings and send her a simple card with to let her know you're there and leave the rest to her. She may well be thinking she's been abandoned by you.

It never gets any easier, OP.

I am shocked that people are calling what happened to the OP's a friend a "miscarriage." Plenty of babies survive having been born at 31 weeks. She would have had to go through labour exactly the same as she would have with a full term baby only to have a dead baby at the end of it. We're not talking a few weeks of bleeding like you have with a miscarriage at 8/9 weeks (and which is traumatic and upsetting enough) we're talking a recognisable baby with a face, legs and arms. A baby you can hold before having to bury it. A baby whose birth and death has to be registered. The idea that someone should just "get on with it" after going through something like that is incredibly cruel and shows a complete lack of empathy.

I would call her. Not to confront her, but to talk and share your feelings and encourage her to share her own feelings. Rekindle the friendship and just pick up from where you left it.

Being good friends for a long time, I don't see this can be so hard. You just need to let go and not blame each other for the past, because I don't see how anyone of you did something horrible on purpose. It seems that it just so happened at that time. Sometimes we can turn small misunderstandings into huge drama because of the feelings involved. Good luck!

My sister lost a baby at 27 weeks. She'd had a lot of warning that she was going lose the baby (her waters wouldn't stay despite bed rest etc) so she had time to organise what she needed to do. She asked me to sit with her - her DH decided to sit it out down the pub, which was fine, we grieve in our own way. So I was privileged to see her son born - even though he was still born he's still my nephew. I gave him a secret name - my sister's way of dealing with it was to keep a photo and keep the rest to herself and I respected that. But I needed to give him a name. No-one but my DH knows it but I hear it pretty regularly and now and then I well up if I hear someone call a ten year old-ish boy by that name - and I wasn't the mum who lost him.

If your friend is as close as you say OP you should be able to call her. Talk to her about anything other than your kids, her loss etc this time round. Then the next time you call ask her if you can talk about what's happened between you. If she says no, respect that. If she says yes just explain that you think you handled things a bit clumsily. She'll probably say you're being daft, that gives her manoeuvre room. Then suggest meeting for a coffee. No kids and no talk about them unless she asks and then keep it brief. With the friend who had a hysterectomy she asked if I'd seen the midwife recently during one of our phone calls. I didn't know whether she wanted the full information or just a 'I'm fine' type of answer, so I asked her what she wanted to know. She just wanted a 'I'm fine' that time round, but a few calls later she asked the same question and said 'full info this time mate'. Which was great. It showed me she was beginning to cope as best she could and it showed me she wasn't worried about stopping me if she felt I was getting carried away. You have to go at your friend's pace. My world is a good world, I have my son. My friend's world is also good, but sometimes something is missing for her and I have to go with the flow form her then because I am not part of that world and never will be - I've never had that pain.

People are taking what I said completely out of context, I'm reporting everyone that has, and will continue to, If I see another one I won't be so polite next time.

just a warning.

People disagreed with you so you're reporting them and warning them not to disagree with you?

It is not against the talk guidelines Olivia posted to disagree with others openly.

But go on and 'report'.

My mother is like you. I love her dearly but she wanted her niece to name her second child after neice's father (my mum's brother) "because the first one died (at a week old) so it doesn't count." She really doesn't understand why they have pictures of that baby on display or visit the grave. She was raised by a mother who dealt with the loss of her DC by hiding it and 'getting on with things.' Actually by building an emotional wall around herself.

LOL at OctopusPete8.

LondonJax . You write so beautifully about your nephew. My daughter is 10. I have had two miscarriages, one was my son's twin. I can't imagine how you and your family are feeling.

Who have you reported octopus

You do know its not against talk guidelines to disagree with someone don't you?

to everyone on this thread who has shared their pain in an effort to make the op understand. I can only hope she has taken it on board.

The thread title doesn't really reflect what actually went on, does it?

Ach, just leave her be. Best all round. It's obviously very very tough for her, give her a fecking break.

(If she really did offer to help with the preparations for you baby shower, she's probably really, really nice.)

missstrawberry I lost DD's twin at 14 weeks due to hyperemesis and I feel that loss acutely on DD's birthday, when she blows her candles out I always make a wish for her sister and struggle when I see toddler twins. I can not comprehend the hurt of having to go through labour then bury my child. Therefore if I faced someone who had a stillbirth I would leave all judgements at the door as I wouldn't want to walk a yard in their shoes. What ever they need or feel or do is their business and call. No confrontation or assessing my feelings, just letting them be.

Angelle2 I really don't want to attack you. But I am very shocked at your post. I think you may need to take a step back and really revisit the situation. Understandably you are very excited about your new baby (congratulations)and want everyone to be around to see your baby. BUT, this situation is different and your friend is grieving the loss of her child. Just for a moment try and understand how she must feel at the thought of seeing a baby when her own was lost in such tragic circumstances. You have received the reaction you have because you have/are coming across very self absorbed and you seem to show very little empathy for the situation your friend finds herself in. Yes you were there for your friend and well done, so you should have been. BUT, her need for support and empathy out ways your need for attention as a new mother. I am trying to see it from your prospective and understand you and your family's anger towards a grieving mother but to be fair I really can't. You are are/have been extremely unempathetic and selfish in what you say about her. I hope to god I never have to experience the pain your friend is suffering. But if it was me, I would hope my friends would be more understanding and empathetic in this situation than you seem to be towards your friend. I think maybe this friendship has run it's course.

I am also shocked at those that are comparing a mc to a still birth. REALLY? I have had mc and it still hurts thinking about our loss but as painful as a mc is it can not in any way compare to giving birth to a stillborn baby. How anyone can compare the two is beyond me!

gertrudetrain - I am so sorry for your loss. For a long time I would buy DS an extra helium balloon on his birthday and just told DH. If I ever tried to talk about the baby I lost to my MIL I got nothing back other than vibes as to not mention it. She is really difficult when ever I want to talk about my miscarriages or depression and makes me feel crap tbh.

LittlePeaPod - I certainly wasn't comparing a still birth to a miscarriage so hope you weren't meaning me. I would hate to cause offense.

MissStrawberry. I wasn't referring to you I was referring to this comment. "Miscarriages are awful but life goes on. I don't think you deserve to be flamed. Sounds like you're better off without her"

Angelle
If you are out there wondering what to do do reconnect, if at all, then the best thing is to say something, anything; even if it is wildly the "wrong" thing to say, something, ANYthing is better than nothing, I found.
Knowing that a friend cares, bears no bad feeling, and that the door is left open to get in touch when the time is right, understands that it is really rubbish timing to have two such polar opposite life events occuring, that's what could be most useful. A new baby -esp twins - is full on all encompassing, as grief is, just totally different ends of the spectrum.
Even if my friend had just stuck a bar of Chocolate in the post at periodic intervals, I'd have known she was thinking if me.
But this has made me realise how it might have been for them - that they had no clue - and maybe I can finally understand where they were at

Some people were saying I had no empathy etc which is crossing the line or politely disagree/personal.