the pregnant YASiL

Blokey came downstairs and into the kitchen in the early hours of yesterday evening.  I had an email from Bro, he said. YASiL is pregnant, he said.

And so I went into shutdown. I stomped about for a bit, and then I put my happy face on.  But I can’t bear the idea of contacting her (or BiL) and offering my congratulations.  To many (including them), this probably makes me a selfish bitch. But it’s simply my way of coping, a need to have time to reflect and process, to consider the best way to deal with it and find solutions which will stop the happy mask slipping and betraying my true feelings about it.

To put it bluntly, I am gutted.

I am gutted because for the next howevermanymonths (I know not, I’ve refrained from asking Blokey about the finer details because I’m not ready to hear them) all I’m going to hear is baby talk. Baby this, baby that, baby here, baby there.  No visit to MiLs will be complete without beaming I’m going to be a grandmother at last! remarks, and to me they’ll feel like snide digs.  I’m the DiL who gave life through a kidney, but who hasn’t proven her womanhood through the conception of a continuing bloodline. I’ll have to look at scan pictures and bite my tongue when my baby names are bandied about as potential possibilities. Through it all I’ll have to smile and be interested, whilst my heart breaks and my head screams in frustration.

Extended family members will pity me and come out with stupid comments about how my time will come, or similar. I’ll just smile.

I hate her. Right now, I hate her. I hate her for having the one thing right now that I desperately want.  I hate her because she’ll be a perfect mother, to a perfect baby and she’ll spend all her time with her perfect yummy-mummy friends and their perfect children.

And it’s ridiculous because of course I love her.  I love both of them to bits. And I know that I will embrace this baby with all the love that a non-genetically related auntie can muster.  I will be the most amazing auntie that this baby ever has, showering him or her with love and goodies and memories …

But right now I don’t feel like celebrating, and I reserve the right to feel this way whilst my head sorts itself out.

Forgive me if I spend the rest of my days pondering, Why me? What did I do that was so tragically terrible in a past life?