After my initial swan dive into my new existence, realizing I'd lost the taste for so many things once delicious, I thought maybe it would end. My likes and dislikes, tolerables and intolerables would sort themselves neatly into boxes. Little did I know there would be a constant shifting, a few pebbles stuck in the corners that, months, years later, would filter out.
I used to be the girl who'd listen to your baby stories, your pregnancy stories, your newborn stories with real interest--not feigned, not patronizing. Tell me about your morning sickness, your aversion to any smell, your need for Wendy's on an hourly basis. I devoured birth stories like chocolate chip cookies.
And then my baby died, and was born. Holy cats, did everything change. Suddenly it was, don't tell me about getting pregnant; do not tell me about how you're feeling or about vomiting or about eating or about fitting into your clothes or about names or birth plans or doulas or epidurals or ANY OF THAT SHIT. I
So I sucked it up and went to baby showers and bought baby gifts and met newborns and smiled and cooed and oohed and aahhed. I did these things because, while I was puking and screaming inside, I still loved these people and their babies. No matter how much I wanted to build a time machine, go back a few months and demand to be induced at 35 weeks even.
And when O was born, I thought maybe I could find my way back to the land of the normal mother. Well, somewhat. Maybe someday I could FOR REAL enjoy hearing about friends' pregnancies, or maybe be elated by a good birth story, or maybe even joke about eating nothing but french fries for nine months.
Nope.
Just a few days ago a blog writer who I have followed and read for a few years dropped some news: she's pregnant. Again. For the third time. After having, tra la la, a healthy boy and then healthy girl. Surprise! How great! OMGEEEEEEE! Can't wait to hear all the--
Unfollow.
I can't. It's hard enough with real life friends. Real life family. Real life babies. No matter the beautiful, breathing, living one in my arms; no matter my wonderful big boy toddler. I can't. All my positive energy, all my smiles, all my choked back tears (yes, still) are saved for my real-life friends, and my new blog mama friends who get me too, who REALLY NEED THE GOOD ENERGY.
I'm not saying, well, I don't know what I'm saying. Everything will, hopefully, be wonderful for my unfollowed blogger. I wish her all the beautiful things in this world. But I can't read nine months of morning sickness and maternity fashion updates in my Reader. It's not my reality anymore. And pretending that's who I am, or could ever be again, hurts too much.
Oh, I know. But unlike you I did avoid the showers (still haven't been to one since, nor do I plan on going to one ever again if I can help it) and the pregnancies and babies. Staying off FB for 18 months after my loss certainly helped with that. I have certainly softened up, but I still don't find it easy. Most of the time, I fake it. And some babies I still can't go there with. There are some I have still never laid eyes on, and if I have my way, never will. (Namely the baby of a friend due the same day as Hope, born the day after our due date, the same day the hospital sent me home in labour - of course a baby girl, then a month or two after I had Angus. She had another one. A girl. Lucky she wasn't a super close friend).
ReplyDeleteMaybe one day this will all get easier for me, maybe it wont. For now, it just is the way it is. I too was the baby lover and was obsessed with all things baby, pregnancy and birth. I just don't know if there is any clear path back to that life now. Things have changed. I have changed.
xo
Now that I'm more than a year into the no-more-baby-making phase of my life, I've lost some of my aversion to pregnancy-oriented blogs/stories. Fortunately I was never much of a sunshine-y presence in my 'before' life so I haven't had to travel very far to make up the difference.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand general parenting blogs--the ones where the authors yammer on and on about the 'best' products to keep baby healthy or methods for teaching your 18-month-old to read. It just seems so trite.
I recently decided to turn over a new leaf and add some knitting blogs to my reader. I'm finding that they're giving me agita. I still have days where I can barely face the world, why would I give a crap if my superwash wool pills too easily? I'm trying to push through this phase.
I guess my point is that I hear you. I think you should unfollow away.