We're everywhere

The wedding was lovely. It turned out, well, not as I expected. The loveliness I expected. The weather was great, the bride's dress was gorgeous, the meal delicious. There were also a few surprises that threw me off balance a bit.

M and I arrived for the ceremony at 3:00, and found a inconspicuous seat by the wall. The venue was an odd shape, not a traditional church layout, so I could only see about half of the congregation on the other side. No baby in sight. No baby mama in sight.

Then, I saw the stroller being wheeled in, right to the front row of chairs. The carrier lifted out. I could see K., the mommy, out of the corner of my eye, rocking the carrier on the floor in front of her with her foot. A friend in front of us turned around, Doesn't K look fabulous? Gosh, you'd never know she just had a baby....

It's little things like that that sting when I wish they wouldn't. I wish I wasn't jealous. I still have 20 lbs to go, and no baby to show for it.

I asked M to switch seats with me. He was against the wall and couldn't see them. I managed ok after that.

We were one of the last to leave the hall, hoping that baby and mama would be gone ahead. No such luck. Baby was of course the center of attention, and there was no avoiding. I walked by, caught K's eye and said hi. Your hair looks great, she said, in between descriptions to baby admirers of sleeping and feeding patterns.

Yeah, that was me and my fabulous hair on Friday. (You know, I don't actually own a camera? That is the funny thing about me. And my inlaws own a professional camera store, so I have no excuse. Family gatherings are like the papparazzi around here. Quite funny actually. I'll have to get one just for the purpose of keeping my blog entertaining!)

We returned at 6:30 for the reception. K. was in the lobby, we made small talk as we found our table. I was eternally grateful to the bride, for seating us with M.'s engineering friends instead of the babyland crew. We actually had a nice meal, great conversation, no baby talk. I assumed the baby wasn't there, although I was proven wrong after dinner. I saw the mother of the groom carrying around a little dark haired person, and I though, yup, there she is. Then her dad was carrying her, showing her off to every table.


They never came to our side of the room, thank God.


After dinner we heard they were leaving to drop off the baby at K's parents. Whew. Crisis averted. I can now relax.

We headed to the lobby again while the venue was transformed from dinner to dance, and we chatted with the newlyweds, who seemed genuinely glad to have us there. We ran into other acquaintances and chatted some more. We got a drink from the bar. The mother of the bride came over, beautiful in an emerald green gown; I had never met her before. She took both my hands in hers and looked at us, I heard about your misfortune this year, she started. I wanted to say how sorry I am, and I know, because I had a baby boy, full term, that died after 11 hours....

I know how hard it is for you. You don't know if you are a mother or not, you feel like your body betrayed you. And of course, you're at the age where everyone is having babies and that makes it even more difficult. People stay away, avoid seeing you. It's not because they don't want to see you, they just don't know what to say, how to handle it. Do you have pictures? They'll mean a lot to you in years to come. M's mom told us it was a terrible, terrible day. I'm so sorry.

I nodded, and agreed. She asked M how he was doing; he said it was really hard. What else is there to say, really?

The conversation went on for some time. I felt out-of-body; the words coming out of my mouth in response to her questions, but not really being processed by my brain. Autopilot reactions.

I wrote about it, she said. Five or six years later I sat and wrote about it, and that was tremendously healing.

I said nothing. No one knows about my blog. This is my space IRL; not even M knows about this. She was right, of course: writing is tremendously healing.

She talked about how she had gone through nine pregnancies in all, resulting in three girls. 2 miscarriages before the lost baby boy who was her first, more after.

I didn't think I'd end up with the three I have now, she said, motioning to the bride and her two sisters. Good luck to you. Good luck to you.

When she left I broke down. M and I went outside for some air, and to avoid the curious eyes of strangers wondering what was wrong with me. I took my time, breathed.

When I felt ready we headed back inside, in time to watch the bride and groom's first dance. A couple of dances later the lyrics to a sappy song "Child of Mine" set me off again. Back out on the patio. Rinse and repeat.

We left really early. It wasn't even 10 o'clock. The babyland friends had not yet returned. We said goodbye to the bride and groom, who didn't seem surprised we were dipping out so early. I gave her a hug, told her how beautiful she was. I'm so glad you came, she said. I really miss hanging out with you guys. I was glad she said that.

So, home it was, to a busy house with mom and dad visiting and everything seeming too loud. I tried to sleep. I was up half the night. M was too.

On Saturday I was exhausted, both emotionally and from not sleeping. I struggled through the funeral (sad), and the wedding (tiring) that I was playing for. I fell asleep really early and got up feeling slightly better on Sunday.

And now it's back to "normal", where everyday feels the same. Detached, mundane, bleak.

I keep thinking about the bride's mother. Her little boy from 30+ years ago. The five miscarriages apart from that. How, on such a happy day in her life, the wedding of her oldest daughter, she gave comfort and hope to another babylost mama. How we're the same. We're all the same.

And I'm so so saddened, because after all that, she never did get to raise a little boy.