Poor Responses (Be Warned: Angry and Irrational)

As I’ve openly admitted previously, I am not exactly a people person. More often than not, I prefer the company of a good book. Yes, I have friends, but none that could fairly be called good friends. Most of the time, this fact doesn’t bother me in the least. Sometimes, I think, it would be nice to have a girlfriend or two to lean on, but I’ve found that when the going gets rough, they tend not to understand or empathize and you end up alone anyhow. Told you, I’m cynical.

I’ve also mentioned before that there are a couple of girlfriends who were really great at the beginning of IF. Positive cheerleaders and all that. Couldn’t go to them and cry on their shoulder mind you, but if you wanted your spirits uplifted, they were your girls. They were both very excited about the pregnancy, or so Facebook and one email said, but when the loss occurred, I was…disappointed.

Many, many people shared their condolences via FB which I very much appreciated. One of my cheerleaders has yet to mention a thing. Perhaps she didn’t hear (unlikely). Perhaps she doesn’t know what to say (I’m sorry for your loss worked fine for everyone else). In the end, it bothers me a bit, but oddly, it’s the one or two who reached out with email (rather than just FB) to empathize that bothered me the most.

One email came recently (this week) from an old colleague who happens to be 38 and got pregnant naturally 4 months after she got married (I don’t begrudge her this, but am admittedly jealous). She is about 30 weeks right now I think. I’m happy for her because I know how stressed she was about getting married and being a tad bit older than she had planned when starting a family. Anyhow, she sent a simple email that said she was sorry for our loss, followed by a statement stating how she knows how early the anticipation and excitment builds and she knows how disappointed we must be. Well-intentioned for sure. I’m also quite sure that had she lost her baby, she’d be a little more than disappointed. At least she made an effort. That should be what counts, right?

One happened to be from one of the earlier cheerleaders. And I must preface what I’m about to say: I know with my full heart that her intentions were good. I know that she was trying to reach out and be there for me in a way she thought made sense. It just happens that her email, intentions aside, was very upsetting to me.

Cheerleader #2 found out 3 weeks after my BFP that she was also pregnant. She emailed me at that time to tell me the news and to share that it was an accident (she has a 5 year old boy and a 2 1/2 year old girl) and it was causing a lot of stress at home. They didn’t want any more children. I was able to be happy for her and understand her circumstances (though I wouldn’t feel that way myself, we’ll take what we can get). After all, just because she has what I want doesn’t mean she wants it. The people with the greener grass aren’t always happy with the grass they have either, know what I mean?

Anyway, so I’ve just lost my baby and she emails me to comfort me. She says just like her unwanted pregnancy was a part of God’s plan, so is my loss. All of you who have been reading for awhile know how I’d feel about a statement like that. And anyone who would make that statement to me doesn’t know me very well at all. She goes on to say how fertile miscarriage makes you, and reminds me how she had a miscarriage at 8 weeks between the births of her son and daughter. She got pregnant a month later with her daughter. So we should try again right away because I’m über fertile right now.

Ummm, have you listened to an f’ing thing I’ve said in the past 2 years? We have MFI!! MFI!!! How is my having a miscarriage going to fix my husband’s morphology and sperm count issues, huh? And great for you that you can act like your loss was no big deal because you could replace it with another baby with the snap of your fingers. I can’t! It took us 21 cycles, $16k, and a lot of pain and heartache to get to that one baby. That may have been our one shot at having a family. We can’t try every f’ing month like normal people and actually plan on eventually getting pregnant. Every month we try involves buttloads of money and multiple visits to a doctors office to have sex with a dildo cam and a catheter.

This wasn’t a small bump in the road for us. But thank you very much for trying to make it seem like it was. It’s really comforting to have someone tell you that an entity you don’t believe in killed your baby because it was for the best followed by a heart warming story about how loss isn’t that big of a deal because you can just make another one next month. Easy peesy! And to know that you know me so well, that you crafted this email with so much thought given to what you know about me as a person…my heart overfloweth.

Another friend, a very old one whom I considered my bestfriend and female soulmate when I was younger (late teens, early twenties), called and said she was in town on New Year’s Eve and would we meet them out. I didn’t answer, she left a message. Now, nothing wrong with this on the surface, but it felt like…like the whole thing was no big deal. It’s been a week so that’s obviously over, now let’s get back to life as usual. As if that should be easy.

Believe me, I realize I’m being harsh here, but there is still latent anger. I know it isn’t reasonable to expect everyone to be able to relate to you or to say the exact perfect thing. I know that they all had good intentions, that they don’t know any better. But I also know that every single one of these women is strongly pro-life*, and had I terminated the pregnancy at 12 weeks rather than having had a miscarriage, they would have labeled me a murderer and never spoken to me again. Because I lost it naturally, it’s just an unfortunate incident. Doesn’t that seem somewhat backwards?

In a nutshell, these responses just seem like they invalidate the importance of my baby, that they minimize my loss somehow, and indicates they clearly don’t know me very well at all. In some cases, it shows they haven’t listened to anything I’ve said over the past 2 years about IF or our specific circumstances. Some of these people have known me for 16 years. Yet, the best support, the most heartfelt and comforting responses have been from all of you, people who have never laid eyes on me, never been on vacation with me, attended my wedding(s), witnessed the birth of my child, or so much as been out to have a drink with me. A lucky and grateful girl, I am, to have all of you. It goes without saying, as always, but I’ll say it nonetheless…thanks. You’re the best. So thrilled and grateful to have you all in my life, even if it is from a distance.

P.S. I seriously wish some of you lived closer so we could grab a decaf coffee or a caffeine free tea or have dinner together. If anyone is ever traveling up near Sacramento, CA…let me know so we can set something up!

* I am not pro-life myself (and I hate that term because those of us who are pro-choice aren’t pro-death for f’s sake), but respect that position, and find that considering current circumstances, my own beliefs in this regard are somewhat in question…a future post me thinks.