Bizarro Babies

One of my very close friends, Y, got pregnant about a week before I did. Due to a miscarriage in her past, she was apprehensive about her pregnancy, like I was about mine. We thought we'd go through it together; the worry, the milestones, our rapidly expanding bodies. Our kids would play together and be lifelong friends.

Stupid me. Of course I lost the pregnancy. I always lose the pregnancy. She, naturally, did not.

Don't get me wrong--I'm thrilled for her. But I'm equally sad for myself. Because now one of my very best friends is a tangible reminder of what I lost and how things ought to be, but aren't. I have to watch her belly bump poof out, hear her talk about cravings and strange emotions, see the hope and joy on her face when she talks about the future. She says things like, "Just wait until you get to 10 weeks. It feels so strange."

You know what? There is no ten weeks. I've been waiting to get past the first trimester for eighteen months now. I don't believe ten weeks is even possible for me. I have no evidence that it is, and plenty that points to the contrary.

So her baby will be another of what I call "Bizarro Babies", kids that have exactly the opposite of what mine do: life outside the womb.

The first Bizarro baby belongs to a friend of my best friend, who got pregnant just a couple of weeks before I did. Now she has a bouncing eight-month-old who I can't bear to look at. Then my sister-in-law got pregnant with her fifth(!) just as I got knocked up for the second time. Now she has a lively and cuddly six-month old, who was plunked into my arms the last time I visited. I didn't know it, but I was pregnant then, which must have been why it didn't kill me to look into his eyes.

The third one was a chemical pregnancy, there and gone before I even got used to the idea, so I was spared a Bizarro baby on that round, although Nicole Richie's pregnancy parallels that one.

And now the fourth and most painful, because I will love this baby just like I love my friend and her fiancee, who deserve to be parents as much as anybody in history ever has. Except for me, of course.

I just hope that Dr.K can help fix whatever is wrong with me, so that I'll be good and pregnant by the time Y is wheeled into the delivery room. Otherwise, I'll be the biggest downer the maternity ward has ever seen. And my infertility will have cost my dearly, by driving a wedge into one of my most enduring and rewarding friendships.