The other unpleasant side effects.

Having a miscarriage is devastating. Emotionally, physically, all around. You are so close to attaining your goal - a family! - and it all comes crashing down around you.

What makes it worse is that everyone around seems to miraculously get pregnant. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of friends and acquaintances who are either pregnant or who have had babies in the last year. I have learned, the hard way, that it isn't always as easy as it seems and I try to keep that in perspective, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't frustrating. I've been a bit reticent to discuss this publicly, because I come off as bitter and a jerk, when it's not my intention - or my personality, I think! Anyone who has had difficulties with fertility will immediately recognize what I'm saying. Anyone who has been fortunate enough to not experience infertility, well, maybe this will help explain why someone wasn't as happy/excited/involved as you expected them to be. Making the best of what you've got sometimes meaning acknowledging the parts of yourself that you'd like to change for the better. This is one of those things for me.

While I am incredibly happy for everyone I know who has gotten pregnant, sometimes I feel like it is. So. Unfair! The childish part of me screams "stop hogging all the babies!" But the rational, adult side of me realizes that this is, well, not mean spirited, but at least ungenerous.

So if I have seemed a little less enthusiastic about your newborn or your pregnancy than you would have expected, I want to offer my sincere and deepest apologies. This time it really is me. Not you. It's not that I begrudged you your happiness, or felt that you were taking something from me. It's that the loss and absence was made all the more inescapable because of the presence in your lives. I'm much better about it because we are so terribly excited about adoption. Changing your focus works wonders for your psyche. I'm starting to get in to the groove of baby showers and gifts and names because I know we'll be there soon. Probably sooner than we expect.

Now that I've got some perspective, I really do want to say how happy I am for all of you who have had, or soon will have, new additions to your lives. I hope to join your ranks soon, but in the mean time, I'll dote and squee over your little misses and misters and be genuinely, ecstatically happy for you. There might even be a hand-knit baby sweater in your future.