Pregnancy and Baby Loss
It is so hard to see other women pregnant, and I suspect it always will be. I met a woman shortly after Ben died – I knew her only slightly before then – she lost a baby some 30 years ago. He seemed fine when he was born, but died unexpectedly sometime in the first 24 hours of his life. She told me a little about her experience, and mentioned that the daughter of a friend of hers was pregnant, and how terrifying that was for her. That is where I am now, and permanently.
Ultimately, here’s how I feel about pregnant women: after Ben died, I thought no one should get pregnant ever again. It hurt too much to hear about, hurt too much to see, made me feel so frightened. I can’t shake that. I fear for any pregnant woman I see and only wish I could be happy for them. That I will carry for the rest of my life.
I alternately hate those mothers and feel sorry for them. Mostly I hate them. Because they are pregnant, and they are blissfully unaware as they drive off in their Audis and Suburbans that anything can go wrong. And if they knew my story, if I told them, I know they would look at me in horror and never speak to me again. And of course I wouldn’t tell them, could never tell a pregnant woman who did not know me “before,” what it is that makes me who I am “after.” I’m sorry for them because I feel they don’t live in the real world, which makes me a snob of a different sort from them.
