Strategic reserves

Much like my son's birthday party, which was just overwhelming in terms of the amount of psychic energy it took not to completely fall apart entirely , I found my son's graduation from pre-school to be a bit too much as well. First off, there were at least 3 massively pregnant women there, two of whom are due in July, just like I was. Then, the kicker, a brand spanking new tiny baby from the mom of one of my son's classmates. This little girl could not have been more than 2 or 3 days old, and she was obviously a bit on the early side. So, essentially, she was what Shannon should be. Except right in my face. And not dead. And it made me cry only because after I said that I was going to go because there were just too many babies, another one of the moms said that she was sorry for my loss and then asked how I was. It was nice that at least someone got why I was sad, my husband pretty much just was encouraging me to leave. Nice. This woman got the sad because she had an early loss a few years ago. Not the same, but still, in some ways, the same.

I think that every day we start off with a finite amount of psychic energy which has to last us all day long. When you are grieving though, a big chunk of that energy is being diverted to every day tasks that previously didn't require any energy. So, when something big comes along, like a birthday party or a graduation or anything else, you just don't have enough there to manage really well and you don't have a reserve to pull from. So you just flounder along and hope that no-one notices that you are a basketcase.

At my son's party, I ended up tuning out a big part of the day and ended up involved in a long conversation with all my fertility and loss moms about fertility and infertility and loss stuff. Anyone happening upon that conversation would have been pretty confused. And I didn't care that I think that I was a terrible hostess. My mother sat there eavesdropping on the whole fertility conversation and I didn't care. She doesn't know about any of the conception issues we are dealing with now, or about my second loss, and if she found out at the party, she hasn't said anything. And my mother in law and mother ended up standing in the kitchen, while I was trying to warm food (in front of the hot oven, no less), and I just about screamed at all of them. Fortunately, only one person saw/heard the mini meltdown. But, truthfully, I just really didn't care.

AND, the pregnant person showed up. I thought she wasn't coming because she had to work, but no, she ended up essentially being the first person there. Yep, that didn't help either. Now, mind you, I love my friend dearly, but enough is enough. I don't need any more reminders of my dead baby who is not coming in July in my house. If she has a girl, I may just go around the bend. But, I only cried once, because all of the pity got to me (I hate pity) I just want my life to go back to normal.