NaBloPoMo: Don’t Make Us Lonely.
November 11th, 2009
Something you may not know about having a miscarriage is that loneliness is one of the worst side-effects. I can’t explain why this is, it just is. And it’s not a normal loneliness either. It’s not one I have ever experienced before, nor do I anticipate finding this type of loneliness within any other situation. It’s impossible to describe and when I try to, I picture words like hopelessness and darkness and other relatively empty descriptions.
For those of us that have experienced this loneliness, we eventually break free from it. We’re different at the end, but we get rid of it. Soon life returns to normal again and once we get there, we hope our friends and family will be there waiting for us. And we hope that they act normal too. When our friends and family don’t act normal, that loneliness has a way of finding us all over again.
Today I found out that a friend has been keeping her pregnancy from me. She told everyone we know, but excluded me entirely. Here’s the problem with that: when you’re pregnant, you get bigger. So you can’t keep the secret up for too, too long. (Especially with a second pregnancy.)
Her belly had grown since we last saw one another, but I didn’t say anything. Most people know by now that you don’t ask a woman if she’s pregnant unless she’s crowning. But then she just blurted it out.
“I didn’t want to tell you, because, well, you know…” She added.
Just then our other friend walked over and said, “Oh, did she just tell you the big news?”
And that’s when I realized that everyone knew but me—all of our friends. She chose to keep it from me.
I said congratulations and meant it. Then I stood there like a fool, no idea what I was supposed to say next, like I had forgotten my lines. How do I react now? I thought. Everything that came to mind seemed off, like I was supposed to follow some anticipated response, their anticipated response.
I understand her intentions, which is why I’m writing this today. Her intentionally keeping this from me until it was impossible not to, made me feel lonely all over again—like I was the odd man out, damaged goods, cringe-worthy. She did not treat me like she had treated everyone else. She made me different. And that hurt. It hurt so much more than the hurt she thought she was sheltering me from.
I can’t speak for every person that has had a miscarriage, but I’m willing to bet there are others that feel the way I do. So. If you know someone that has gone through a miscarriage and has arrived on the other side, please be normal. We want you to treat us like you do everybody else. Don’t put on kid gloves. Don’t avoid us because you’re afraid you’ll break our hearts. Don’t put us in the corner by ourselves. We want to feel normal.
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