Being left out by my friends since becoming pregnant and having a baby

[newmum1313]

My DD is almost 5 weeks old. I took her to meet my best friend last week and we had lunch. We were catching up as we hadn't seen each other in 4 months due to lockdown and she was telling me about all of the things her and our friend group had been doing. Like a couple of birthday parties (while I was pregnant and these were small and followed the social distancing rules, after the restrictions were eased up), fun group video chats etc and then she said she was going to our friends place that night to celebrate her and her husbands anniversary. I hadn't been asked to any of these so I felt a little bad. I get that I was pregnant but does that not mean I don't want to be at my friends celebrations or get togethers? And now baby is here I'm still not getting invited to these things. Again I get people will probably presume I don't want to go but it would be nice to be included and it's not like baby doesn't have a dad to look after her if I went out for the evening. Anyone else had this with their friends?

I think it’s exacerbated by Covid. They might assume you are shielded. I would maybe contact a few of them and ask if you could be included and say there might be times you will come and times you won’t but you’d appreciate the invite.

Maybe they think you might want to enjoy your family time, maybe it’s covid, maybe they think the baby talk will dominate conversation etc.

Pregnant women were not shielded but it meant sense to be more cautious due to your immune system being naturally suppressed during pregnancy. You then have a brand new baby and supposedly you wouldn't want him/her to contract COVID19? There was sad news during lockdown of a newborn with COVID19. I'm surprised why you would want to be out there exposing your pregnant self/baby to a brand new respiratory virus for which hidden complications have been found even in some people with mild symptoms and for which generally no one knows its long term effects yet . I'm sure that's why they thought you wouldnt even want to come in the first place, as a mother. Sounds like they are being great friends and are just trying to look out for you both.

*made

On the video chats, perhaps thought you'd be too exhausted to join? Best to just ask directly

Same thing happened to me and that was many years pre-Covid. I was pretty upset and said it was for me to decline if I couldn’t attend but it would have been nice to be invited. They felt bad and they did apologise and did make a bit more effort.

About 5 years later when they started having their own kids they raised it again and apologised properly.

I think people without kids think your whole world changes (and it does to an extent!) and don’t know what to do with you.

Just chat to them

Our friendship group went through this a couple of years ago. Most of us had grown up children then the youngest of the group became pregnant. We continued to invite her to all our get togethers throughout the pregnancy and she declined most of them. We continued to invite her after the baby then she asked us not to invite her to anything else anymore as she had felt pressurised every time we asked her somewhere. She felt anxious each time as her life had changed and she felt we were not taking that into consideration. She was upset but didn't tell us at the time. So I can see how your friendship group might be thinking. They may think your life has changed and it might not be suitable to invite you. The child is over 2 now and she approached us when she was ready to come out and enjoy herself with the girls. I don't think for one minute it was done to you callously, it was an acknowledgement that you have a different path right now to them and you will all have to adjust to it in time.

.....oh, just one more thing...when she did come out with us as a group she did dominate most of the conversation with baby talk. We are a great group of friends and we imparted all our previous knowledge to her to help with questions, but we did have to move the conversation on quite a few times!!!! She's a lovely lady with a beautiful daughter and we are all delighted for her.