SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

I came across this on Facebook today and immediately thought of Glow and similar communities. When an expecting mama says they're tired, hurting, over it, etc and she gets responses of "just wait until [insert unrelated event that happened to you]" or "you're lucky because *I* had worse problems for much longer" and so on. That expecting mama probably doesn't care, doesn't want to hear it, and definitely doesn't feel better from your negativity/competitive manner when she just wants to vent or seek support from others who have been there before. Especially when not everyone will share your experience! When I was pregnant with my daughter and suffering from extreme fatigue, I constantly heard "wait til you have a newborn" because #1 it doesn't help anyone and #2 I was way more exhausted throughout my pregnancy than I was with a newborn. When my SIL and I were pregnant at the same time and she was venting about nausea at 9 weeks, I never once thought to point out that I was 34 weeks and still throwing up multiple times a day.

We all know pregnancy and parenting is difficult, but not everyone experiences the same difficulties on this journey, and not everyone needs to hear about how much more difficult it may or may not get.

It isn't that hard to be supportive and it's okay to just say "sorry you're going through this and I pray it gets better soon" if you don't have advice to offer.