When your friends are pregnant and you’re not

One of the hardest things about not knowing if you are ever going to have a baby, is trying to be unselfishly happy for friends who, in a snap, SNAP got pregnant.

The first time I was pregnant, a good friend of mine was also pregnant and a month further along than me. She did it the natural way and it happened the first month they really tried. Just the way it is supposed, huh? When I had the first miscarriage she was the only one of my friends who did not immediately call or write. Look, I know her and avoidance is way of coping. Kind of like Marge Simpson, she puts a smile on her face even when she is completely uncomfortable and upset. It got a little better between us as her pregnancy progressed and I did the right things (generally from a distance — mail and email are helpful tools that way) when her daughter was born.

Tomorrow night I will see a very good friend of mine who also lucked out with a pregnancy. She actually was unknowingly about three weeks or so when she got married in late May. So probably very close to the time her pregnancy began, my second pregnancy was ending the same devestating way as the first. Now she will just about be showing a baby bump.

She told me via email in July. A few of our friends were together the night before and she shared her early good news with some trepidation (she was 9 weeks along after all) and lots of hope and excitement. It was well placed as she has sailed through the first trimester.

It may seem strange she sent it by email. Not very personal. But she knows me and as she said in the email, she wanted me to process and absorb this on my own time. I can’t fault that — although the timing sucked. Not a good way to start the work day especially right before a meeting.

Like before, I know this is hurting or at least interrupting our friendship. My happiness for her is tempered by my own sadness. Any excitement I might feel is tainted by my own anger. Why did she get pregnant right away when I need to cope and deal with infertility, drugs and needles? Why has it been so smooth for her when I had my heart wrenched, not once but twice by miscarriage? Why can’t I be a mom?

I asked my husband the other week if he felt like we were being punished. I know that I am a generally decent person. I try to do good and be good on a regular basis. So why is this happening to us when we want to be parents so bad? Logically, I know karma or some sick deity are not out to get me. At the same end, I also know there is at least a sliver of me deep inside that feels like I must have done something horribly wrong and this is my punishment.

And now, to make things even tougher, my good friend is going through a wonderful exciting time and I can not be there to feel pure joy and support for her. It will drive a wedge — and that means another important part of my life is on hold, crumpled. 

I would like to be the brave, selfless friend who puts aside her own hurts and pain to embrace fully the happiness of others. I hope to be in that emotional place someday. But I can not be there now. It is too soon and I am in this weird netherland where I don’t know if I will be able to have baby. Or if I never will.

Babies can change everything, right? I have heard — first hand and otherwise– that it’s hard for a mom to relate to her non parent friends. Her life revolves around this bright shiny being. What if you feel like a parent deep in your heart? What makes a mom? Someone who has hoped all of her life for a baby? Someone who went through tests and expensive drugs and miscarriages just to have one? Someone who felt twinges, puked if she didn’t eat breakfast and her body change as the new embryo, new life took hold? 

I don’t have baby to hold or care for. Technically and on every logical count I am not a mom. Outside nothing has changed. Inside everything has.