The ongoing saga with my sister-in-law continues.
I love her, I really do. She’s been a blessing to me, a friend and a sister from the beginning. She’s rejoiced in our highs and grieved in our lows. She’s fun and sweet and caring.
But as we’ve navigated this fertility and pregnancy loss journey she’s had her share of moments that make me want to just tell her what I think. It’s just not worth losing the relationship or burning bridges with my husband’s family so common sense tells me to keep my mouth shut and my fingers still.
[As a brief refresher…we started our TTC journey somewhat similarly and within a few months of each other. Initial unexpected (but still wanted!) pregnancies, early loss (mine chemical, hers a little later but baby stopped developing around 5 weeks)…and then within 8 months she was pregnant again and is due with her “rainbow baby” at the end of May. We tried for 15 months, did an IUI cycle, and after seeing a heartbeat, our baby died just past 7 weeks.]
I realized last week or so that the reason her pregnancy has bothered me so much (and especially now) is just that it is a stark reminder of how unfair this is. I don’t understand why they get their rainbow, their reminder of God’s faithfulness and grace…and we tried for months longer than they had to and then lost another baby. It just hurts. And she tries to act like she understands but as I explored in a previous post…you can’t be sympathetic if you haven’t experienced the same thing. So her attempts at encouragement and comfort often just rub me the wrong way.
Today she sent me a long text telling me about how she was hanging up clothes in her daughter’s nursery, bawling while listening to a song about God’s faithfulness and remembering how hopeless she felt in the 8 months that they tried and how grateful she is to be doing something so simple as organizing baby things…and how she is completely confident that this will happen for us too.
I have multiple responses I want to send. None of which I will, so this blog post gets to be my venting space.
- “Oh, you know? Just like you KNEW that everything was 100% fine with this pregnancy?”
- “Yes, the hopelessness of trying for 8 months after a miscarriage and then having a successful rainbow pregnancy is the same as trying for 15 months and losing what should have been our rainbow baby. I’m so grateful you know exactly how I feel.”
- “I’m glad God is faithful to you; but it’s really hard right now to see his faithfulness to us at this moment after infertility and recurrent losses. And thanks for reminding me of that *and* all the happy baby related things you get to do while I’m still actively grieving the loss of mine and the further postponement of getting to do all those things myself.”
- “Oh please, tell me more about how blessed you are to be bawling in your baby’s nursery. I’m sure that will make me forget that I’m once again not pregnant.”
Yeah, I know. I’m sarcastic and bitter.
Loss and infertility will do that to you sometimes.
Looking forward to a day when these well-meaning comments don’t make me want to crawl into a hole and die.
At the Appointed Time 