u/Original_Clerk2916

TW: discussion of traumatic birth and infertility

My daughter is almost 2 now, for reference, and I had HG the entire pregnancy (threw up from 6 weeks to the day I delivered her). I have a lot of ptsd from it, for many reasons (not just the HG, we almost got evicted multiple times because I had to quit my job due to HG, was dealing with multiple family issues, chronic pain, developed gestational diabetes despite being unable to eat, and then had a very unwanted c section after a failed 3 day induction, etc), so we will not even consider the idea of having a second until she’s in elementary school. Just the idea of pregnancy makes me nauseous, and I have residual psychological nausea (ptsd).

Despite this, I’m just so sad seeing the other moms in her class pregnant. Not just pregnant, but pregnant and FUNCTIONING. Being a mom is literally all I’ve ever wanted in life, and my daughter is genuinely a unicorn baby. She’s my rainbow baby after 2 years of infertility, and she’s actually the easiest baby I’ve ever met. I was a nanny for close to a decade before having her, so I don’t say that as a mom blinded by love, I say that seriously. She started sleeping through the night at 3 months old. She rarely cries. She almost NEVER wakes up before 9:30 in the morning. And she’s so social and happy.

She’s such a joy, and I feel so sad that I may never give her a sibling. Given my history of infertility at a young age, I know that it’s possible that I genuinely won’t be able to get pregnant again. Seeing other pregnant women living like normal human beings makes me want to cry because I am just so jealous. I am absolutely beyond attached to my daughter now, but because of how pregnancy was, plus having a c section (I had imagined her birth a million times, but I had never imagined I’d be having a massive panic attack and have to have so much anxiety medicine I was barely conscious when she was born), I didn’t feel a connection to her when she was first born. I was in so much pain for the first 2 weeks that I feel like I missed out on so much.

It feels so unfair. I’m in therapy (have been for many years), but it still just hurts. It feels like my body failed me in so many ways, and I want so badly to WANT to be pregnant again, but I legitimately could not stop gagging at the THOUGHT of pregnancy. I know some of this is just me being irrational, but I feel like HG stole something from me, something I wanted so badly, and I just wish I could be one of those people who just forgets all the bad parts of pregnancy.

For reference, we are very low income, and my daughter’s grandmother offered to cover the cost of daycare while I go back to school and pursue a master’s degree. I know we are very very fortunate to be able to send our daughter to the school, and I’m really excited for her, but I can’t help but feel really out of place among the other parents.

The specific daycare she’ll be attending is mostly made up of high income families (thankfully the cost of her attendance is not super high in comparison to other daycares because she’ll only be going part time, and we got a discount). I am also considered a young mom (mid twenties), so I think some of my worries come from being perceived (mainly by family) as inexperienced/immature. However, I have almost a decade of experience working with children, and my current degree is in psychology, with a specific focus on child development, so I do know more about parenting than the average person my age.

That being said, I feel rather intimidated by the other parents. So far they seem very nice, but I worry that I’ll “mess up” somehow and they’ll realize how poor we are. As a side note, our daughter has NEVER suffered due to our finances, she always has everything (if not more) than she needs, and I’m very good at finding the best deals online/buying nice things second-hand, so she likely won’t even know we’re struggling financially until she’s much older, by which time I hope to be in a much better spot due to the degree I’m currently working towards. From the outside, there’s nothing that would “give it away” that her parents are poor. Maybe my worries are silly, but I just can’t help but feel kind of embarrassed/inferior in comparison to the other parents

ETA: my main goal isn’t to pretend I’m wealthier than I am. I really just want my child to be accepted by others. Part of the reason I’m so concerned about this is because I’m on the spectrum, but not noticeably so— I went undiagnosed until adulthood because I do a good enough job masking to not typically show my neurodivergence, but not good enough that I don’t find myself with my foot in my mouth a lot of the time. I work really hard to try to figure out what the social limitations are, but I sometimes fall short in recognizing when I’ve said something that’s bothered someone or when I’ve offended someone in some way. It’s the combination of this plus feeling out of place in terms of finances that’s made me so nervous about this situation. I just don’t want my daughter to miss out on things like play dates with other kids because of me.

For some background, I’m a late diagnosed AuDHD mom. So far, my toddler (almost 2yrs old) hasn’t shown many signs of neurodivergence. I’m trying my best not to read too much into her behavior, as I’m very sensitive to signs of neurodivergence because of the struggles I went through being undiagnosed until 24.

She recently started smacking herself on the head. At first, she did it a couple times when she was upset, and I guess I made the mistake? of reacting to it. Now, it seems she does it to elicit a response from me, usually in a “funny” way? Like she looks at me, smiles, and does it. It’s usually not very hard, but it bothers me because I never want her to hurt herself.

I have a background in child psych, but I’ve never dealt with this before. She also has a tendency to smack herself in the stomach when she gets upset/bored. She doesn’t currently do it for our reaction though.

Do I stop reacting? Should I say something else?