Words

Something I have learned through this whole thing is that words hurt. I have become much more aware of what I say and how I say it.

I do not see a pregnant lady and want to cry or hate her out of jealousy. I do not see a newborn baby and cringe with the sadness of what I do not have. Friday was a really hard day for me. That night we went to the park and there was a lady there with a little baby boy. I said to Cole "aww, I want one" but not necessarily out of sadness or longing anymore that any other women who has "baby fever" and wants a baby. Even on that hardest day seeing a newborn didn't send me into a downward spiral of emotions. No, the thing that gets me is words.

For instance, last week at tumbling class all the moms were talking about babies as they always do because of the 5 of us 3 are pregnant! The non-pregnant lady was saying how she was on bed rest for 6 months with her youngest daughter "it was just the worst thing ever, I would never want to do it again" REALLY? Was it really the worst thing ever? You have one gorgeous little girl there and she looks as healthy as the next kid even though you had to go through some tough times to get her. For me summer time is "the worst" time to be in the rpl club because every pregnant lady is talking about how awful it is to be pregnant. Like every last one of them. "it's just the worst to be so pregnant in the summer" Is it? Is that the worst thing you can think of? For real? THE worst?

Now I am most certainly not saying MY situation is the worst. Not at all. Much like the other peoples situation it just quite frankly sucks. It's no fun, it sucks, no fair, crappy, awful, but not the WORST. I am still sane though. I know these people are not trying to be literal. As a woman who has been pregnant in the summer I will totally admit there was one day I even cried it was so hot! I will never forget it! It was 102 plus ridiculous humidity. My hormones and the heat got the best of me and I cried! So yes, it's no fun and I get that. However, I actually think the summer is a good time to be pregnant but that's a totally different discussion and topic.

Anyways, the point I am getting at is I would now never ask a couple who has been married for a while "When are you guys finally going to have kids?" because that "light-hearted" comment might stab them like a knife. That is a question I have heard people say 100 times and it never struck me as an awful thing to ask someone until this all happened to me. I have been pretty open about my struggles but I know alot of people on the babycenter board have said that they don't even tell their close family. One common theme with RPL is that you are very alone in it even though it is not uncommon. Words hurt. I don't want people to dance around me with their words. I don't want people to feel like they can't talk about their lives, their problems, their issues. Because everyone has their own experiences and everyone has their level of pain in their lives. For that lady who was on bed rest that probably was the worst thing she has had to endure and that is too bad I can't imagine having to do that especially since she had older kids to worry about as well. It's just that saying something was the worst thing ever when your end result was a human life is rather insensitive.

I am reading a book called "Coming to Term" by Jon Cohen. Pretty much every lady on the rpl board suggests reading it so I finally bought it. It was only 3.99 on Amazon. In it he talks about how that is the first lesson he learned about rpl is that your good news is not necessarily someone elses and words can hurt. He and his wife had one very easy successful pregnancy. He boasted at work "I just have to look at her and she's pregnant" he recalls how a women left the room after he said that but he didn't think anything of it. Later after he and his wife struggled to have a 2nd child he found out that woman was having fertility problems and his words hurt her even though he was not trying to nor thinking he was hurting anyone.