The Leper at the Christening

I feel very sorry for any friend of mine or any member of my social circle at the moment. I am super sensitive and it seems that by mentioning our pregnancy loss people upset me, but I also get upset when they don't mention it. Mr W's best friend and his wife had a little boy in October and they decided to get him christened in January. And they decided not to tell us. The first I heard was from another mutual friend telling me about it as they were due to attend on Sunday. I was devestated that we had not been invited. A million reasons went round my head but I felt like the leper that no one wants at their family events. After all, why would they want to be reminded of loss and sadness on their child's special day? And I of course currently am loss & sadness personified. Mr W called his best friend who avoided mentioning the christening until Mr W mentioned it himself. At first the excuse went that the event was too quickly organised for us to find time in our 'busy schedules' and then when Mr W said we would make time for this important event, the christening was so 'low key' that they didn't think to invite us. So it was the most low key christening that even the best friend of the father was not invited. Mr W came off the phone and cried. Seeing a man cry is always heart-wrenching, even more so when it is the man you love and you can't do anything to take away the hurt. His best friend was lying to him, and doing so because of something we had suffered that was not our fault. It felt like a double punishment. Not only did we lose our precious babies but we were also set to be the lepers of any social occasion for the foreseeable future.

Mr W, being a man, did not want to confront the issue further. They had their reasons for not inviting us but we were not to delve any further into them. So I did what most women would do. I text the wife of Mr W's best friend. I told her we were upset that we weren't invited, that we would have loved to have been there, and that we were still able to share in their happiness despite what had happened to us. I did not get a reply but Mr W received a very quick phone call from his friend who quickly confessed all. The REAL reason they had not invited us was because they did not want to put us through any more pain. They thought it would be too soon for us to be able to happily take part in such a day. So their hearts were in the right place, despite the fact that honesty really would have been the best policy. So we forced ourselves an invitation when really I would have liked the opportunity to decide for myself if I was strong enough to attend. But after such a fuss, we could hardly turn round and not go!

I have to say I am glad I did. The baby was beautiful and no one can be hurt by the joy in a child's smile. I made it through the whole day without a repeat of the baggage hall sobbing although there was a particularly hairy moment when the vicar compared the care of the church to a new member to the care a mother's body gives her baby during pregnancy. The care I was unable to give my precious little ones. So I squeezed Mr W's hand and I took a few deep breaths and I tried not to delve into the part of my mind that already blames my body for failing in its task. Because it does seem that view is shared by others. My mother-in-law gave me strict instructions that 'when' (not her use of 'when' and not 'if'!) I get pregnant again I am not to paint, stretch, lift anything because I obviously did too much of that this time in order to lose my babies. And my thoughts went back to the performance of Willy Russell's Blood Brothers that Mr W had booked to cheer me up after my depressive January state. Those familiar with the play will know that the heroine of the piece is Mrs Johnstone, who already has 7 children when she finds herself pregnant with twins after her husband has left. Mrs Lyons, the woman who adopts one of the twins in a secret bargain, ends up going mad, attempting to stab Mrs Johnstone, & betraying her adopted son's relationship with his brother's wife. Mrs Johnstone on the other hand always manages to do the best she can for her children. Now while some people may argue that Willy Russell's distinction between the two women is to do with social class, I can also see that the heroine is the woman that can have more children than she can afford to feed but still endlessly love each & every one; while her counterpart cannot have even one child of her own and seems incapable of anything but smothering & manipulating her adopted child.

Of course it seems natural in a society that needs to recreate itself that the woman who has a body that can successfully carry children is obviously of greater value than the one who can't. And it makes me painfully sad that mine is, to date at least, a body that can't. It's not my fault, in the same way that it's not my fault I have to wear contact lenses, but still it's something that makes you feel incredibly sad. And envious of all those women with the bodies that do work & envious of the praise they get for their nurturing ability. I wish I had it. If I could earn/create/grow/learn it I would do everything in my power to achieve it. But, like perfect vision, I can't. And I wonder if Sunday's christening was a sign of things to come. Will I always be the childless woman: the leper at the party?