I am surrounded by pregnancy. Everyone is pregnant. I am awaiting my 68-year-old mother’s announcement that she’s pregnant, along with everyone else I know, including some of my male friends, who I am sure have rigged up some system with spark plugs and USB cords to make themselves pregnant as well. My first due date would have been August 15, 2006. The last one, May of this year. The pregnants or just-were-pregnants:
Friends G & M: boy born September 2006 (first son born June 2005)
Friends C & C: boy born September 2006
Cousin A: girl born October 2006
Sister-in-law: due May 2007
Friends C & J: due June 2007
Boss: due August 2007
Co-worker: due August 2007
Ex: due October 2007
Friends M & V: due December 2007
I think I may have missed someone. Although it FEELS as though everyone I have ever met is currently pregnant or in the throws of new parenthood, everyone is in fact not pregnant and everyone is not right-this-minute staring lovingly into the eyes of their perfect, perfect, perfect newborn. Thanks for those friends who abhor the whole kid thing. I can at least pretend to focus on something else. My wanting to close this chapter and move on - accept our lives as they are now and just be - hasn’t changed. But I do recognize that it is partly due to the bitterness, resentment, fear, sadness and exhaustion that is infertility.
When I received the baby shower announcement (Yesterday? Was it really yesterday?) I responded with a quick, "Yes! I will attend!" Then I proceeded to peruse their baby registry. And became very, very, very upset. It is possible that the husband (this is a co-ed baby shower, apparently–and many of his college friends will be in attendance) will have little patience with my desire not to go. Or perhaps I have little patience with myself (Go on! Live! Quit this!). Yet, I find it painful. Can I attend such a thing? Do I have to? Do I tell her why? Do I suck it up and pretend that all is well? Do I just make my mind a blank and soldier on? I don’t know. But I have changed my reply to, "Maybe."
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7 comments:
you need some infertile friends and/or a gay single male in this fifties.
Don't go. Send your regrets. If hubbie doesn't understand then that's his shortcoming not yours. And maybe this would be a good teachable moment for him. I'm sure he would...men can be so effin dense...he may just need a gentle nudge. Or Nicole's bat. ; )
No offense...but IMO you'd have to almost be self-loathing to go. I mean, how many m/c's do you have to go through to ok your absence at a baby shower? 3? 8? I think one + infertility= you need to go shopping with girlfriends or a cackle of gay single males.
i think you should by a plane ticket to hot'lanta and hang out with me and tipsy marie.
we could have a drunken weekend that ended is our rolling (in the north isn't it called tp' ing?) my insensitive neighbor's house.
seriously. it'll be in the 70's and i've got a convertible. come'on over.
Oh yeah. Come down to the Atl. It's good times around here. There is lots to do that does not involve babies.
But, I must say, spark plugs and USB cords? If that's all it takes, I for one am totally cool with my husband getting pregnant and pushing the baby out. Seriously. Let's get a patent.
Don't go to the shower if you don't want to - 3 mc's in such a short time - do something you enjoy while your husband goes. I say this bc I've had the same issues with mine, and it took awhile, but now he doesn't guilt me into going to things like this. Put your foot down and do something for you.
What's all this about Atlanta? I live in Atlanta!
Look, you probably don't want to hear from me, given that I have a baby (now, finally), but I know how this sucks. All those fecund people, everything seems so easy for them.
But I do believe it will be YOU TOO sometime blissing out on your baby.
You don't have to go to the shower. I certainly wouldn't. There's no rule that says you gotta. Send a gift card and forget about it if you want.
I would absolutely love to go to hot'lanta. That sounds completely fantastic. And I covet the mini . . . Thank you for all your good advice. The husband, by the way, has no problem with my not wanting to go. And isn't exactly thrilled to attend himself. Poor man, I should really give him the benefit of the doubt upon occasion.
Honestly, I cannot even think of going to a baby shower - and have turned down a few invites over the past few months. Even looking at gift registeries is painful but at least I can cry in the privacy of my own home. The thought of going to a baby shower is similar to having surgery without pain killers.
My assvice is to not go and do something loving for yourself instead so that you cannot feel a moment of guilt. Don't torture yourself....a true friend would not want you to anyway.
Take care of yourself!
WOW, thats alot of preggos to have to deal with. Take the baby shower thing as it comes. Go if you feel like it, don't if you don't. Look after you first. Hugs x
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