Membership Revoked

That's honestly what I feel like on most days. I sat at a baby shower for a friend last weekend (I know, super brave... did not happen without self pep-talks, my supportive friend Liz, and plenty of crying later and with every ounce of my being holding back emotion) and had so many thoughts rushing in my head:

• I'm no longer relate-able with moms. I'm back to square one. No babies, not even pregnant.
• As she opened presents, other moms in the room said, "{baby item} is so great. You're going to use it so much when the baby comes." No, no I didn't use any of it when my baby came. Not even a diaper.
• Somehow I went from an expectant mother with full rights, privileges and similar interests to completely kicked out of the club with no warning. 
• All that baby magazine/book reading, internet researching for safe products, are all null and void of purpose.
• Instead of the mom club, I joined the dead baby club. With a massive pay cut.
• I have no expertise to offer on baby products, services, or caregiving.
• I have a bunch of unused baby products locked away in a room collecting dust.
• I just got behind in the race. Okay, I know it's not a race (except against me and my biological clock), but if you didn't lose a baby, you plain just don't understand. Jealousy is there. It's there because I should be at the same point in "line" as my friends who have a child. I should have my own. I shouldn't be concerned about having another baby so soon after giving birth and all the agony that goes with that (Yes, agony. Pregnancy is no longer blissful.). I feel like I lost the race. Not only lost, but was disqualified.
• I gave birth in the same year as my best friend but there's no lasting proof of my efforts. Our sons will never be friends like we hoped. No proof except for that stupid linea negra that is still adorning my abdomen. And someday that will be gone too.
• I have no idea what it's like to strap my child into a carseat.
• I have no idea which breastpump works better or even how to use one.
• When she received the same car mirror I had purchased for Andrew, I wondered what it would've felt like to look in my rear view mirror and see my child sleeping (or even better, looking at me!) through their own mirror. That must feel so amazing.

While I was in the teacher's lounge yesterday sitting across from a very pregnant woman, I thought to myself how she'll be a mom before me. She'll get to experience all those firsts I never got to experience before me and I used to be so much further ahead. Then conversation started as it always does, but this time I was just a bystander:

teacher #1: {hands cookies to pregnant woman. Tries to get her attention.} Hey Mama.
teacher #2: She isn't used to hearing that since she's never been called Mama before {says her name}.
pregnant woman: Huh? Oh, no thanks.
teacher #2: You've never been called Mama before, I was just telling her {points to teacher #1}.
pregnant woman: No, not yet! {smiling ear-to-ear with hopeful anticipation}

Add hearing "mama" to one more thing that I'll never get to experience (with Andrew) and something I'll have to wait a lot longer to hear (from any child) than all those friends who I was pregnant with in 2010. You know, all 10 of them I know who gave birth in that month alone... that very cold, very harsh, very sad December 2010.

Back to the starting line hoping I get my chance next year and my membership isn't revoked anymore.