Excuse Me While I Go Throw Up

This is how I felt tonight after reading an article.  Upon reading it the first time, my immediate reaction was to throw up, literally getting sick to my stomach.  My next emotion was anger -- how can someone possibly feel this way?   As I read the article again an hour later, my final emotion was sadness, gut wrenching sadness.

Let me explain...

My Twitter feed today was all abuzz regarding this article.   As a general synopsis, this is written by a dad, who has a young son, but he and his wife wanted their son to have a sibling and were struggling with secondary infertility.  They decided to do IVF, and are now pregnant with twins after they CHOSE to transfer 2 embryos.  These twins are unfortunately both boys (they really wanted a girl) and apparently are going to ruin their lives and make sure their parents never sleep ever again.  In general they are pissed off about having twins, even getting to the point where they did genetic testing, hoping that one of them would have an abnormality so it would give them a reason to do selective reduction.  Do YOU want to throw up yet?  Oh, and yes, the father who wrote this article has chosen to stay anonymous, not even having the balls to say who he is.  

It's easy to be angry with this guy and his wife.  If there's any question about it, just read the comments section.  I was angry after reading it too.

But soon my anger turned into sadness.

Sad that these children are already seen as a burden by their parents, even though they made the CHOICE to transfer two embryos because they didn't want to pay for the process twice.

Sad that these two boys will enter the world with the pre-conceived belief that they will both be like their older brother -- crying all the time, likely colicky, and (gasp) fiercely strong-willed, knowing that crying pushes his parent's buttons (and who let's him push these buttons?).

Sad that these parents are comparing the last 4 months of their pregnancy to that of a cancer patient, instead of feeling the joy and connection to these babies as they kick and move inside the womb -- a feeling that many infertile couples will never get to experience.

Sad that they view their first child as "the free one" while CHOOSING to do IVF, and taking on the associated costs, has taken money out of their house fund, their college fund, or other future plans they had.

What makes me the most sad about this story?  Reading these selfish thoughts while knowing, through this community and in real life, SO many couples who would give anything to be able to get pregnant at all; to be able to have a healthy pregnancy; to have the blessing of one, let alone two healthy babies and to stay up all night rocking a crying baby.

If this guy had the guts to identify himself, I would write to him to let him know of all of the wonderful couples who would love to adopt these blessings, so he and his wife don't have to worry about finding space for these children in their one-bedroom apartment,  so he and his wife can rest peacefully at night and so they would be able to continue in their perfect little world, prior to being burdened with a twin pregnancy.

  My heart is heavy.

Hey Jealousy!

I've probably had a tendency towards being a jealous person my whole life...jealous of girls and women who had their mom growing up...jealous of athletic girls (being a klutz myself)...jealous of my friends who were getting married when that's what I really wanted...and so on.  I know it's not a particularly appealing or flattering trait, but  part of who I am.  I generally try to keep it under control and I think I do a pretty good job.

But in the last couple of weeks I've been dealing with a bout of jealousy I feel came out of nowhere.  I wasn't prepared for it.  And I feel really horrible, stupid and frankly, ugly, for feeling jealous in this situation.

I'm currently 30 weeks pregnant and couldn't be happier (yet also scared to death that something bad could happen).  While it took us nearly 6 years to get to this point, I'm thrilled to be here.  So when a coworker announced a couple of weeks ago that she too was pregnant, it shouldn't have been a big deal, right?  I should have instantly been happy for her, right?  I should have been prepared for the announcement as she is in her upper 20s and married for a few years, right?    Right?

But for some reason, it is a big deal to me, and has caused jealousy to rear her ugly head.  You see, this coworker became pregnant "much more quickly than expected" once they started trying.  She made the announcement to staff BEFORE she had had an ultrasound -- like weeks before -- who does that and where does that confidence come from?  And now it's all about baby talk and talk and talk...while I tend to be pretty low key when talking about the pregnancy at work.

The reason I am most ashamed of the jealousy I feel?  I don't want to share this time with her.  I waited so long for this to happen and paid my dues, that I wonder why I can't just have this 9 months all to myself.

Yes, I sound like a totally selfish bitch -- I wholeheartedly admit that.  Instead of being happy for both of us (which I am, really), I have these large pangs of jealousy, over the confidence she has (which I still don't have) in nothing going wrong,  and just having a "normal" conception and pregnancy.  Jealousy over the fact that she talks about not really being ready to have a baby, but it happened so much more quickly than she planned.

Jealousy, jealousy, ugly ugly  jealousy...