One of the really horrible and unexpected results of "the thing that happened to me" has been my reaction to pregnant women and moms with babies*.
I know it's a cliche to say "you feel like you've been punched in the stomach" but that is the precise feeling when I see a pregnant woman. It's not even just seeing them. It's reading on facebook how you are "loving cuddling your baby" and how you "can't believe she's already 3 months old!" that makes me want to vomit. I wonder if this eases over time coz it feels like it is getting stronger. Perhaps only when I am pregnant again myself. But perhaps not even then.
The envy that courses through my body when I see or read such things is hard to describe. I can't say I'd ever genuinely envied before all this. I suppose there were moments of envy, but it would be inconsequential things, this is 100%, full blown envy and it's not pretty.
I scowl. I actually do. Sometimes, if I'm with a friend, I make a joke of it and hiss at the pregnant woman (not so that she can see of course). But the truth is it is not a joke. Even when I'm alone and I see one my face contorts into a grimace. It's not intentional, I don't want to feel this way, I don't want to have no joy left for others, but right now that's who I am. Not proud of it at all.
Pregnant women all look so oblivious, so genuinely carefree and happy. I'll play the psychoanalyst here: perhaps what I despise in them is the resemblence between them and me when I was pregnant.
It sickens me to think how I moaned about being uncomfortable. How I longed for the pregnancy to be over. How I felt sorry for myself!??!?! How I took it all for granted. I hate those parts of my past, pregnant self.
* Randomly there are exceptions to this. Certain people, if they are sensitive toward me or if I can see that they truly know and appreciate how blessed they are, don't upset me. But those women who gush in front of me, or directly to me - and yes, it has happened - about their delight at being pregnant, and those new moms who moan about getting no sleep and being so tired.... they give me violent thoughts.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Others
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6 comments:
Yes I get this all too well - we have had similar reactions in sililar situations.
I think it is one of the tragedy's of "the thing that happened to you(!)" that you are the one going through the hardest of experiences but society demands that you adjust to fit around others. If you reacted as other's actions sometimes warrant you would be seen as over-reacting or having lost it.
I especially reacted to people complaining their kids were too hard work, they had too many, they found the pregnancy too hard etc. That really was a red rag to a bull in my case.
But yes pregnant women and babies around the age that Abigail would have been they are always difficult.
I cant imagine how you feel, but even I see pregnant women and new gushing moms and think of you! So its got to be normal the way you are feeling. x
It's perfectly normal, even if it's not nice. I found I was okay with people I didn't know, but with family or friends I wanted to beat them up. No jokes.
Now, 2.5 yrs later, it is fading. I think having had another baby helped, but there are still times when (again, oddly, only with family and friends, not with strangers) I feel the same envy, although it is more toned-down now too.
I hope I can eventually react purely out of joy to family and friends, and not have this little corner of my heart that hopes they suffer as greatly as I did. I pray that, eventually, Christ will heal this part of me too, because it's not nice living with that kind of murderous envy and anger in any dose in your heart.
But until that day, just remember - God really does understand how much you're hurting, and that you are simply a frail human being who is still in the middle of the transformation/ sanctification process. Just keep taking it to the cross. There's nothing else you can do. And be gentle with yourself. It's still very early days.
The shiny happy pregnant people. SUCK. Even when I was pg after joining the dead baby club, I hated seeing them. I was full of envy. I wanted to confront all of them and tell them, "Babies die, right inside you. beware!" I wanted to take away even the smallest piece of their blissful ignorance. And I hated myself for all of it. For feeling so petty and for even coming close to wishing that anyone else join this awful club.
And still to this day I hate that the whole loss stole that away from me. I loved being pg before. LOVED IT. Seeing pg women made me happy and hopeful. And now, it is just a glaring reminder of how something so beautiful can go so horribly wrong and become so ugly.
You aren't wrong to feel this way. I know it's normal. But it hurts all the same and it is, truly another part of the loss you, and all of us, have suffered.
But it has gotten a bit better. I don't think it will ever go away, unless I have a full lobotomy, but I do think that with time, all things go a bit easier on us.
All of which is just a really long winded way of saying you have every right to your feelings, all of them, the good, the bad, the really bad. It's ugh, 'normal'. Forgive yourself for being human and for having a broken heart. You're entitled to all of it.
Absolutely.
xxoo
Tick...
Tick...
Yup...
Tick...
Uhuh!
OK, that's me going through your checklist, nodding my head and FEELING IT ALL!
I don't want to feel this way either. I don't like the person it makes me. I don't like remembering how much I moaned and groaned my way through my pregnancy and how my 'poor body was too old for this'. I want it back. NOW! I'll even take vomiting and morning sickness for nine months if I can have a take home baby. Please. (Although I think I still need to reserve the right to have a little whinge if that's the case, but it will be an APPRECIATIVE whinge!).
And yes, with no rhyme or reason, really, there are exceptions in my life too. Sometimes I think I have it worked out - for a while I thought it was ok for babylost mamas, or for second or third pregnancies, but I'm proving that theory wrong. And it all is getting harder as time goes on. I try to do the right thing and ask about babies or pregnancies, but I'm so over the mama to be's thinking it's the green light to gush as if they are also telling me that 'it' will never happen to them.
I have news for them, and it ain't all good!
x
I get it. You really cannot help it. It is completely natural to feel this way. It only went away for me when I got pregnant again. I don't know if it gets better otherwise, but in the 7 months or so in between pregnancies it was still hard.
Don't beat yourself up. Seriously.
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