Yeah, If You Could Tell Me When You're Having a Baby, I Won't Feel Like Such a Royal A-Hole

So I have this friend who lives on the other side of the country. We don't talk much, but I've thought of her as a good friend. We were roomates when we studied abroad 10 years ago. We went to each other's weddings.

She's an acupuncturist, and she treats infertility. When I first started seeing an acupuncturist, I consulted her. We talked about my problems. I told her when I started the blog. She sent a hurried message about three months ago, explaining her sister was getting married, she'd been busy, apologizing for not being in touch. I told her not to worry about it, to call me when she could. We usually have 1-2 hour phone sessions every 6 or 8 months, so this didn't seem like a big deal.

I'm no Facebook guru, but I am on Facebook. And so is she. And when I went on today, I got a notification that she had changed her profile picture. And for some reason I clicked on it. And there was a picture of this beautiful little baby. Her baby.

It felt like such a knife through the heart. Not only because of all the stuff I've just been through, but because this is my friend and she didn't tell me that she was having a baby. I mean, yeah, we live on opposite sides of the country, so I guess she could get away with not telling me, but why would she do that? She mentioned once feeling like she didn't want to make her patients feel bad, if she got pregnant, after they'd been struggling. I am guessing she didn't want me to feel bad either.

But I feel horrible. I feel like I missed the opportunity to see pictures of her pregnant and find out whether she wanted to do a natural birth and whether she was scared or liked being pregnant or hated it. I didn't get to find out how exciting it was to find out she was pregnant or whether she found out his gender ahead of time or whether she and her husband fought over names. I feel like she didn't love me or trust me enough to know that I'd be happy for her and I'd want to know and tell her what I told her, which is that he's beautiful. Yeah, it's hard and it sucks to not have a baby when it seems everyone else is, but I still love the people in my life that do. I still want to know about it. I still want to meet these new people in their lives, these people who mean everything.

And of course, we won't talk about this now. Not when she's just had a baby. She's too busy and she shouldn't be worrying about a random friend, from 10 years ago, hundreds of miles away. And not when I've just lost a baby, and couldn't possibly tell her.