When I shared the news about Son with my closest friends, they were all thrilled and excited. It was very early in the pregnancy and everyone was basically counting down the days until they could meet him. This lasted about 2.5 seconds.
Slowly but surely, the phone calls became more rare. Slowly but surely, the invites to dinner became more rare. Slowly but surely, even the replies to my text messages started to take days… I finally got the hint. Since I was the only married one in our group (which was also like a heavy punch in the face of my friendships), and the only one having a baby, I was set aside. I have no idea what went on in their heads that would make them not keep in touch with me anymore: was I boring now, or were they just scared of a baby? I will never know.
After my son was born, it took all of my friends about 2 months to come and see me, to check on me and see how I was doing. SonBoy is now almost 9 months old, and, needless to say, I have not seen my “friends” much in the last 3 trimesters. Without exaggerating, I think we only saw each others 2 times since his birth. I don’t really think we are friends anymore, more like acquaintances. I am not moping, just coming to the realization that people do change, and, again, everything happens for a reason. If these people cannot accept me with my child, then I should not even try to include them in my life. My kid IS my life – take it or leave it.
Don’t get me wrong, not ALL my friends ditched with the arrival or my son – I definitely cherish the ones who stuck around… but it can be hard for them to relate, sometimes. They don’t always understand that when he’s sleeping I can’t just pack him up and go workout. They don’t always understand that I might be a bit late for dinner at 8 because he decided to take a last minute nap or we had a diaper explosion. It’s tough being a mom. It’s tough being a mom and trying to have a social life.
A girlfriend of mine also had a baby last year. Her little girl is 4 months older than Son, and she is the cutest little thing. We had her first birthday party a couple of weeks ago – the kids had a blast. The moms? Well… we were stuck in an awkward “I-haven’t-had-to-be-social-with-another-woman-in-so-long” kind of situation. It was just flat out weird. We tried to make small talk but everything seemed to revolve around the contents of our kids’ menus or the content of their diapers. What the F? When did I become so socially challenged? I kept trying to steer the conversation towards more social topics, like the latest movies, or restaurants that opened in our city… to no avail. Somehow, one of the other moms would find the way to bring us back to poop. WHY? The husbands were there that day, too – but their conversations were not that much better. My husband ended up hanging out with our son more than anything. The other men just kind of sat around. What was happening? I have no idea.
When we went home. the Hubz and I talked about our little outing. I thought we had just lost our mojo – but he laughed and offered me a different perspective: we don’t really know these people, and therefore it is hard to make small talk. He then went on to explain that this was kind of like a first date for all of us, except that because we all have kids, we were indirectly judging each others on our parenting skills and that’s why the conversations kept going back to baby topics. WOW! World, meet my husband, the wise man. He was totally right.
… at least the kids had fun, which I guess is the whole point of a first birthday party 🙂
Secret Words of a Mama 
This is beautiful! The miracle of motherhood, even from the womb.
miracle indeed! 🙂