Maintaining Your Friendships After Baby
Posted on February 17, 2009
Your fertility treatments worked, you are pregnant. Now what? Are you prepared for how your life is going to change. Some women find the transition from infertility to pregnancy a difficult one. They are not sure what they are supposed to do now because all they’ve known how to do is “try” to get pregnant. A woman I had dinner with recently stated that she hasn’t even thought about what she needs for her new baby. She has been reading the book, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” but that is all. No shopping yet, no baby registry, no baby showers planned, etc. She honestly doesn’t know what she SHOULD be doing.
Another aspect of being pregnant after infertility are your friendships. Do your fertile friends know about your fertility treatments? Do your infertile friends know you are pregnant? What about single friends, friends who are childless by choice and those not by choice? How will your relationships with all of these people in your life change? Because they all will. No matter how hard you try to stay connected with your infertile friends to support them, your pregnancy might be a constant reminder of what they don’t have.Your friends without kids, well, they might not want to be around your kids or listen to your stories either.
We all want to think our friendship will be the same no matter what life events we experience. But sometimes things change even when we least expect them to. Here are some examples of how my friendships changed:
1. Billy and Sue were fairly good friends who we would hang out with regularly. Billy and Sue are a few years older than us and are childless by choice. When Billy and Sue found out we were “infertile” they didn’t offer a ton of support, but would listen to our woes. Billy encouraged my husband to consider a life free of children. However, he was also my husbands support system when I was hospitalized for bed rest. Billy and Sue seemed genuinely happy for us when our twins arrived. They visited us right after their birth and continued to pursue a friendship with us. However, once our kids were walking and talking Billy and Sue became very distant. We are not the only friends they did this too. Another couple also had a child and shortly thereafter Billy and Sue stopped associating with them as well. It’s sad and we miss them.
2. Kristin and Kathy are good friends of mine. During my infertility Kristin was the shoulder that I cried on when I wasn’t crying in counseling. She was amazingly helpful. Kathy was also supportive during my infertility and more so during my pregnancy. For the first two years after K&A arrived we did a lot together. Now getting together seems to be more like pulling teeth. Their lives are busy since they have kids too, and one of them remarried. We pledge to get together, but it never happens. We are all to blame.
How did your friendships change with infertility? With a pregnancy, whether it was yours or theirs? Is there anything we can do about this phenomenon?
» Filed Under Infertility, Relationships, pregnancy
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3 Responses to “Maintaining Your Friendships After Baby”
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Kelly, thanks for visiting. I have noted that question for the doc and I’ll be ordering that book
Great post. Something we all need to think about. My relationships have changed for sure. Can I put a link to this post on my blog? I think it is a great topic.
Life really changed for us. Our some of our best friends just disappeared into the wood work and we never see them anymore. I guess it’s a life change that some friends will stick by you and some will just quietly go. Everything is just different now, but in a good way!