Unexpectedness
I got some new books to read, some easy chick-lit that hopefully would be a nice escape. Going through books I immediately tossed out any that involved dealing with small children or pregnancy. No thanks. I settled on one that revolves around a single woman struggling with her weight. That sounded safe enough.
So I’m reading along, finding it a well-written book, I’m enjoying the humor and sharp wit and the story. Then something happens in the story and I start getting a little prickly feeling. No, no, I think. I’m just paranoid. That’s not what this book is about. But then the story was leading up to something and that dread feeling just got worse. It was no surprize when it was revealed.
Can you guess? Can you? Yeah, the single protagonist is pregnant. By accident.
Now I’m thoroughly irritated because I really want to finish the damn book, I’m already halfway through, but it’s not so much of an escape now. I’m really really hoping that somehow this author can work around this whole pregnancy thing without making the book All About Pregnancy, because then I’ll have to put it down and that would piss me off further.
Also, today I ran to the grocery store today really quick to pick up some ingredients for dinner. Middle of the day, the store was not very busy. But yet I managed to run into two women pushing shopping carts that were holding a wee baby in a carseat. I want to start pulling coke cans off the shelves and lobbing them like grenades, yelling, Go away!! Leave me alone!! I don’t want to see your cute little baby. I don’t want to see you happy. I don’t want to see how frickin easy it is for normal people.
In this phase of my life I just seriously want to pretend that anything baby does not exist, unless it’s regarding Devin, Kel’s boy Daniel, or SIL’s baby H. Those three things I can handle, most of the time (though there are still times when I come across something of Devin’s that makes a pit in my stomach just ache emptily). Sometimes I can handle other friends’ babies, depending on my mood. But strangers? Random baby things in the world that seem to serve no purpose except to show how easy it is to have babies for everyone but me? Those I’m almost never okay with. New pregnancy announcements? Not good with those either. I live in a constant state of fear that a friend will unexpectedly announce that they are pregant. And here I thought I handled that poorly before we got pregnant. Ha. I had no idea how bad it could get.
Now even characters in books are unexpectedly getting pregnant when I least expect it.
I am really hoping that when I get pregnant (again) I can get over this bitterness (again). It never entirely went away the first time, though I was so full of joy that the negativity was a blip in my radar. Now? No joy. Lots of angry bitterness. I’m not so certain that’s ever going to heal.
I wouldn’t say it’s bitterness. It’s still grief and probably a portion of it will never heal. I know how hard it is to avoid all things baby, all reminders, and try to move on to a better place but it’s not easy when there are reminders everywhere you turn. I keep you and Den in my thoughts and prayers.
It sounds like maybe you’re reading Good in Bed? I, too, have such a hard time with the suckerpunch of an unexpected baby. Whether it be in the store or in a book or strolling past my house. This process of grieving is never linear, never sequential. That’s the hardest part for me. Two steps forward, one (or three) steps back. I send loving thoughts your way.
It’s hard. Although I didn’t have the heartbreak of losing a stillborn baby, I can identify with a lot of what you write.
I read a book a few months ago about a woman in her 40s who gets accidentally pregnant on a fling. I saw it coming in the foreshadowing and it pissed me off when I saw that I was right.
I never noticed before how many babies there are EVERYWHERE and now not only do I notice, I try to stay far, far away.
I seem to go through phases of goodness and badness with a variety of aspects of the IF-hell. Like maybe this week I’m ok with getting a baby announcement in the mail but maybe next week I’ll loose it because my MIL is talking about wanting grandkids. And sometimes I can’t handle anything at all. All the fertiles in my life act like I’m a nutjob because of how I intentionally and obviously avoid looking at babies or pregnant bellies. I call it self preservation. If only they knew how luck they are that the don’t understand the pain and therefore CAN think I’m a nut job. :P
That’s the thing, there’s no way you can get away from babies and pregnancy…I can identify with the primal urge to scream and rant at how unbelievably unbalanced the universe is. I can hear the utter desolation that is in your heart – your being with Devin not being with you.
Fertiles don’t get it and never ever will – that’s been my epiphany of today.