After my June miscarriage, it seemed liked every blogger in the world was pregnant. Several on my blogroll popped up pregnant and several others that I heard about through the grapevine. I found myself struggling to read their new updates for fear they’d be pregnancy related and I just couldn’t cope with that. It’s a snotty approach, I guess, but it’s realistic. It’s hard to read about someone’s pregnancy when yours just ended.
Several blogfriends that I’ve made over the years are currently knee-deep in TTC. Suffering losses or failures at every turn. These women are my friends, and I feel pain for them because I know the drill. I think of them every time I consider writing a pregnancy related entry. I think they are why I don’t talk as much about this pregnancy as I have ones in the past. Are they worried when my feeds update that I’ll be talking about pregnancy like I was? Do my entries make them cry? I don’t want to be that blogger, but I also know that they understand. These women are brilliant like that. You know I only befriend the brilliant ones, right?
The fertility-challenged often face this dilemma and many women have written about it more eloquently than I. You make friends on the journey that will understand why you still cry on the date of your first miscarriage, even though it was 7 years and 4 pregnancies ago. They know the heartache that comes with a negative HPT. They know the frustration over non-doubling betas. It’s a bond that can get you through all of those sad times because you know others simply understand. But inevitably, and thankfully, women do get pregnant. Women do have babies. Even in the most infertile of circles. And then those friendships change.
I guess I want to let you all in the trenches know that you are still my sisters. The last few weeks have brought losses to several of the women I read the most. It’s hard to let them know I understand their pain without sounding trivial as I bitch about my nausea. But I do understand. Just like I understand that you may not be able to stop by my blog anymore. But remember, I still stop by yours. And I still long for your success and hope for your joy. And should the roles reverse someday, I know you’ll think the same.
You are so sweet to temper your entries to others.
That entry gave me goosebumps. So sweet.
I love your blog, but now I have a big blog crush on you. I hope that is okay.
Funny you should post this…on the last post I couldn’ help but feeling sad for me as much as I was happy for you. I wonder if that will ever change for me. It hasn’t even now when I’m not currently trying to have another (or maybe I am, but am in the stage of trying to get my husband to try).
But you have to be true to yourself. All of us with issues…we know…we understand…you’ve been there and quite frankly at some point we hope to be where you are now, and I for one won’t be able to do anything but talk about it should I ever arrive at that point again.
Wonderful post. It’s so hard to be on either “side”. I’ve been in both sides…although I haven’t had a pregnancy to blog about yet. It’s the same way out in the “real” world. You have a bond through infertility… and then you feel almost guilty to be pregnant. You worry about being too happy in front of certain people.
But… your pregnant!!!! You’re thrilled about it!!! Isn’t that what’s to be expected? You were on the other side of it… you deserve to yell from the rafters!
Aww that is so very sweet. I am so worried that I will end up having problems because I am getting older and the rate I am going at finding a suitable partner, well let’s just say it is going to be a whole lot longer. Anyway, I hope that there are people just as caring when I try to have a baby.
Wow! I’m so amazed that you wrote this. I was reading your previous entry about how you are now able to acknowledge this as a pregnancy and while I was very happy to hear things are going so well with this pregnancy, I can’t help but be sad for us. I will be 40 next month and it will mark the official 6 year mark of us trying to get pregnant. We’ve never been pregnant. 6 years of month after month of nothing. It’s been a hard road. I don’t know if we will continue because 40 seems kind of old to start having children. Plus I don’t know if I have it in me to keep trying.
You’re awesome. And it’s not a “snotty approach”. It’s human, completely understandable and there’s nothing wrong with that. Enjoy your pregnancy and don’t feel guilty. I’m sure your friends wouldn’t want that.
I was in those shoes many long years ago. One of the wanted to be pregnant and couldn’t do it - when my best friend got herself pregnant.
I still thank her for her compassion when she told me and her understanding that I couldn’t hang around her like I used to.
There’s a lot of readers with a new respect for the heart that beats in that chest of yours Zoot.
I think it shows how awesome you are as a person that you not only know what others are going through, but you know how tough it is and you feel their pain.
And as hard as it is for those friends, I’m sure they are still very happy for you.
Thanks. I feel like you when you say it seemed like every blogger got pregnant. I do tend to click away from pregnancy related entries, or peer at them through my fingers as I cover my eyes, but I do wish them the best and healthiest of pregnancy, as I do for you.
I think every one of us has something we feel guilty about while joyful at the same time. The pregnancy issue was one for me as well….well said my friend. Thank you for expressing this complex issue so well.
That is why I love you. Even though we have never met. We were supposed to, but I was a bonehead.
The simple fact that you wrote about something so painful to you, and have such firsthand knowledge of, is the reason why I come back every day. Why I will continue to do so, baby posts or not.
This is a really nice post. I just found out that my best friend from high school, who is currently parenting a 10-month-old, is about five weeks pregnant, quite unexpectedly. She had to use Clomid and Metformin to have her first, and this was a spontaneous pregnancy, so it is really a miracle.
Add to her my other best friend from high school, who is due in April, the three women I work with who are pregnant, the woman I work with who just had a baby, the bloggers I read who are pregnant, and the many friends-of-friends who are pregnant, and I go a little crazy. I am not really ready to be pregnant, per se, although we do not prevent, but when faced with all those pregnancies, I sort of feel a little sad inside that I am not pregnant yet. Does that make sense? And I definitely know that when I hear yet another person is pregnant, I get a little of the “My God, ANOTHER ONE?” vibe going on.
Anyway, you are a great friend to both your in-real-life friends and your bloggy friends to put this into words. Thanks for caring so much!
You’re so kind and sensitive and all that, and it’s one of the things I like best about you! I wish that everyone who truly wanted a child could have a happy healthy one to love.
This is a very sweet post. I just wanted to let you know that I found your blog just after I had a miscarriage and you were pretty far along with NikkiZ. Reading that you were successfully pregnant after all you had been through was one of the things that made me feel like everything was going to be okay. (It was, by the way. I have the most wonderful-and-gorgeous-and-into-absolutely-everything16 month old little boy).
Zoot your are an incredible woman! The genuine feelings you have for your online friends is beautiful!! The thoughtfulness and caring your show to everyone is why everyone loves you.
You are a true friend to all who know you!!
Dadgum, woman. I’m still sniffing from the previous post, and now I’m bawling.
You have said this so very well. So very very well.