He knows

Ladies, Mr. A has finally felt it.

Yesterday, I got a text from the wife of one of Mr. A's friends. We don't hang out with them often because our lifestyles are pretty different. Here is what I've written about them before:

It's interesting how hubby's deal with infertility, especially failures of significant cycles. A guy we know here (late 50ish) and his wife (late 30ish) are also going through treatments. They, fairly regularly, smoke cigarettes and something-different-than-cigarettes-if-you-get-my-drift, polish off bottles of wine per person, make enough j.ello sh.ots to satisfy an entire fra.t house, drink enough at home to cause passing out on their front porch, and drink enough at a bar to cause a yelling match in the parking lot followed by a poor decision to drive home. All while romantically professing that it is their deepest desire to have a child together. You know, just the people whose first IUI (fairly recently) will be wildly successful. They are having a party coming up, the day after they find out if their IUI worked. We have gone to their parties before (and have chosen coke instead of ya.ger, of course). I told Mr. A that I don't mind going, but he said without equivocation that he doesn't want to go because it will be right after they find out and he doesn't want to be there either outcome. Struck me as a demonstration of how guarded he actually is when it comes to others trying, especially others who have no apparent regard for trying to be as healthy as possible through all of this.

So anyway, the wife says she wants to have us over for dinner. I mentioned this to Mr. A when he called on his way home from work. He goes, "well, um, well, maybe I should tell you when I get home."

Oh. My. Godsh.

They are due in April.

Mr. A found out about a month ago when my college friends were trying to kill me, and he thought (pretty wisely so) that I couldn't handle this on top of that. He knew I would be really upset. And he was right. I cried some loud, sad tears before he arrived home last night. I felt very clearly that God hates me.

But for the first time (that I know about), he is hurt and angry, too. He said "I can be happy for anyone else, even your (w)itchy friends. But the only thing I feel when I look at him is anger. They are the most undeservingest people, and yet they can go have a baby."

Sigh. Mr. A is normally not a person who gets angry, so for him to feel this way, I know he is hurting big time.

It's not that I want my husband to feel the same anguish that I do almost every time I field a pregnancy announcement, but I think he finally understands how it is so much easier said than done to "just be happy for them" when you feel, for a variety of reasons, that there is no reason why they should have been able to make a baby- or at least your prayers should have been answered first.

We talked about this crappy situation the entire walk with the dogs. And while we were making dinner. And while we were eating dinner. It was so nice to have a conversation about how much this hurts. I told him that "there must be some amazing stuff coming down the pipe for us after this", except, in the heat of the moment, I didn't say "stuff", if you get what I mean.

I also decided that if we want to buy any sort of thing (as long as we can afford it), my reason is going to be that "obviously we aren't going to have to pay for college". Ha!

We will be okay. We talked about lofty goals of setting up a college scholarship fund for a high schooler in our area, or maybe getting on the board at the food bank or something. We have to figure out how our lives are going to mean something, when everyone else but us are being validated by having kids.

But hell if we are going to their house for dinner. Neither of us can handle that. Unfortunately for them, our weekends are filled up with appointments that aren't scheduled yet ;-)