Reply to Is there a polite way to tell someone to stop talking about pregnancy?

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Reply to "Is there a polite way to tell someone to stop talking about pregnancy?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I sympathize - it took years for me to have children, I was very private about it and it was painful to be around pregnant women or babies.  Now I am pregnant with number three and much as I adore my children I am sometimes somewhat nostalgic for my child-free days.

Some people do become very self-absorbed when they are pregnant or going through another major life event (weddings, etc).  You could try saying simply to pregnant friend when she complains about X pregnancy-related issue "Yes, there are advantages to being child-free" then smoothly change the subject to something else non-pregnancy/baby related.  If she's at all self-aware or aware of others she will pick up on this... if not the first time then the second or third time.  It may be hard for your other friend (IF) to say this at first but hopefully she will be able to say it in a lighthearted way after a while.  My experience was that it was much easier socially to pretend that I was completely uninterested in having children than to let others know that I wanted children.

To be nice to your pregnant friend when you first see her you could ask her (preferably when it's just the two of you but it's also something your IF will have to accept is part of life) how she's feeling, listen for a couple of minutes, then change the subject.  Hard to tread a delicate line between these two extremes but a small amount of pregnancy/baby talk should be okay - not talking about it at all would be as weird as talking about it all the time.

Good luck![/quote]

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