Got the Blues and Feeling Green with Envy

Ooohwee, what a month!  Been tried, tested and tossed around this month!  Creator has sent me a number of challenges that have had me working, praying, wondering and listening for lessons.  I won't lie, I've also been raging, crying, questioning and shutting down.


Missing my golden opportunity last month was disappointing.  Congratulating yet another woman in my support group on her pregnancy was hard.  Hearing from one of my closest sistrens that she too was pregnant - now that...that was devastating.   


Yes, I understand that sounds insensitive and shallow.  


Each time a member of my on-line or my SF based SMC (Single Mothers by Choice) support group announces their pregnancy, I am overjoyed and congratulatory.  After traveling this tumultuous journey with them, sharing the same challenges, getting each other through the hard times, when someone finally announces they are pregnant, it's as if we've all won; I'm thrilled and share in the excitement.  At the same time however, I feel a tinge of envy, (ok, maybe a whole lot of envy) and deeply wish it was me announcing the good news.


Now take that experience - learning that someone you've never met or someone you may see once a month is pregnant - and replace the individual with someone who is one of your closest friends, whom you spend quite a bit of time with - and you're hit with a double-whammy.  Double the emotion, double the envy, double the pain.  This has been my month.


Having lunch after church one Sunday afternoon, my sistren says, "I have something to tell you guys."  Not hesitating, I respond, " You're pregnant."  Still not sure how I knew, but some how I called it, and was spot on.   The next twenty minutes was spent discussing the who, what to do, next steps and settling her frazzled state.  After she left and hurried off to work, the next twenty minutes were spent settling my frazzled state.


The next several weeks thereafter, I engulfed myself in a series of projects, trips and clever ways to dodge my sistrens' calls, emails and visits.  Yes, I went to that place.  I needed to escape the reality of the situation, avoid the emotional drama and live in my protective bubble.


Of course that bubble could stay afloat for only so long.  I had sistrens riding my behind, checking in with me and pushing for me to deal with the inevitable.  I finally had to do what I tried so hard to keep in - acknowledge and divulge my innermost feelings.  Ugh!


When the sistrens and I check in at group meetings, we begin with a "three word check in" - a mental inventory of your emotions at that moment.  That was easy.  I was feeling: 1. frustrated 2. pissed and 3. jealous.  


I was frustrated that someone like me, a woman who makes a conscious decision to get pregnant and goes to extreme measures to get pregnant is not getting pregnant, whereas my sistren, who was not trying to get pregnant, blinks and eye and conceives.  Argh!


Pissed.  Another freakin reminder of how long and how hard I've been trying to get pregnant and it's still not happening.  Great!  Now I'm going to have a pregnant sistren with a growing belly as yet another reminder that I'm NOT pregnant!  Talk about in your face!


Jealous.  Down right, plain and simple jelaousy.  I want it to be me.  I want to be the pregnant one.  This was my path, my journey, my show.  I made this decision.  I was going to be the one to bring a baby into the sistrenhood.  I was Baby Mama!  Rain on my parade and steal my thunder!


Childish, I know.  Me, me, me.  It's all about me.  Yes, I understand there is another sistren involved.  And I know she is struggling as well.  Getting pregnant may indeed have been my plan, but it wasn't hers.  She has her own struggles.  I am having a hard time with this and so is she.  We are both troubled - differently.  


I look for the lesson in all this.  I just know that Creator has given my sistren a baby and not me for a reason.  I wonder, question, pray and listen.  She is my teacher now.  At the same time, I cry, rage, and curse.  I know that this experience will only bring us closer together and make us both stronger women.  Damn, by the time I finally get pregnant and have a baby I will be wearing a blue leotard, red cape and have a "S" on my chest.  


I love my sistren dearly and will support, share and send love to her every step of her journey.  And I know she's doing the same for me.