Originally posted  7/18/11
One of the toughest things to manage is hearing someone else announce a pregnancy when dealing with your own loss(es) or infertility. Whether it is a unexpected announcement or learning that your friend who was trying had success, it always stings. Their words are, "Guess what?! We are pregnant! Due in March!" The words you hear in your head are, "Oh God, no! Here it comes. Come on fake smile. Go away hormonal tear in the corner of my eye! Oh crap. They are pregnant. Wow. It took them what 2 months?! The next 9 months are going to suck. Suck. Really. Bad." It is one thing to hear someones news of pregnancy on Facebook where you can block them from your news feed for the next 10 months, but what happens when it is someone you will be seeing on a routine basis, talking on the phone with, or forced to share a workspace with?

So after contemplating finding a new job, faking a highly contagious illness that could harm any fetus within a 3 mile radius, and relocating to a remote corner of the world, you realize that the only way to get through this is going to be to fake it as best you can. You know you will cry in the car on the way home, for 6 minutes after you are off the phone, or to the one close friend who knows your journey and can understand your pain. There is one other option. Maybe helping them understand your feelings will help everyone co-exist during a pregnancy. This is my attempt to explain how I feel.


Dear Pregnant Lady,

I want to say that I am happy for you that you are growing a baby in your belly. It is an amazing journey. One that I have been wanting for myself. I want to be happy for you, but right now I am just sad that it isn't me. I want to say congratulations. I do. But the words are getting caught up in my throat because my emotional tears are stronger than my ability to speak.

I am anticipating how you will be going through some incredible and miraculous changes and the only miraculous changes I seem to be able to have my body do is digest lunch and deliver a poop semi regularly. I know that in a few more weeks you will be feeling the first kicks and while I am sure you will be surprised and excited to share that special moment with everyone, please don't offer to let me feel it. It will only remind me of what I am not feeling inside of my own stomach.

When you are making your invite list for your baby shower, include me in it. But, please don't be offended if I don't come. I may manage to come and oooh and aaah at all of the cute outfits, but I may also bring a little bit of jealousy. I may need to escape to a bathroom and claim to be having digestive issues. I won't be pooping. I'll be crying and likely changing my tampon.

You might want to share some words of encouragement about a friend, aunt, or sister who struggled and then had their happy healthy baby. I know you mean well, but I just wish that I could be on this pregnancy journey right now too. No matter how many millions of other women who struggled to get pregnant or stay pregnant and then had success, it still doesn't put a baby in my womb today, like you have.

I want you to know that my seeming disinterest in your pregnancy isn't because I don't care about you. It is because I do care about you. I am just trying to cope the only way I can, and don't want you to feel anything but joyous and happy in your pregnancy.

My feelings may change at some point in the future. Probably at about the exact moment that I have two pink lines and a heartbeat to go along with it, but for now, I appreciate your thoughts and prayers as mine will be with you and your baby on the way as well.

Sincerely,
My Empty Uterus

There is a phenomenon that, unless you have had a miscarriage or deal with infertility, you will never be aware of. A woman can go years and manage to see only a handful of pregnant women. Many of those pregnant women are probably on television shows or celebrity gossip magazines. But, if a woman is suffering with infertility, has a miscarriage or has multiple miscarriages, pregnant women start materializing before our very eyes. A simple trip to the grocery store can become a gut wrenching adventure full of pregnant teenagers and women dripping with children and sporting very round expectant bellies. Going to the mall is no longer a search for the most flattering outfit. It is a nightmare of ladies about to drop and give birth at your feet as they walk out of Baby Gap holding 3 bags full of adorable onsies and itty bitty tennis shoes.

Then there seems to be the sudden outbreak of co-workers or family members who have surprise pregnancies. They are the ones who claim they weren't trying or better yet, they were "on the pill" and really can't afford another child. Then they sit and complain about morning sickness, needing to pee all the time, and back pain from their growing bellies.

Facebook friends are another breed of anxiety inducing people who in most cases are just glorified strangers. All of the sudden every person that you ever went to high school with is expecting a baby. People that you barely knew, way back when, are posting ultrasound pictures and belly pictures. Just when you think every possible person on the planet who is of child bearing age has announced their pregnancy then the birth announcements come flooding in.

And just when you think it can't get any worse the phone rings. Your best friend in the whole world calls with that telltale shrill and giddy voice. Then, your voice begins to quiver as you try to say how happy you are for her. That feeling of your heart sitting so low in your stomach that you might either have to poop it out or throw it up. You want so much to share her excitement but all you can do is say congratulations and fake it through a few more sentences before making up some very valid sounding excuse to get off the phone. It is only a matter of seconds before the fake smile washes from your face by a waterfall of tears.

It is so hard to have a miscarriage or deal with infertility and then when "The Phenomenon" is shoveled into your face it is almost unbearable. This is how I finally decided to cope. When I came across a glowing pregnant woman in the grocery store or mall, I just reminded myself that I don't know her journey. She may have had 6 miscarriages too. She may have had to try for 3 years for that pregnancy. Not that I would ever wish a loss or infertility on anyone, but it somehow made me feel better to think she had "earned" that belly. She deserved that baby as much as I deserved one.

If it was a unwed teenager or someone who wasn't in a place to take care of a child I just had to remind myself that God sent them that child for a reason. Maybe that kid would save my child's life by donating an organ or becoming the doctor who cures cancer. While I very much wish that God would have put a baby in my belly or let me keep the one that had been there, there is not a finite number of babies. It isn't like God is going to run out just because someone else happened to get in line in front of me.

I think it is totally normal to be jealous, hurt, sad, and sometimes even crushed to know of others' good fortune (even if they themselves don't see it as good fortune at the time). I recall once hearing that the odds of getting "your baby" is something like 1 in 66 billion. When I look at my sons, I know that they were worth waiting for that 1 in 66 billion lottery ticket even if it meant dealing with The Miscarriage and Infertility Phenomenon.





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