I Understand…

Way back in August a crazy thing happened. At the time I was baby-sitting my friend Britt’s little boy K. We met in foster care training and we went through a lot of infertility crap together. A few days after Sam told us she was pregnant (we hadn’t told anyone yet) Britt came over to pick up K and she told me she was pregnant! “Sam is too!” She was the first person I told that Sam was pregnant and that Sam had decided to place the baby with us. Our babies were due 2 weeks apart, BOTH were boys and the names we picked out for our boys were 1 letter different- ours started with a P and theirs starts with a T.

I don’t know about any of you, but there are some people that just made infertility harder. Either they don’t know you are struggling, their insensitive, rude and what not. Then there’s people who have also struggled and are amazing and you don’t feel any jealousy for them when they have a baby. It was like that with Britt, she got it and was always careful and mindful of us hurting. She had a baby shower a few days after we found out Sam was lying. I was planning on going, but totally forgot. When I texted her to say I was sorry I forgot, she said she didn’t expect me to come because the baby hurt was so fresh and then coming to a baby shower!

Well, last week Britt had her beautiful baby boy! I have been so excited to see him and hold him. Last night Britt texted me, “You guys can come meet T anytime. But I completely understand if you aren’t ready, I know how hard it is to be around babies after you lose one.” Don’t you wish EVERYONE said stuff like that?! As I told Brad about Britt’s text he said, “Sometimes just acknowledging it like that makes all the difference!”

We have also experienced the opposite of Britt’s reaction. A few days after our miscarriage someone (who will remain anonymous) announced they were pregnant. I think that was the hardest I ever cried upon hearing someone’s announcement. Their baby was due about a month before our miscarriage was due. Their whole entire pregnancy was rough (on me). Of course the second the baby was born my husband wanted to go see it! While I was holding the baby I said to Brad, “I need to get a job and work my butt off so we can save up and adopt!” The mom of the baby said, “Oh I’m sorry. I’ve felt so bad that you guys have struggled and I just had another kid with no problem.” I kept thinking, you know, you could have voiced that throughout your pregnancy. It would be nice if people started announcing they were pregnant like this, I know it is hard for you because you have been struggling and its okay if you aren’t even happy for us because it hurts so much but I’m pregnant. Then to make matters worse, this person blessed their baby on our baby’s due date! Yeah, talk about emotional wreck at that kids blessing! If it was up to me, I would have skipped it.

I think sometimes people just don’t know what to say, so they say nothing at all. That doesn’t help.