Part 5: Seriously?!?!??

I had known it would happen sooner or later, I just didn't know exactly when. But I knew that eventually, another of my friends would announce they were pregnant. I had friends who had already had babies, long before we ever started trying. That didn't bother me. Although, the knowledge that all of them had gotten pregnant easily (within the first couple of months), or even by mistake, was a little hard to swallow. I wasn't really sure how I would react when the next one came along. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately - since I like to be prepared) I did know that it would be difficult. Another of my friends (I will call her AJ) had been struggling with infertility issues for a while, a fact which she had first disclosed to me when we were co-hosting a baby shower for another of our friends.

AJ and her husband had been married the longest of that particular group of friends. Although they had never been in a hurry to start a family, most of us suspected it would be happening soon. They were both done with school and gainfully employed. They had recently moved to the suburbs and bought a house with a big yard and plenty of space for kids. AJ hosted my bridal shower in their new house, during which another friend (let's call her Lil) announced she was pregnant. Whether it was by design or mistake remains a debate amongst our group - Lil has never confirmed one way or another. Personally I suspect it was an oopsie but with Lil's reputation for being a super control freak, I think she couldn't admit that, even to herself, and so tried to pass it off as intentional. But regardless, it was clear that getting knocked up had not been a problem for her. When Lil announced she was pregnant, I happened to catch a look that passed between AJ and her husband. I didn't know, at that point, whether or not they were having problems or even if they were trying. But the look made me wonder...

Fast forward 6 months or so from my bridal shower and AJ and I were at a restaurant setting up for Lil's baby shower. AJ and I had co-planned it and were the first to arrive to put out the decorations and everything. She seemed a a bit down for some reason, quieter than usual. As we waited for the others to show up, I asked how she was doing and she kind of sighed and averted her gaze. She then proceeded to say that she was just having a hard time with the shower, given that she and her husband had been trying for over a year to have a baby and it clearly wasn't working. I had suspected as much, although I didn't know it had been that long. She went on to say she was scheduled to undergo surgery, a laparoscopy, in the near future to try to determine the cause of her infertility issues. I don't know what else, if anything, they had done up to that point. I didn't know enough about the process to even know which questions to ask. She explained just how difficult it was to hear about how Lil and our other friend (MG had a toddler-age daughter) had gotten pregnant so easily. MG had managed to do it the very first month they tried. As if that wasn't bad enough, here she was helping host Lil's baby shower.

Fast forward ahead another couple of years, and it is now April and I had decided to give the Mucinex a month off. The sun was shining, spring seemed to be (finally) just around the corner. Paul and I were headed south to join the rest of my family for my great-grandmother's 100th birthday celebration. In spite of the months of failed attempts, I was in pretty decent spirits. And then my cell phone rang. It was my friend from college (Bex). I actually felt my stomach drop as I answered the phone. I knew what she was calling to say. Bex always came to visit in December, and that past December she had mentioned that she and her husband were planning to start trying soon. She was calling to say she was pregnant. A miraculous thing happened as I answered that call - my signal started to fade in and out and as a result, the conversation had to be cut short. But it was long enough for me to get the gist of it all - she was pregnant after going off the pill and trying for one month. One month. First try and BAM! Bun was in the oven.

I bawled my eyes out the whole rest of the drive south. I was glad the signal had cut out on the phone - I was pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to handle a full half hour's worth of details on short notice like that. And the chopped-up dialogue had helped to hide the cracks in my voice as I struggled through the obligatory "Congratulations - I'm so excited for you!" I felt terrible that I wasn't 100% thrilled for Bex. If I had to be honest, I wasn't thrilled at all. I was hurt, and angry, and jealous, and sad. And on top of all that, I was frustrated with myself for feeling this way. On some level, I knew that Bex's situation had nothing to do with me. She didn't get pregnant to taunt me or to brag about it or to make me feel terrible. She didn't even know what we were going through since we still hadn't told anyone. But none of that made me feel any better as I curled myself into a ball in the passenger seat of our truck and sobbed my way through the miles. Seriously??!!?!? One month. She only had to try for ONE MONTH and she was allowed into the club. Whatever happened to the 6 month average? Where was the fairness in that?

Paul was at a loss for words. He held my hand and waited for the storm to pass. When the worst of it was over, I told him I had to do something. I needed to tell someone about our situation. Not a medical someone, but a friend or family member. It was starting to eat me up from the inside out - I was going crazy from the stress of holding it all in. There were days (usually whenever AF decided to make an appearance) when I wanted to stay in bed all day. And sometimes I did. In fact, I'd called in sick to work on at least 2 of those occasions, and not because of the cramps. I had called in because I simply could not face the thought of going in to work and going about my day as if nothing at all was amiss. I couldn't lie to everyone, so instead I lied (sort of) about being sick. I knew this wasn't healthy and that sooner or later I was going to have to come clean to someone. After Bex's phone call, I realized it needed to be sooner rather than later. She may have been the first but she would not be the last of my friends to get pregnant. It probably wouldn't get any easier for me to hear, in which case I would need someone to help cover for me if I wasn't exactly up to gushing over ultrasound pictures or planning a shower.

But how do you tell someone, even someone you are close to like your mother or best friend? How do you put into words the roller coaster of emotions you experience as you start to realize you are about to fail the simplest most natural test of being a human? How do you explain how it feels to have your whole world shaken to the core, how all of a sudden, the family that you have always hoped for and dreamed of (and assumed you would eventually have) is no longer a guarantee.