This week has been a week of a lot of birthdays. By birthdays I actually mean BIRTH days. A colleague's wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who I met yesterday, and is perfection personified. There's also Dooce and her new baby Marlo, also a gorgeous little girl.
There are other fantastic women in my life who are due either last week (oh Pam!) or in the next week (yay Lucy!).
In short, there are a lot of babies around at the moment.
You may wonder if a ttc-er (is that what I am? or since there's two of us in this game, is that we are?) can actually feel happiness for others and their new bundles of joy. If trying for so long and having miscarriages leaves you too jaded to be able to celebrate with friends and their babies. Can I actually separate my own frustration and disappointment from the joy of someone else's new baby?
There is no-one more surprised than me when I answer that with a YES. YES, I can feel happy for you and your new baby. YES I can coo and sigh and the newness of it all. YES I can walk into a baby store and buy a gift for you. YES I can use capitalised letters too much.
I won't deny it, though. There are triggers that make the optimism fade at times. Like next months trip to the UK to attend a family wedding. On the outside, a perfectly innocent trip with admirable intentions. What better wedding present than to spend $6000 just travelling to the wedding? You can thank me later for the temporary improvement in the economy.
The wedding is on July 30th. At which point, had all gone well, I would have had a week old baby in my arms. MY week old baby. Or, I suppose, I could have still been pregnant and wondering when the baby was going to show up. At any rate, I would not have been going on some crazy, bank-breaking long-haul holiday.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the trip. About the wedding. About seeing new babies that have arrived earlier this year, about seeing young cousins who are already 7 (!!) this year and have grown so much since last years family wedding. About seeing grandparents, in their mid-90's and just returning from a cruise to Italy (true story!). About seeing nieces who are growing too fast.
But there is still that small part of me that can't help but think of what the alternative would have been like. That mourns for the child that never came to be. And, thankfully, that's when my optimism kicks in. Believe it or not, I experience moments of pure excitement and what is still to come. Delusional? Maybe. But it keeps me going just when I think I can't go anymore.
