Planning your day

My cousin is pregnant with her second baby, a boy.  She is being induced tomorrow.  I know this because of the evil that is called facebook.

I love my cousin.  She is my only cousin actually (as opposed to Husband, who has six first cousins). We are both only children.  We always lived on opposite sides of the country, but from childhood on, when we do see each other, time is pretty meaningless. Make no mistake, we couldn't be more different and our lives look completely alien to the other, but we have a really special bond.

She has my wit.  A very dry sense of humor, self-deprecating, cynical.  We come from a long line of Jewish dinner-table comedians, and we both married men of WASPier persuasions who probably found us exotic.

I last visited her with Niblet after my third miscarriage, the natural one.  It was the one that I prayed and prayed would happen before I got on a plane.

She knows about the first three losses.  "I can't believe this, can't doctors do anything to help you?" she naively asked. I told her what happened, we were sitting by a pool in the sunshine.

I never shared my further traumas with her.  We like each other on facebook and occassionally email, but face to face has always been our best bet for communicating (ahhh, we used to write quaint lengthy letters to each other, those were the days).

Her 18 month old daughter's middle name is also Celine, named after our Parisian grandmother.  I always wonder if she would take offense that I also used the name in more tragic circumstances.  But then I think of her....She's pretty chill, and would likely understand.  Translated from the french, Celine does invoke the heavens after all.

She looks wonderful too, radiant.  She has presented a facebook profile of calm about the pregnancy.  A joking picture of his nursery, noting that she only completed three weeks ago.  Lots of funny posts about stuffing herself with  ice cream and pancakes.  She is one 37 year old mama who clearly hasn't had to worry about things like gestational diabetes.

The boy she plans to deliver tomorrow was an oops.  I learned this too, on facebook. She had no intention of mothering two children under two.  A part of me is thrilled that she got the healthy baby out before any potential AMA related issues could ensue.  Because if I had her in front of me, and she was not pregnant, I would have warned her not to wait.  Not to press her luck.  I waited until I turned 38, and look where it got me.

A part of me is insanely jealous. 

Tomorrow, I will go on facebook to make sure that she has safely brought her boy into the world, and then I will comment on her facebook page welcoming him to he family. 

And then I will need to cry.