Babies, babies everywhere!

I swear to God, I had intended to come here today and post something more positive than my last couple of posts have been.  I was going to answer some questions from the Sunshine Award nominations that I got from the lovely Daryl and Amber.  I was gonna be funny and witty and prove that I actually deserve the Sunshine Award instead of just being a sad, depressed grump.

But that will have to wait for another day.  Because it's one of those days when I just can't handle the babies.

It was a tough weekend around here.  I have no idea if it's the Lupron talking, but the number of tears that I shed for that damn little birdie was unreal.  I still haven't quite snapped out of the shock and horribleness of it all, and the feeling stuck with me today as I headed in to the office.  So I was in a bad mood to start with.

Today also marked the return of my co-worker Liam, whose wife gave birth a few weeks ago.  We'd all gotten a text from our boss saying that she'd delivered and that everyone was fine, but that was apparently glossing over a lot.  Turns out that there had actually been quite a bit of drama, beginning with Liam's wife waking to blood everywhere just shy of 38 weeks.  A frantic drive to the hospital revealed that she was having a placental abruption (a dangerous complication where the placenta separates from the uterus) and needed an emergency C-section.  They didn't even have time to give her an epidural, they just gassed her and delivered the baby.  All while Liam was standing outside in the hallway in his scrubs, waiting to be brought in as dozens of blood-spattered medical personnel ran in and out of the operating room past him.  At one point he thought he might lose both his baby and his wife, since she was losing a lot of blood and the baby had to be rushed off to the NICU.  Fortunately for all involved, things ended well and mom and little Jude are doing just fine.  But I could see Liam's eyes well up as he told the story, and see the immense love that he already had for his new little boy.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm in no way trying to minimize what he and his wife went through and I'd never ask for a pregnancy that turned out that way.  But knowing that everyone was fine, I couldn't help thinking as he told us the tale that it all worked out for you in the end.  You got your baby.  Lots of us don't.  How screwed up is that?

So after a long gloomy day, I headed home.  Only to be greeted by every infertile's favourite social media kick in the ass: a pregnancy announcement via ultrasound photo on Facebook.  And this wasn't just any Facebook friend.  It was my old high school friend Calla.

Now, about Calla.  We'd been friends since grade school, and were part of a small group of girls that remained tight even after graduating university and moving on to our grown-up lives.  She was fun but flighty; you could never count on her to be on time and if she had a problem with you she'd complain behind your back but never just come out and talk to you about it.  We started drifting when I went away to law school and never really reconnected once I came home.  She'd started dating the guy who she'd later marry and though we hung out once in a while, she spent most of her time with a new group of friends she'd met through work.

Then I moved to Ontario to take my current job.  We said we'd stay in touch, but of course we didn't.  So when I got an invitation to her wedding (scheduled to take place only about 6 months after I'd spent a ton of money moving halfway across the country) I figured she'd understand when I told her that I couldn't make it for financial reasons.  I sent a card and a gift, but apparently that wasn't enough.  She was incredibly offended that I didn't come, but of course she's never said any of this to my face.  I've just heard about it from our mutual friends that she bitched to about me.  And she's never really forgiven me.  Any time I go home for a visit I try to schedule time to see her, but she's always incredibly busy and instead of cancelling existing plans with people who she sees all the time, she invites me to come to parties with people I don't know instead.  Then, when I invited her to my wedding, she didn't even bother to send back the reply card until a few weeks after the RSVP date.  My mom invited her to a wedding shower that I made a special trip home for, but Calla couldn't be fussed to tell us she wasn't coming until 20 minutes beforehand via a Facebook message.  And to top it all off, no card and no wedding gift (note: it's the thought here, not the stuff, that bothers me).  At one point I got another half-hearted Facebook message from her saying that she hadn't forgotten and she had a card for me but couldn't send it due to the Canada Post strike.  Which was taking place a good two months after the wedding and was resolved within a few weeks.  But the card never came.  I found out afterwards that she was somehow not only angry with me for not going to her wedding 7 DAMN YEARS AGO, but she was also upset that I'd chosen blue for my bridesmaids' dresses, which was the same colour another (closer) friend had also chosen for her bridesmaids.  The group of girls we hung around with all had a giant WTF for that one.  It was at that point I gave up caring.

So now when I go home, I no longer call Calla.  It isn't worth my energy.  I still have her on Facebook, though.  And today, I fucking regretted it.  Because of course, of course she would be the type of person to announce a pregnancy with a goddamn ultrasound photo.  My iPhone has never come so close to being hurled across the room. 

The funny thing is, I actually wondered for a long time if Calla was infertile.  She's 37, like me, and therefore no spring chicken.  And she comes from a huge family, with a bunch of brothers and sisters who've all had a ton of kids.  I started to wonder if there was another reason she hadn't.  But of course, as we all know, no infertile would ever make a pregnancy announcement the way she did today.  Not in a million years.

OK, that's it.  I'm done.  No more bitching.  Next post will be entertaining and/or funny and/or witty.  I promise.  In the meantime, here's a bunny that kind of feels like I do right now.

Disapproving bunny disapproves.