One of my good friends from work and book club recently announced that she’s pregnant. I already knew that two months ago when I watched her fake drink her way through book club. You know the expression gaydar? I appear have to developed a very finely honed pre-dar (pre-dar = pregnancy radar). My pre-dar is able to sniff out a woman not drinking when she normally would be OMFG SHE’S PREGNANT from a mile away. I am also very aware of ladies suddenly skipping their usual coffee and/or chemical highlights.
It can backfire, though. On Sunday I was convinced I had spotted yet another baby bump at Trader Joe’s when I realized that said bump was attached to a dude.
The real question here is why do I care so much? It’s not like this is a zero-sum game, with only so many babies to go around. I know that other people’s pregnancies aren’t stopping me from having my own.
Part of it is that it’s hard to watch people be so happy about something that I want so badly but feel like I might never have.
Part of it is that I see every belly bump as some kind of reproach to me, to my (imagined* or real**) failures to have a baby. It’s hard for something that seems so difficult for me to appear so easy for other people. It’s hard not to feel that somehow the universe is telling me that I don’t deserve to have a baby.
I’m not really going anywhere with this, I guess. If you know me in real life, though, and you’re not drinking for some reason, know that my eagle eye is on you. Unless you are a dude.
* I consider my imagined failures the feelings that I have that somehow the miscarriage was my fault. I can logically know that it wasn’t until the cows come home, but I don’t really believe it. I catch myself wondering if it was the yoga I did one day, or the fact that I didn’t give up caffeine entirely. Etcetera ad nauseum.
** In terms of real failures, I did sort of bring this infertility on myself by running all the goddamn time and not eating enough to compensate for it. I know that I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I try not to be too hard on myself and instead focus on what I’m doing to reverse it (i.e., buying bigger pants). But it still feels like something I screwed up.
Filed under: Infertile Myrtle, Navel Grazing
I just wrote a response that was so long I decided to save it for a full blog post.
It certainly doesn’t make it OK but there’s a tiny piece of comfort knowing that I’m not the only who’s suffering around pregnant people and playing the what if/self blame game.
Hang in there.
I’m there with you Marty- 100%. I get it. I live it. I breathe it. You can know and understand the reasons why from here to the end of time, but the sight of those bellies, and that pre-dar (which I have in spades) still gets you like a sliver into your heart. It’s so OK too. It’s SO ok…..the pain and the hurt; it’s real and it’s OK. It really is so don’t try to push your feelings aside or hide your emotions. I’m so far past being able to have my dream and I still ache at what I’m missing. I truly believe your chance will come.
[...] my walk home I found myself doing the same thing that Marty wrote about here: the game of what ifs. Trying to figure out where I went wrong: maybe it was the Diet Crush I drank [...]
Oh, sweetie. I know how you feel! And I really don’t know what to say…like you noted, you can reason all you want…”this isn’t my fault” and “everything happens for a reason” but so many times emotion overrides reason…just keep taking care of yourself, and your husband, and your life! I know many of us scoff at the “you need to relax about this” verbage, but I do think there is something to it.
I used to think I would never consider adoption, but I’ve recently spent some time in our childrens’ hospital and I think Sam and I are changing our minds about that…we’ve realized we have so much love to give and if it doesn’t come naturally this might be an avenue we’ll pursue. The nice thing about that is it relaxes the pressure, and has really made me realize I do want to have children, something I used to struggle with.
[...] « Pre-dar | [...]
I know this feeling SO well. I currently work with 5 pregnant women. It’s like I can’t escape sometimes! Then, people make all sorts of comments about what a fertile building we work in, and how pregnancy must be contagious. It makes me want to scream. HUGS.