Monday, January 25, 2016

I don't often give advice, but....

So the other day I had an epic meltdown, which isn't advisable when you're trapped in your house with two feet of snow outside.  On the good side, I helped some elderly neighbors shovel their driveway.  On the bad side, it's a day later, my body is achey and I feel just as out of sorts as I did 24 hours ago.

Let's backtrack.  Imagine you're perusing some pictures on facebook.  I know many of my dear readers are smarter than me and have gotten the hell off of the facebooks, but leaving that aside...

You're on facebook and you see a picture posted by an old dear friend whom you rarely see anymore, because she got a new job.  But she still occassionally texts, and likes your limited array of posted social media pictures.  And she sometimes even texts you that she misses you.

And she was one of the few people who knows that in fact, you're a fucking infertility superhero, like batman, except you have no cape and no ears, and no real superpowers actually, but she is one of the few who knows your double life.  Because by day you are the smart chick at work who balances the job and the Niblet, but by night you are the lady who has mourned 5 of Niblet's siblings.  And she knows about Celine.  She may not know about the baby after Celine, but she knows that you have been through hell and back.

And she posts a picture of a beautiful baby, and you catch your breath, wait, actually, you can't breathe, because in all of the light-hearted occassional hellos and texts, she has neglected to tell you that she was pregnant and whoa, had a baby girl in December.

Sometimes I wish that I had fertile readers.  I love you all, my dearest friends who are with me in this pit of hell of loss, but man, it's times like this that I wish I had readers who knew nothing personally about miscarriage, or Asherman's, or partial molar pregnancies or TFMR, because I could try to impress upon this audience that HIDING YOUR BABY is probably the worst thing you can do to people like me.

But God, sweet Jesus, I wish she would have sent a note.  A gentle heads up.  Because bursting into tears when you are checking your phone in front of your one living daughter, isn't a state of being I wish on anyone.

8 comments:

  1. This made ME feel like I was punched in the gut. I'm so sorry.

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    1. I am happy to say I made a fairly quick recovery (if 48 hours is quick).

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  2. I had the same thing happen to me. A lady I worked with in Barbados and kept in touch on FB. I told her I was visiting my parents and she said nothing about her pregnancy. She works at the airport as luck would have it, I was one of those random searches. she just so happened to be the one doing the body search and seeing her 8 months pregnant when she had not mentioned her pregnancy was like a punch in the gut. I could see she felt awkward when I congratulated her. Her knowing about my miscarriages was probably the reason she hid her pregnancy from me.

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    1. Oh whoa, that's awful. The airport is generally stressful enough, I am so sorry. I don't know that I would have been coherent had I had seen my friend pregnant in person.

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  3. The lack of insight and insensitivity of some people is truly incredible. I've had similar experiences with two people I considered to be good friends. I'm sorry, hugs to you.

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    1. Wow, I thought my friend was particularly insensitive, but I am starting to wonder whether her actions (or lack thereof) are the norm. There a re way too many of these stories for my liking.

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  4. I landed here randomly, but I don't think your friend not alterting you to her pregnancy was particularly insensitive. Perhaps it was even an attempt at sensitivity. I have had one miscarriage but have felt guilty about 'flaunting' my fertility by announcing my pregnancy to friends who I knew were struggling. When I was pregnant with my third I had a friend who'd been trying since before I had my second (our firsts were born 14 days apart) and I didn't announce it till 3 months in and gave her a heads up in a personal message before posting it publicly... I got no response and she didn't talk to me for the next six months. I suspect she 'hid' my fb and unfollowed my journal without unfriending me. I understood that it was probably too painful for her and just let her be and our friendship picked back up a while after the kid arrived. Did me giving her a heads up help things? Or would it have been better for her if I just hadn't shared pregnancy stuff and made my posts about other parts of my life?

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    1. Monika, thanks for commenting. To be clear, I am not trying to suggest this woman was being intentionally insensitive. But I think a great contrast would be to look at one of my best friends at work, who is currently pregnant with her second baby (she has now had two successful pregnancies in the time span that I have lost 3). This friend asked me to go for a walk with her, and explained to me that she was nervous about disclosing her pregnancy. She knows the woman I wrote about and believe that she made the wrong decision. Actually, this friend and I were both pregnant at the same time when she was carrying her first, however I lost that baby at 11 weeks... I truly appreciated her telling me and have been trying to help her with her own prenatal depression. Was it awkward for her? Unquestionably. But learning from the office gossip would have been far worse and it would have felt like a deep betrayal. I maintain that you did the right think giving your friend the heads up that you were pregnant. Perhaps she did find it too hard to talk to you. I'll be honest, I find it hard to be around my pregnant best friend right now, she's a walking trigger. If I didn't see her every day I might try to hide. As it is she doesn't know about the two early miscarriages I have had in the past few cycles.... But it would be much more difficult to maintain the friendship if she tried to hide her pregnancy from me.

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