It seems as though all I see of late are ripening women, round bellies, proud smiles, tiny baby hands...while I remain thin and melancholy. Thinner now than i have been in quite some time, it turns out that heartbreak is QUITE the dietary aid.
I cannot put it to words, this silly jealousy. This petty comparing that I do. I feel ridiculous lamenting the loss of our wee Bean because as my very blunt ob/gyn put it: "Most women wouldn't have even known they were pregnant", I feel like I don't get to feel sad...still. As though I should pick myself up and let it go. I get quite defensive when asked about it, heaven forfend anyone think of me as ridiculous. I purse my lips and grit my teeth and say all the sweet things and try not to blanch when I find out that an acquaintance has decided to name their bundle the name I had in my heart for mine...that was a hell of a night. I cried some more, I wrote a whole mess of Facebook messages.
In my head, I am shouting: "REALLY? Seriously? Why does SHE get two? or three or four...Why not me too?" I eye my body with suspicion, she has not proven herself again yet, who knows what other tricks she has up her sleeve...random blindness? Perhaps a digit will just aimlessly wander off my hand. I weep at odd intervals, find myself irritable and exhausted. I would say it looks like the first trimester but I know it's just my old friend depression. What a bitch she is.
As it turns out the only pregnant woman I truly take unbridled joy in is my friend Heather. She is due a week after I was supposed to be and is so generous with her blooming body. Perhaps this is because her son is only 6 months old and my fierce love and protection of her belly offers a little respite from the chaos that could be. I hold her first baby and talk to her second. I get emotional now just thinking of it, what a selfless woman to let her crazy friend rub her belly (just starting to show!) and weep over what was, what won't be.
All this to say, I face this month, once again back where I started: not pregnant, sad and irritable that I am not pregnant, and my baby boy getting bigger, talking more, getting further and further away in age from his hoped for sibling.
I hope that, at some juncture, I can look at this- The period of this blog that I will forever refer to as "The Intermission" -and not feel that sharp strange ache of heartbreak. That at some point the sight of a rounded belly will make me think only of blessings and not of losing. I refuse to think of this day, this coming day, as bittersweet because I will not mourn the loss of my sorrow, I will rejoice in the return of my joy. Because SHE, my joy, is an awesome ally.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
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