Ripples of Grief

A little while back the friend who's got a 2-month-old baby wrote in a group email about how her husband had been talking about visiting us here. Mind you, she did add something like this: "I'm not sure whether or not you're interested, because I know that travelling with a kid is different than travelling without a kid." Must admit reading it made me anxious, because I know I'm not ready to have them in our place, but before I replied to her, I wanted to find out what my husband had to say to that idea.

Ever since her second trimester, she had started sharing links about parenting and stuff like that and after the baby was born, she has been sharing her baby's photos and status updates about her parenting journey as well as parenting links and a few videos. I'm fine now when it comes to viewing the baby's cute photos (seeing the first few photos was TOUGH) and mostly fine with the status updates and parenting links, but what made me feel sure that I wasn't ready to be with them under the same roof was my reaction when I saw the video clip of her interacting with her baby. Listening to her cooing to her baby and seeing the baby's smile in response to her made me want to escape to my daydreams about my own interaction with my non-existent child and stay there for a LONG time.

My husband was apparently not ready to have them under the same roof, either, so I braced myself and decided to be honest with her in my reply. I told her that I wasn't sure how painful it would be to see her daily interaction with her baby in front of my face, under my own roof, but I was pretty sure I could handle it if they were willing to stay in a cabin or someplace else. Spending time with them for a few hours every day would be fine as long as I could have some rest (my safe haven) in between. 


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I also explained to her why her baby made me react more strongly than my other friends' babies/children in our inner circle. It's because her baby is the first biracial baby in our group of friends, so the baby's the closest reminder of our loss. It's very hard not to see her baby's photos without wondering how our child may look like. It's probably similar to this: if you've lost a real person in life years and years ago and then you see someone that looks like her/him today, then you wonder how your loved one may look like right now. Something to that effect...oh, I'm getting sidetracked here...back to the topic...

I was prepared to lose this friendship (worst case scenario - which I think I took pretty calmly considering I would have wanted to keep this friendship with all my might and in whichever way I could in the past). I still disliked the fact that these ripples of infertility grief affected me this way (however, in the past I hated/loathed this side effect with a vengeance), because in another universe and situation, I would have wanted to reply, "That's a WONDERFUL idea! When are you coming? You're welcome in our place anytime. Ohhhhh...I can't wait for you all to come. How much fun it's going to be!" But I couldn't deny what I was feeling and I knew that it wasn't just about me anyway. I had to and wanted to protect my husband's feelings, as well.

Anyway, I heard nothing for a few days, but thankfully afterwards she said she appreciated my honesty and she understood why I wrote such a reply. She wasn't sure yet when they were going to come, but she mentioned it because she wanted to do it in the future. So we shall see how it's going to pan out later on. Just another story of infertility's ripples of grief, I suppose. 


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Btw, check out this brilliant post on Friendship written by Mali. 

P.S. I sent her an angel baby card the other day in remembrance of her miscarriage prior to having this child. I was SOOOOOO touched when she said that she had cried for me a few times during the past two months because after having the baby, she realized even more what I had lost.