My Best Friend is Pregnant
So, yesterday I found out that my best friend is pregnant. I was one of the first people she told and I am super happy for her! And also touched that she decided to tell me before most anyone else. I know she's going to be a great mother and I know she's feared in the past that she may never be able to have kids, so I'm so happy this worked out for her. My only problem is that I think I'm jealous. She got married this summer, now she's having a baby, after so many other friends (or at least "people I know" since I don't really have many friends to begin with) have accomplished the same. My entire life, I've been obsessed with pregnancy and childbirth and parenthood. I've always been positive that if I never accomplished anything else I wanted in life, the bare minimum was that I wanted to be a mother. Technically, nothing is stopping me from having a baby, too, but I'm not in the right place in my life right now to have kids. My boyfriend and I have been together for 3.5 years, I'm in my senior year of college, and I also live in a terrible college town with high crime rates, I can't drive, and I've never had a job. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with myself when I graduate next spring. I don't feel at all like a functional adult so logically I know having a baby is not the right thing for me right now (if ever, which is another matter entirely--lately I've been really spooked by the fear that I may never be realistically ready for a baby, despite it being the only thing I've ever been sure about wanting in my life). I'm just jealous that I'm not at the point in my life where having a baby is realistically possible. I feel like everyone else is miles ahead of me in accomplishing things in their life, my best friend included, and I feel so damn behind. I don't want to be jealous or feel this way, but I do and I don't know how to handle it. I'm also terrified that having a baby means my best friend won't have any room in her life for me anymore. For the past eight years, my best friend has been like the sister I never had. She's always been the one I could turn to with whatever problems I was having, I could always be open and honest with her and vent to her. Now that she's having a baby, though, anything I'm feeling or going through feels insignificant. I mean, how can anything be more important than the issues that come with growing an actual human being in your body? I feel like I want to isolate myself and bottle everything up because there's no point. I'm not important anymore. I don't feel betrayed by my best friend's pregnancy, but I do feel depressed and lost and jealous and I hate that I feel that way because I don't want to. I want to be happy for her without all the bad stuff nagging me in the back of my mind, but I don't know how when it feels like I'm so far behind everyone else and so terrified that I'm going to lose my best friend and the bond we've built up over the past eight years because my shit isn't anywhere near as important anymore. I don't know, I feel like I'm not making a ton of sense and I'm rambling and being a pain in the butt and I probably sound so damn selfish but I just don't know what to do. I want to cry, I want to cut myself off from everyone and everything because god I'm being so petty and disgusting, and more than I anything I want to be in a position in my life right now where I can have a baby, too :\
@myaekingheart I can understand why you're feeling that way, it may feel as though she's living your dream? Or that she has the one thing you dreamed about and wished so much for?
What are you studying, if you don't mind me asking? Have you looked into different jobs that you can get from studying that area once you graduate?
Do you think having a list of goals, for example Getting a stable job, passing a driving test etc, as a way of working towards being in a place you would feel comfortable enough that you would feel ready for a child, would be helpful? I think it's important to remember that we all acomplish things at different stages in our lives, or at different ages in our lives, as easy as it can be to compare ourselves to others, we're not the same people and we won't reach the same achievements, goals or milestones at the same time. That doesn't mean we won't reach them at all though!
You sound like you're very close with her. Are you feeling as though the baby might come between your friendship? Do you think helping her out with the child and being there for her in the pregnancy as a friend will help you to feel any better? <3
It does sound like you're very close though, so I'm sure that even as she has the child, you're still important to her too!
I hope things improve for you soon!
@CommunityModCathy
Kind of both. Nobody really knows how much Ive thought about having kids myself other than her, like Im kind of closet fascinated and shes the only person Ive been open about it with. I so desperately want kids, even though I know Im not currently at a point in my life where its plausible. I think about it constantly, though. It does feel kind of like shes living my dream in that regard, like I dont know. It just happened really suddenly so Im kind of dizzy from it.
Im studying English with a concentration in creative writing, and the goal is to become a novelist someday. I know I have the stamina and ability to actually do the thing because Ive been writing novel-length fiction for years (nothing I can publish professionally, however—its just fanfiction but Im highly dedicated to what Ive been working on and the current piece is almost to 500 pages after only a little over a year of working on it). I havent looked deeply into jobs yet, though. Advisors have recommended doing internships before I graduate but I still have to complete all my minor coursework and am scheduled to graduate this upcoming spring so I dont really have the time. A list of goals would be helpful, but its hard when it takes two people and so much of my future is dependent on my boyfriends plans, as well (which currently are uncertain in that he knows what he wants to do but its the matter of getting there thats the trouble). I dont even know where were going to be in a year or whats going to happen for us, whether hell be done college by then or pursuing his career goals or if were going to move back to our hometown or still be living in the college town were currently in or what. Its all very uncertain and that bothers me, too, but I guess thats a rant for another forum thread.
I am kind of scared the baby will come between our friendship, though. I dont want to feel jealous at all and the thought of feeling this way makes me feel so sick but I feel like now that shes having a baby, the extremely close relationship weve built up is in danger. Shes always been the person Ive gone to to vent or cry or seek advice or even just have long-winded intellectual conversations but now that shes pregnant, it just feels like anything I might be going through is insignificant and worthless and petty compared to growing a literal human being in your body. I feel like she wont have room for me in her life anymore because all of her time and attention will be occupied by a child. I think the current distance in our relationship doesnt help, either—she lives in my hometown nearly five hours away and we hardly see each other in person anymore, so for the past two years that Ive been away at school our friendship has mostly been through texting each other nearly every single day. Im sure it would be different if I was physically in the same town as her but since Im not, I guess the distance thats already there between us makes this ten times worse.
