I think that the universe is intent on reminding me that I will never have children and rubbing my nose in it. This is my life today:
Pregnant sister 1 texted me a video of the baby kicking (I think, but I deleted it rather than watch it so I could be wrong).
Pregnant sister 2 called me to tell me that they found out they were having a girl this morning. Yay.
Our 2015 membership card came for our local natural history/art/science museums came in today's mail. We signed up and paid for the dual membership (two adults in the same household) again this year but our new membership card indicates two adults and four children. This sort of makes me want to cancel our membership.
I'm working on a project with three colleagues (all female, all have at least one child). This project has the potential to be really cool and also result in a conference presentation next fall in Florida. We've decided that if our proposal is accepted that we're going to rent a beach house and that it will be a no husbands/no kids trip. In an email exchange one of my colleagues said to the group "everybody needs to make sure that they're not pregnant for this trip so we can have plenty of cocktails on the beach!" Which was followed by another colleague lamenting that this is when they were planning #2. Which was followed by the third colleague stating that she and her husband are done and suggesting that I plan a spring 2016 baby. I didn't even bother to respond.
Finally, as what will hopefully be the final reminder of my barrenness today, I started my period this morning. I suppose it's preferable to another day of spotting.
The universe gets a two middle finger salute from me today!
I know. It hurts.
ReplyDeleteHow easy it is for most of the people - small talk on the topic family planning. Unbelievable.
A warm hug for you from Europe to the USA.
It does hurt. So much so that there are no words. I know that you get it because your a member of this really shitty club too.
DeleteThat's so hard - pregnant sisters. One thing I am grateful for is that I didn't have any because it was much easier to create some friendly distance from cousins when I needed to protect myself over the 5+ years we were being repeatedly pulverized by serial IVF failure. I saw from your post about your mom that she doesn't really get it, but can you have some diplomatic conversations with your sisters to set boundaries so they're not leaving baby-related atom bombs in your inbox? (I think of all the friends I 'unfollowed' on FB but whom I would reach out to on days I was feeling strong to touch base and be supportive.) It seems vital to your survival - finding some middle ground between the role of good sister and taking good care of yourself during a really raw and fragile time.
ReplyDeleteI just keep reminding myself that pregnancy is for a finite amount of time and I won't have to endure it for too much longer. I don't think that pregnant sister 1 or my mom mean to be jerks, I think they are just oblivious. Thankfully pregnant sister 2 is really sensitive.
DeleteOuch. Ouch, ouch, ouch! I think the finger salutes to the universe this morning was appropriate.
ReplyDeleteTuesday was hard. The rest of the week has been better. I suppose that I'm thankful that all of this happened on one day as opposed to one thing every day. The email exchange that I wrote about actually led to a really meaningful conversation about infertility with the colleague who suggested that I plan a spring 2016 baby that resulted in her apologizing profusely. So that made me feel a bit better about it.
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