One of the commentors yesterday asked if I wanted people to tell me about, what is in essence, their fertility. Did I want people to tell me they were expecting, did I want them to talk about their pregnancy?

When I return to the post from last week, I start from the place that I wasn’t offended by the discussion taking place in my living room. I don’t think anyone committed a gross social faux paux, I don’t think anyone was rude.

No, the issue, the feelings, the emotions arose solely because there was this conversation in my living room, and I had nothing to contribute. There was a sort of almost irony in the conversation taking place 10 feet from my son’s ashes, there was a sort of strangeness that people who had been at my son’s funeral were talking about another baby, in my living room. It was that strangeness I was trying to reconcile.

In no way to I maintain that they shouldn’t have had the conversation. The conversation – about babies, about pregnancy, about birth – it was in every aspect normal. It was, in all ways, a socially normal sort of conversation.

One might ask “are there not conversations that happen in your house that you simply don’t know enough to take part in?” Oh, my yes. Mr. Spit has obscure engineering conversations, has obscure astronomy conversations. The issue, when you come down to it, is not actually that I couldn’t take part in the conversation. I don’t take part in Mr. Spit’s engineering conversations because I utterly lack the knowledge of what makes a bridge stay in the air or how one might build one. I suppose, were I particularly interested, I could ask questions, I could learn more.

To be fair, it’s not that I had nothing to contribute to that conversation in my living room. It’s rather more about not being cruel. Can you, for a moment, imagine, what a complete stranger might think were I to contribute my experience to the pregnancy conversation?

What have I to offer? That pregnancies go terribly wrong? That women and babies die? Shall I talk about a non medicated birth? Not because I wanted a non medicated birth, but because the risk of complications from my falling platelets made a section too dangers and the involvement of my Central Nervous System made an epidural impractical?

Shall I tell them about the first and last time that I held my son? Shall I talk about his first breath? Because if I do that, I have to talk about how it was the last one, I have tell this very pregnant woman about what it is like when your son dies in your arms. I have to tell her about when they take your husband and your mother into the hall way, so the doctor’s can tell them that it looks like their wife and daughter is going to die.  

That is at best, rude. More than rude, it is cruel. There is no need for it. There is no need to take my story and taint some one else’s story with it. It is kinder, more merciful to simply walk away.

Yes, as I walked away, I felt out of place in my own home. That was the heart of the issue – not that someone had mentioned pregnancy and childbirth in front of me, but that I did not see how I could contribute to the discussion, that I could not tell my own story, in my own home.

No, the situation with my friend is different. For the record, I like it when people tell me that they are pregnant. I celebrate with them. Pregnancy is one of the chief good things in the world, watching someone have a child is evidence to me of the great goodness that still exists in the world. My own sorrow and sadness do nothing but make the experience, that moment in which a whole new being is born – all the more remarkable.

But yes, when they didn’t tell me (or anyone), and they did it as what was effectively a joke – they wanted the suprise – the reaction of people annoyed that this was hidden from them – it hurt.  It was not the telling or the not telling, it was the way it inhibited us from being part of their community.  I will maintain that they limited our ability to be in a community. It was, of course, their right. But it still was not a choice I would have made. It was still a choice that caused me some hurt.

Whether they had told us or not, they would have moved to a different country with the birth of their son. It is always a sad thing when people move. Being able to celebrate that move, to be a part of the send off as it were, that would have made the move easier.

Returning to the question – do I want my friends to tell me about their fertility – oh my, when you are my friend – please yes. Let me rejoice with you in the wonder that is a baby. Let me delight in the changes, let me celebrate with you.

And as a knitter – please, give me a bit of notice. I have been scrambling to finish the baby sweater ever since. It’s been a bit stressful.

I suppose there are two problems with the situation.

The first is a bit more straight forward. I have a colleague, one I would have called a friend, and his partner was pregnant. The first I found out about it was when he posted baby pictures on facebook.

This, when I had coffee with him 2 weeks before. I’ve have coffee with him a fair bit. We talk about personal stuff. He didn’t say a word. I am not alone, this is not a comment on my fertility status. No one knew. I guess, for whatever reason, they didn’t tell anyone. I was, by no means, the only person caught unaware.

This, like all things in our lives, is their right. We get to tell or not tell anyone about our lives. I will not ask him why he didn’t say anything – it seems to me that there is a fundamental violation of his right to keep secrets when I ask him to defend it. Either it was his right or it wasn’t.

Still, there remains hurt. Why not tell? Why not share such a monumental thing? Did he think we or I would condemn? Did he think we would be anything other than happy for him?

We all live in communities. Community of family, community of friends. It seems to me, from this nexus, we celebrate and rejoice; we mourn and we renew hope. We form our own countries from this community. When you shut others out from this process, when you choose to hold it as a secret, well, it makes me, and likely the rest of us, wonder what we mean or don’t mean to you.

I would lie to you if I told you that watching my friends make the passage to parenthood doesn’t hurt, just a bit. As time has gone by, it is less about what they have and what I don’t. It is not about grieving someone getting something that I so dearly wanted.

No, the issue becomes one of almost abandonment. Most of our friends have children. This must needs mean that their lives are very different than ours. It means that we live in a constant sort of structural tension – the very sort of tension that I spoke about last week. The sort of tension that means that we get left out of conversations and eventually left out of lives.

I would grieve – not the dog in the manger, but that friends that we once had so much in common with now leave us, their lives will move and stretch and grow in an entirely new direction.

I see it in the facebook status updates – about the baby, a life that has shrunk to revolve around this tiny and wonderful creature who will dominate their lives for years to come. It is not wrong that this should be so. No, it is exactly as it should be.

But gone, oh gone are so many things. You, my friend have left me for another country. I’ll visit, and perhaps you will come and see me in the country that I live in. They will be just visits though. We had the companionship of next door neighbours and now we become ambassadors – moving in a dance as ritualized and as fraught with opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding as any diplomatic exchange.

Perhaps, perhaps if he had only told me, told any of us, perhaps then we could have sent him off to that country sooner, in our minds. Perhaps other people, parents, could have had the joy of welcoming him to their country. I could have thrown him a good bye party. It would not have changed a thing about that second solitude. I have to remain in the country I am in.

Such would have been the power of community – a shared country- for one last time, with one foot in each country, we could have affirmed, celebrated, rejoiced.

I could have stood on the border, watched him pack his bags and cross the checkpoint. I could have waived goodbye.

That second solitude would have been less lonely.

We had 8 couples over for our Marriage Group on Saturday because it was our turn to host. What turned into 17 people was far, far too many for our house. I found it, to be frank, quite overwhelming. There were people everywhere. I, who am a good hostess just wanted to run away. I wanted people to leave. There were too many people jammed into my living room, into my dinning room. For the individual discussions, there were people literally crammed into every room. There was a couple on folding chairs in my bathroom, for cripes sake.

And then, there was the moment. After the talks and the discussion, we usually have a bit of food, mix and mingle. One of the new couples, or I guess one  half of the new couples was a very pregnant woman. It was a bit of a shock to have her in my house. We have had a great many people over, but in truth, I don’t think we have had a pregnant woman in our house since Gabe. It’s not by design, it just hasn’t worked out that way.

No, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was when I came into the living room to mingle, and they were all gathered around her, talking babies and birth and pregnancy.

I’m not angry, I’m not sad. I guess I’m bewildered. In the north east corner of my living room, on my couch. 10 feet away from my dead son’s ashes, his photo and his stuffed bunny, close to all of that, was a conversation that I couldn’t join in.

I had nothing to contribute. I had nothing to say. I walked over and checked on the male guests. Made sure there was enough food. Took empty plates to the kitchen.

In my living room, on my couch. In the place that I have withdrawn to, my place of retreat. My sanctuary and my solace. The one place I have always, always, always felt safe, there was this conversation and I wasn’t welcome.

People talk about children all the time. They talk about every aspect of it. It’s fine, out there in the world. Oh, sometimes it makes me feel left out. Ok, almost always it makes me feel left out. Sometimes the tone, the words, the overwhelming sentiment makes me feel less than a women with children.

But my house? My house is the one place I should fit in. My house is the one place that I am welcome everywhere I go. It’s mine. It’s ours. We have created this place of haven and refuge and rest.

Except not. Well, at least not on Saturday night. Even here. Even in my own home, I, my life, my experience and my stories weren’t welcome.

I don’t quite know what to do with that, to tell you the truth.