How to be there when someone else is pregnant
The greatest betrayal of all and now I’m having my nose rubbed in it. Yip, your work colleague, a friend or a family member is pregnant. How on earth are you going to deal with them and the baby they are carrying. It feels so personal. How could they do this to you and why the hell is it not you that’s pregnant… why them? I have experienced this a few times and here are some tips that I hope will help you.
Being the eldest of 3 children, with 2 failed engagements and no Mr Right on the horizon, I decided that I wanted to have a baby on my own. The clock was ticking and 40 was a number that suddenly had a whole lot of meaning and consequences. Having worked with a psychologist and shared my decision with my close family, we worked out in detail how this would work. My parents would step in as ‘active secondary parents’ and my siblings would be very involved too. Then, my sister fell pregnant and we were told it was an ‘oops’. My own sister. We were so very close. The evening that her and her boyfriend announced this, I felt like a knife had cut through my heart. The greatest betrayal of all. Not only would she have the first born but she had stolen my plan to have a baby and didn’t even try to fall pregnant! I was devastated. I tried my very best to hold it together at dinner but I needed so desperately to scream and cry and just collapse. I was so wounded.
This left me with a very big decision. Am I able to accept and be part of my sister’s pregnancy or was it too painful? It was one of the biggest decisions I made and one that I would need to be at peace with. Well, 4 years on and I’m so eternally grateful that I was able to overcome this. I’m still without a baby despite 9 ivf attempts but everyday I am so thankful that we have little Mia as she brings me such joy. When I had my miscarriage, my folks wanted to fetch her as they knew she how happy she makes me. We have the closest relationship and she even sleeps over. I would die to think I would have missed out on her birth, her first crawl, her learning to talk and her absolute love of me. With her I’m able to be a crazy fun child and it has rescued me from my hurtful ivf world so many times. I remember the very day when I made my decision to accept my sisters pregnancy. Little did I know that she would become my egg donor in due course.
So this is the scenario I wanted to share with you so that you see there can be a silver lining. Feel the pain, cry but move forward. Be there for that person. It will bizarrely make you feel stronger within yourself.
Here are some tips to help you through your situation when someone announces they are pregnant:
- Weigh up your relationship with that person. Is it going to cause greater pain in the end to not be part of their journey?
- What are the benefits of being part of their journey?
- What would you loose out on if you weren’t part of their pregnancy/ baby?
- What if you had your baby, would you be sorry that you hadn’t been part of theirs?
In the end, everything has consequences. Just think carefully about what you feel comfortable with and what you don’t.
And remember…
You are not alone!
