Baby Guilt

Within the past year, one woman we know has tried unsuccessfully to conceive, one has had an early miscarriage, one has had stillborn twins at 22 weeks, and one has had one stillborn and one very-early-very-sick twin at 27 weeks. It was not a good year.

My dear spouse and I... well, let's just say we're keeping the average time-to-conception down.

R., my college roommate, just came to visit. I hadn't even told her that we were trying to conceive when we got pregnant; it happened so fast. They had already been trying for almost a year; they had the house, savings, new basement for the nursery. No baby. 'I feel so bad that you're not pregnant too,' I said.

'I'm happy for you, really,' she said.

'I'm happy for our baby too. But I'm still sad for you.'

It's not fair. I wish I could change... the rest of the bad outcomes in the world. I wish I could wave a magic wand and everyone who wanted to be pregnant would magically conceive (and everyone who didn't want to be pregnant wouldn't). I wish everyone's loved and wanted children would stay with them. I wish no child would be unwanted or unloved.

I can't do any of those things. I can ask R. if she wants to talk about it, how she's feeling; I can gently suggest she read Taking Charge of Your Fertility (which was very helpful to them at least in terms of information content); I can work on her baby quilt as a kind of prayer for them. I can make a donation in memory of N.'s lost babies, and write her a letter saying that I am sad they are gone and I will remember them.

I can't make it all better. I can only hope this year will be better.