Monday, February 08, 2010

I'm not an Ogre

My brother's birthday party was a big hit! The masks were awesome and he had a great time. On top of that, the food was tasty and affordable. A job well done overall. On Sunday I got a phonecall from my Mom. I knew it wasn't going to go very well because of her tone of voice. You know how you just *know* when it's going to be bad news? Well, I was wrong it was extremely good news, but delivered as follows:

Me: Hello
Mom: Hi SweetG, how are you?
Me: (thinking uh oh, what's up)Fine, did you have a good time last night...blah blah blah.
Mom: Blah blah, just got off the phone with Aunt M. Your cousin L is pregnant.
Me: That's amazing news!
Mom: Aunt M was afraid to tell you. (crying)
Me: (sigh) I'm so happy for L&D.

The conversation went on from there...but the "she was afraid to tell you" line gets me. I'm not an ogre. I can feel happiness and joy for the people I love when good things happen in their lives... even when it's about a pregnancy. Of course, I feel sad for myself. And of course I hung up the phone and swore at the world and sobbed "It's just not fucking fair!". But, along side of that pain and sorrow is pure joy for my cousin. This is my favouritest cousin. She is like my little sister and she & her fiancé are going to make incredible parents.

It was an oops. Neither of them have steady jobs or health benefits. She is significantly overweight and has thyroid issues (she's starting synthroid today), she's in early menopause. And she's pregnant. See there's a little teensy bit of bitterness there for me. We are essentially the same but I'm 5 years older. This makes H. kick himself and blame himself and start with the old "if only I hadn't made us wait" game of self-blame. To which I say... neither of us was ready, we made that decision together and there are no guarantees that anything would be different now. Then H. said the best thing he could have said in the situation; he said "Just think 2 years from now we'll have our child(ren) and they'll have theirs and we won't be in this place any more." While there are no guarantees that things will work. I had lost that hope and I needed to be reminded that while I'm (we're) strugggling through things right now they won't always be this way. This too shall pass.

So, I choose to believe that we will be successful.

2 comments:

Fran said...

Oh sweetie, wouldn't it be nice to see ourselves in the future when we will have our children and none of these comments will exist any more? Keep looking at your ticker my friend, time will fly! Fran

Kate said...

I'd be a titch bitter too. Though it's always hope-inspiring to hear of someone with early menopause and other medical issues that commonly cause problems getting pregnant who somehow manages to get knocked up on their own.
I'm hoping that it's not going to be long before you finish your upcoming IVF and have fantastic news of your own to report. And then you and your favourite cousin can have a couple kids of similar ages to play together and share a close relationship too.