Fears and Blessings

  I hear a lot about people's fears and a lot about their blessings. But the thing I've come to understand is that they actually don't know the real meaning of those words they use. Now, I don't doubt they have a great fear, or a great blessing. I just doubt they know what that means to somebody like me. Notice I said "somebody LIKE me." Not just me, but all the people who are LIKE me too. The people who almost have a panic attack because they think they might be pregnant with another dud pregnancy. The ones who have such horrible pregnancies they dread the thought of another 9 months of being put through the wringer and who come out on the other side with a baby but a body so broken that may never heal properly. Those who feel pregnancy is a game of some sick and twisted chance that you have a 50/50 shot at a live kid who stays that way.

  You people who tell me that you have a fear of pregnancy because you know so many people who have lost a baby, let me tell you something now so I can perhaps avoid another migraine from clamping my jaw shut so tight when you talk. You don't know what that kind of fear means. You are afraid of something I described succinctly because of the way I described it. But that's a whole different ball of wax that remembering what it feels like. I'd like to ask you to perhaps refrain from telling me I cause you to fear. I feel enough like a living example of an open sepulcher with dead men's bones inside that I don't need you to tell me I am one. I'm actually not joking when I tell you that you can stop being my friend then if I'm that big of a danger to your fear factor. To tell you the truth, you're just as big of a danger to my fears as I am to yours. You remind me of every single thing that could possibly go wrong in your pregnancy that you know nothing about.

  And along with the fear thing, there's another thing it'd be nice if you'd cut out of your life. Stop complaining to us about every ache and pain and pound of weight you gain and puking session of morning sickness you experience. There are quite a few people you can talk to that will sympathize. Those of us whose pregnancies ended before we got to the point you're complaining about or who couldn't walk across the room to pee without having 200 seizures really don't have much sympathy for you. Here's a quarter, call someone who cares. And if it makes you feel better, finish that song in your head right now.

  Now the blessing thing. Yeah. You're blessed. We get it. But really, you actually don't know how blessed you really are no mater how much we could try to tell you differently. It'd be kinda nice to not have your blessing shoved in our face to remind us of how cursed we feel because we don't get your blessing of a healthy pregnancy and baby. Sometimes we feel like saying, "Hey oh blessed among women! How about you be a surrogate for me since you are ultra blessed and I'm a cursed person?"

  Naturally none of us say it because we don't wanna hurt you, but how about you just let these words sit and stew about in your brain for a while before you spout off next time? It'd at least keep us from having another migraine!