Navigating Pregnancy Announcements, Showers and Pregnant Women

You will now be invited to 10,000 baby showers! Oh my!

Seeing and hearing of pregnancy likely invokes a reaction within you of sadness, grief, anger, shame, jealousy, resentment and may be some happiness among a myriad of other emotions. You’re not alone!

Your mind may be consumed with your own struggles of infertility when you see pregnant women everywhere, you dread going on your socials and baby showers are your absolute worst nightmare!

Here’s how to handle such announcements with compassion, grace and joy. No more hijacked emotions, but a solid plan as you move forward.

Step 1: 

Validate your feelings! It is incredibly hard to see a woman get something you have always dreamed or desired. This is not some frivolous wish like winning a dream vacation. It’s becoming a mom which is who you feel you are, at your core.  You may be thinking, why her, and then shaming yourself as to why you cannot be happy for her. 

In the same thought you may ask yourself why can’t it be me and how can I not be excited for her?

Know that this is a completely valid way to think and feel about things and so many women feel exactly the way you do. Its human nature to hold desire and to be emotionally activated when others have something so meaningful and we do not.

Don’t shame yourself for being human. 

If you happen to hear that she achieved her pregnancy with little to no effort you may even want to punch her in the face. I joke! But you know that is not going to help anything!

Here’s what you need to hear, it’s ok to hold both. Both the sadness for yourself and joy for her.

Emotions do not have to be either/ or. It’s about BOTH, AND. 

You can believe that this really sucks for me and of course I am happy for them.

You can have conflicting emotions of jealousy and excitement.

You may think jeez this absolutely sucks so much and I know she was excited to be a mom. 

This is a hard process and it is of utmost importance to take care of yourself emotionally in the process. Know that you can have more than one emotion surrounding an announcement to a pregnancy.

Step 2:

Challenge the idea that pregnancy is a limited resource

When you see a pregnant person and it activates something distressing, it’s because you are stuck in a scarcity mindset.

You are fearing that because she has it, I cannot. Somehow pregnancy is a limited resource that you will one day never have. 

This is simply not true! Of course jealousy comes along and it does not feel good to be stuck in that mess of emotional turmoil, however everything can change when you adopt a mindset of abundance.

Abundance is believing that she can be pregnant and so can you! There is no limited quantity of babies to be born. It is something you can have too! You just have to believe that it is completely possible.

When you are in a state of abundance, so much more becomes possible, available and your mind and body are open and accepting to this possibility.

Step 3:

Envision it’s you! 

Yes, it is time to put that abundance mindset to work and imagine it’s you walking down the street, your baby shower, you are the one who is pregnant!

You see a pregnant woman shopping in the baby department, what items grab your attention and would you want for your child?

You receive that baby invitation, what theme would you want for your shower and what do you envision your invites looking like?

Dream about how you would tell your partner, if you have one.

It’s all about shifting from it’s not me to, it’s going to be me! 

Mindset is such a huge piece of this infertility journey and if you’re not ready to believe it’s possible and imagine that's you one day, sadly you are going to be stuck in the $hit of infertility. I say this with compassion. But if our thoughts are trash, our outcome isn’t going to be gold.

Celebrating everyone else’s joy, excitement and hope for their future family is F’ing hard. You need to be aware of your emotions, give space to process and to validate them.

It’s time to shift from scarcity to abundance and believing there is not a limited amount of babies that can be born. 

When you see the pregnancy as yours, everything can change! 

Here’s to seeing pregnant women in a whole new way and finding peace within to celebrate and to hold space for sadness, grief and jealousy.

You are strong, you can do this and you were made for motherhood.