{46/365} Left out?

Have you ever felt left out of a conversation or felt like if you say something it may not be taken in the right light? That is where I am at right now. My best friend from high school has found herself unexpectedly pregnant! She and her husband were not trying mostly because they have moved past that stage with their girls who are 16 and 10 but they are very excited about this pregnancy and before you read the rest of this post and think that I am not so am I…just tonight I was thinking she deserves a baby shower (she did not get a proper one with the 16 year old…long story). So I am very happy for her…but for the first time ever I am at a complete loss of words with her.

First…I was very upset, not at her but at the situation. She is 3 months older than me and no matter how you look at it any pregnancy (for either of us) may be considered high risk SOLEY because of our age (even though in reality we are not that old). I think part of what made dealing with all of my female issues easier was the fact that I was old enough that there would be some risk of all kinds of things so getting pregnant would be risky and very few of my same age friends would just be randomly getting pregnant. Also as we get older it is harder to get pregnant so I figured as long as my friends were my age or older I would either be able to understand their difficulty getting pregnant or help them with adoption information, no big deal. And for my friends (and family) that are younger than me I would have little issue when they got pregnant because well they are younger (though I hate to say it still may be pretty hard for me when my sister has children…another post for another time). So when she texted me to tell me she was pregnant, my first thought was her beloved rabbits were pregnant. When it finally sunk in, I just cried.

I needed to cry. I needed to be upset for me before I could be happy for her (but I texted her that I was happy for her ….I knew I was and that it would show before I saw her in person). This pregnancy was a complete surprise to me (and later I would learn her as well) and I was not prepared for all the emotions it would bring out in me. Not to mention I thought I had dealt with all of the emotions involved in being infertile, but I had not. My kids…I needed to cuddle with them. Fortunately, they had been sick and were all for cuddle time. Before the night was over I had worked my way through my demons…yep it was pretty quick for me.

But now I am at a loss…I want to talk to her about her pregnancy BUT I know nothing about being pregnant and have no war stories to share with her. While I have two year olds it will be almost 2 years before I will even be able to say “this is how it was for me.” (The youngest child I have parented at this point in my life is 14 months old ~ 10 months if you adjust their age for their early birth.) Many people on facebook have shared stories…I have nothing to say except to “like” something. And I live in a world where so many have suffered pregnancy loss or issues, so all of the problems that could happen before September go through my mind. (No I am not stupid enough to speak them out loud to her…I would expect her to slap me at that point).

I am not sure what to do…I want to support her and be there for her (and her husband). I want to talk to her almost every day like I have in the past. I want to not watch what I say or how I say it. I want to not be envious (I would change NOTHING about my family or the way it has been formed and will be formed in the future…as always that is up to God…) but I still envy that she is experiencing pregnancy for a 3rd time and I will never be able to talk about that with her and compare experiences with her (maybe she envies not being able to share experiences with me leading up to a new baby joining our family…I don’t know).  I want to be able to say AND believe in my heart “everything will be ok” ~ I so want everything to be ok and I am praying everything is ok…perfect to be exact, but by nature I am a worrier.

So how would you deal with this situation? What would you do?

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