Repeat: Pretending You’re Pregnant Makes People Truly Understand Breast Cancer
I am not writing my blog right now because I realized mid-August that it felt like a burden instead of a release. I am too sad, navigating the twins leaving for college. I scheduled these posts that day so the blog wouldn’t be empty, but I could pull back and use the time left with the twins. A cop-out, but forgive me. Having them go is really, really hard. I need mental space to feel what I am feeling, help the kids through the transition, and sit in the quiet for a moment on the other side.
A few friends announced their pregnancies this week. I was thrilled for them even though… you know… it stings. But genuinely thrilled nonetheless for them.
After this spate of pregnancy announcements, I saw a friend’s Facebook status later in the week. She wrote that she was 22 weeks and craving a Slurpee. And my heart literally froze as I read the words on the screen. I had just seen this friend a week earlier. She didn’t look pregnant, though I couldn’t remember what she was wearing. Had she been wearing something flow-y that could hide a pregnancy? Had she dropped hints? Did she try to tell me and I literally didn’t hear her? This wasn’t someone who was just sneaking into the second trimester, starting to tell people. She was 22 weeks along, closer to delivery than she was to conception.
I spent fifteen minutes combing back through the last few months of her blog, looking for a tiny clue that she was pregnant, seeing if I had missed something when I declared Google bankruptcy. There was nothing there.
But then I started wondering if all our other mutual friends knew. If they had known for weeks and had kept it from me. And I wondered if this friend saw me in the role of the broken bitch.
