Warning: I'm very cranky and taking it out on my keyboard right now
If I'm still childless, someone please remind me to boycott Facebook the week leading up to the first day of school. I think I'm going to lump Halloween into that as well. And at least, I'm thinking about that ahead of time.
It's fun to see the first hundred pictures of my friends' kids dressed up. (Even after reading dozens and dozens of posts about making costumes, deciding on costumes, changing costumes.) It feels like taunting when the level hits more than that.
(And don't even get me started on the back-to-school posts -- "oh poor me, my baby is growing up too fast." Suck it up, you have a baby.)
Am I the only one who feels this way? I feel like I'm constantly whining about hurt feelings, needing to turn the channel, sighing when one more celebrity announces a pregnancy, or my recent favorite, when Mariska Hargitay got her second adopted child in record time. Or are other people thinking this, and I'm the only one complaining out loud about it?
At work, we have a Halloween party for the children of the people who work in my building. They dress up in costume and parade around the building, trick or treating from office to office, and then a big party in the conference room. Last year, I fought back the tears. This year, I'm just not going to be there.
I'll leave the office before the kiddies all get there, and run errands while I wait for my campus gym to open at 4:30.
For the past five years, I've told myself, "next year. Next year, I'll have a baby at this party." I can't tell myself that one more time. I'm feeling defeated. I'm feeling sorry for myself.
And so if you're posting pictures of your kids on Facebook and you don't hear from me how cute they are, or how much they've grown, or even the reflex of "liking" it, don't take it personally. And if we're involved in intense games of Scrabble or Words with Friends, you'll have to wait a couple days before I take my turn again.
No you are not the only one who feels this way.
ReplyDeleteTo me this process is so much harder when you are waiting to become parents and adoption is the ONLY way to accomplish that (unless you want to become Holly Hunter and Nicholas Cage from Raising Arizona) vs. waiting for your second, third or sixth child.
Because at the end of the day, if this all does not work out, all those other women will continue being mommies or having more children. I am not diminishing how much anyone wants to adopt a child regardless of whether it is their first, second, or eighth child. I am saying - because I honestly feel this way - that the wait for us is so much harder because there is so much more at stake.
Thanks for posting this--good reminder to deactivate my facebook acct--I waited a bit too long last Mother's Day and it wasn't pretty. I work above a daycare and my worst Halloween nightmare is having the cuties come up and do a costume parade. Awful. I agree, take the afternoon off and get yourself something pretty. Waiting sucks and the imminent holidays just make it that much harder.
ReplyDeleteOh, you are not alone! I feel the exact same way. It starts, as you said, with the back-to-school stuff, but for me it's the pumpkin patch shots followed quickly by the costume photos that really gets the holiday season (which I do NOT enjoy) underway. Like you, for years I've told myself, "Next year will be better." And yet it's not. Hang in there.
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