I apologize in advance for the good portion of this that will be pity party/vent but at seven months pregnant the hormones have gotten the best of my emotions and quite frankly I feel downright stinky about the whole thing.
I come from a pretty small family. A lot of people in my family have chosen to not marry or, if they did, got married late in life. This means to date only half are married and there are only 5 kids that are pretty spread apart in age. I am the youngest by a long shot which means our kids will be the last to enter our family. Up until now each baby born has been met with a great deal of excitement. Showers were thrown, babies were talked and dreamed about months in advance and great distances were traveled to see them in the hospital. Both my husband and I shared in this excitement and were so excited for the day when our LO came and would be surrounded by the same sense of love and excitement....only that day hasnt come.
When we were finally ready to tell the relatives about our pregnancy we were beside ourselves with excitement at what we thought their reaction would be. We announced when everyone was gathered and were shocked when their reaction was basically to shrug their shoulders and say "well that's nice" No excitement, no congrats. In all fairness my aunt did think to complement me on the fact that I hadnt blown up in size like some other pregnant women (ah yeah she actually said that instead of congratulations and my aunt is NOT a tacky woman)
Fast forward another four months and still no excitement. (I admit I held out hope maybe they would start to show some excitement closer to the due date...they havent) Despite the fact that every other mother to be had a shower thrown in her honor, no one is interested this time. No one has bothered to ask how I am feeling or if we have picked out any names. My parents told me they dont ever want to take care of this grandchild even though the other three are over at least once a week for two to three days. The thing that hurts me most of all...not a single person is planning to come see LO at the hospital even though that has always been the tradition.
I admit I feel a little hurt personally that no one seems to care about what is such a massive life change for us and miss the support I thought I would be getting from them. I dont have many close friends and am not that close to my mom and have really felt lonely at times in this journey to becoming a mother. I would have really loved to have had the love and support of my close relatives that I thought would be there to help me through this scary life transition. All of my feelings aside, however, the thing that really kills me is I feel like they dont really care about LO. I have watched my cousins, nieces and nephews be doted on by a wonderful extended family and support system and their lack of excitement really makes me worry LO wont experience that and that breaks my heart.
At this point I am kinda going into protection mode. I am starting to think we wont even tell people we are at the hospital in the hopes that they will come because then we dont have to be hurt if they dont show up at the last minute. I have given up hope of anyone having a shower for us and started buying all of the stuff we need ourselves and feel like I am steeling myself for the possibility that our LO wont be showered with the same affection the other babies were.
Like I said I am sorry this is a big part pity party and a downer but I guess at this moment that is how I feel. Anyone else gone through this? How did you deal with the hurt?