They say we have an unlimited capacity for memories for an infinite period of time. This is both a blessing and a curse.
I remember the first, loneliest weeks of my first pregnancy and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It makes my skin tingle. It makes my eyelids heavy. Pregnancy, specifically the as-yet-unannounced kind, is so very lonely. There?s only you and the shark-infested pregnancy message boards of the Internet to turn to.
You can have a loving and understanding partner who just gets it. You can be surrounded by people and and still feel very much alone. No one knows, but your clothes are tight, you?ve gained weight, you?re suffering from bone-crushing fatigue and often you?re so nauseous you just want to lie on a cool, tiled floor all day. On the subway, you think it?s blatantly obvious that you?re nine weeks pregnant and you need a seat?it feels so very real to you, but not to anyone else. Those stressful nine months yielded a nine-pound baby boy with grey eyes and a hairy back who instilled in me a sense of great pride for what I could do and of great failure for what I could not. I was supported in my accomplishments, but I couldn?t reconcile them with the things I couldn?t do or wasn?t good at. The loneliness of that first trimester bled into the ?fourth trimester? and I longed for a safe place to go for more information. Ten days after my son?s birth I learned that he had a rare disease and would be developmentally delayed. I wanted camarade...