How To Cope with Unsupportive Family During Pregnancy
Just picture it: You find out you’re pregnant with your first child, and both you and your partner are excited. Thrilled. You almost can’t contain the joy you both feel. And then you announce it to your family, and you are met with the opposite emotion. Anger, disappointment, fear, sadness. And it breaks you.
It saddens me to even admit this, but I have been there.
With my first pregnancy, I got half-and-half. One side of the family was thrilled that a baby was going to join the family. With the other side of the family, we were met with anger, frustration and disappointment. If I were to say that it didn’t destroy me to hear those things, I’d be lying to you. Pregnancy is difficult in itself, without having to deal with family issues. Adding an unsupportive family on top of that can make it that much harder.
So, what do you do from here?
You certainly can’t change your family’s minds about your pregnancy. Trust me, I tried. I tried so hard to find ways to make them excited and it didn’t work. However, there were a few things I did that really helped me when I was struggling the most.
1.) Give Them Time & Space
As cliche as this may sound, it’s true. At some point, you have to just let your family be and come to reality on their own terms. It may take no time at all, or it may take until your little one makes their debut. Either way, just let them be. As hard as it was for me to do this, it helped especially when paired with my second tip…
2.) Lean On Your Support System
Whether you’ve got a small support system with just a few people, or an entire clan, lean on them. Lean on those who lift you up and support you, and who are as excited about this baby as you are. I can’t tell you enough how much this will help you mentally. I had a few co-workers who cried with excitement when I told them I was pregnant. They would ask me questions about baby and keep that happy feeling going, which helped me more than anything. The one side of the family that was excited helped me do a lot of the planning for baby’s arrival. Really anything to keep your mind off of the people in your life who do not support you - Lean on those who do!
3.) Nesting
This may seem so silly, but as soon as I started nesting (halfway through the second trimester), my mood was instantly boosted. I was finally able to start putting baby’s room together and washing their clothes and decorating and cleaning - my god, the cleaning. Anything that I could physically do to prepare for baby gave me the biggest mood boost with a touch of ‘IDGAF’ if you know what I mean. The productivity also meant that if baby came early, I was ready!
It hurts me to know that other soon-to-be mamas are going through the same feeling that I did. It’s no fun, and I’m so sorry you are being treated as such by people you know and love. Bringing new life into this world is so freaking exciting, and you deserve to have the same energy around you in anticipation.
Take care my lovelies, I know this was a hard topic to cover..