Unintentional Salt

It took us a while to get pregnant again.  It was hard.  Hard to the point where I still don't really like to talk about it.  And fortunately, I have my lovely Sister who's been through it all before, so I tend to confine those conversations to her.  After all, talking about it with Chris only intensifies the matter, he struggled with it as well.  But my lovely sister, well, she's on the Great Other Side of this particular trial, so she's perfect for perspective.

I mention this because I've been thinking a lot lately about the ways in which people unintentionally pour salt into other people's open wounds.  Wounds that no one really sees or knows about because they're that private.

In the trenches, when everyone and their dog that I knew was pregnant and Chris and I were just stuck in that horrible in-between land where people start to look at you quizzically because you have this great big toddler and clearly are young, and clearly love your child to pieces and hey, "Why the heck aren't you having another kid right about now?"  Several women that I'm not particular friends with, but whom I know, announced rather cavalierly that they were pregnant and one of them piped in with Hey it's TWINS!  I told a friend of mine that it was a sore trial for me to resist wanting to throw a shoe at her head.

They were terrible moments, moments of pain where logically you knew that no one was trying to hurt you intentionally but oh, it still hurt.

***

A friend of mine (the younger sister of one of my good friends) just lost her baby.  She was 27 weeks pregnant with her first when they found out the baby had stopped growing at 21 weeks.  I sat at my computer a cried and cried.  And then promptly turned it off and walked away.

I wanted to write about how we're celebrating our girl around these parts lately.  With feminine flannels and lots of homemade knitted things.  How we're slowly gathering together tiny pink things.  How we've finally picked a name and how adorable the Boy is with his perspective sister.  I was going to post pictures of all the unbearable cuteness of it all.

And then I remembered the Salt.

***

I haven't actually told that many people that we're pregnant again.  I mean, I've told YOU...the ephemeral blog.  But in person?  Not really.  And it's not for lack of excitement.  We're both so happy it borders on ridiculous pretty often.  But I can't forget what that felt like...that place of wanting another child so badly and not being able to have one.  I can't forget how hard it was, other people asking me to be excited and happy for them when I was nursing a battered heart.

And I can't stop thinking about that other darling girl who is so funny there are no words to describe it.  That girl who was also expecting a baby girl.  Who was so excited to bring her daughter home, who had the crib and all the unbearable cuteness as well.  I don't know if she reads my blog or not, but just in case...

I would so much rather hug her and let her cry on my shoulder than pour salt in her wounds.

***

Chris thinks I'm over-thinking it.  That I can't live my life tip-toeing around other people because I don't want to add to their own personal grief.  But I find myself thinking that maybe those 2 years wouldn't have been quite so painful if other people had only been a little softer with me.  If they had been a little quieter in their own celebrations, or a little less harsh in their judgments of me, maybe it wouldn't have hurt quite so badly.  And yet.  I'm adult...I could have spoken up at any time.  Hey, I could have just posted a sign that said, "I hurt right now, please be nice."  Maybe it's unreasonable to wish that people would just be a little more aware of the people who live and breathe around them.  Maybe those days are gone and it really is every man (and woman) for themselves.  I don't know.

And because I don't know what to do with any of this, or what to write here, or what to say to so many amazing women who struggle and hurt and still live their lives with courage and integrity, who still grin and bear it all...I write nothing.  I say nothing.  I wait and watch and take note and say prayers and go on with my knitting and sewing and gathering and hoping.