Staff (Pity) Party

Last night was our start-of-year staff party. We do this at the beginning of each school year, just to get re-acquainted and blow off some steam from the first week. We all tend to push a little hard in the first week to make it great, so we need to blow off steam. This year we decided as a staff to go to the home-opening football game for our highschool team. It was a good game, and our boys killed the competition. After the game I had two of my students come running up to me to ask "did you see that kick I made?" "What about that block in the second quarter". So cute.

The game was going great, and then my coworker's wife showed up... with their two month old baby. *sigh* Now, I want to be overjoyed for them. I want to be the person to rush over and tell them how cute their baby is... he is by the way! I want to hear all about the new diapers that she found that when the baby is wet the line on the diaper turns from white to blue. I want to hear it all... but I can't. I looked over when she came and sat down and I felt like my heart was in my stomach. I started to tear up, and nearly left the game to go sit in the car and cry... but I didn't. I stuffed those emotions deep down inside and started to focus intently on football. Just when I thought I was ok, I looked over at the person next to me as they were saying something, and I saw the baby's little toes peeking out of the stroller... again, my heart felt like it had dropped and I felt ready to cry. Over fucking toes!!

I managed to get through the game, and then we went over to our secretary's house for a potluck and bonfire. It was a fun time. Lots of laughs. The moment that my boss said he was going to pee himself in one of the lawnchairs because then whoever owned it would have to give him the chair... well that was priceless!

However, of course my coworker and his wife and baby showed up to the potluck. I don't blame them for coming - it was his staff gathering too. I don't harbour any ill-will toward them. They are lucky to have three beautiful babies and not have any trouble having them. I'm not angry toward them, I'm jealous, not angry. Now, before anyone says that maybe they have problems too, I know that's not true. All three of their kids (all under the age of 4) have been born at the beginning of July. I mentioned to my coworker that that was great timing since school is out for the summer. He just looked at me and said "well yeah, that's why we planned it that way". So obviously no problem getting pregnant there.

Anyway, naturally the baby was the centre of the party for a while - that's fine. But then the older women started talking about how they had had their babies and it was time for us younger ones to start. Right away, I had three women saying "hurry up... you're next. when are you going to have one??". I just wanted to shout out "I'm infertile ok? You just made me feel like shit!! Are you happy??" But I didn't. I looked right back at the 24-year-old who was bugging me about it and said "me?? what about you??" She said, "yeah, in five or six years laughing". I knew that I could put it back on her because she had told me during the summer that they had decided to wait a few years before trying because they wanted to get settled first. I turned to someone else and started talking about something else before I had to leave in tears. The librarian looked at me and smiled - she asked me earlier this summer if I was going to be going on mat leave in the next year. I just told her "I hope so, but we've been trying for two years, so we'll see". So she kind of knew that the conversation was hard on me.

Anyway, the rest of the party went off without too much trouble. I left still feeling sorry for myself. I cried on the way home. I wanted to just crawl under a rock and die. I've been feeling all day sorry for myself and wondering why that couldn't be me sitting there with a baby in my arms. My husband tries to be supportive. He said "just think, maybe, next year, it will be you sitting there with a baby under a blanket. Yeah, maybe.

On the upside, my temp spiked a LOT today, so hopefully it stays high and my body is starting to realise what it is supposed to do.