Vicarious Happiness

My friend is pregnant! The one who has been going to the same fertility clinic as me. Back when I found out she was receiving fertility treatment too, I wrote that if only one of us could succeed, it should be her. And she's done it. She actually got pregnant just a couple of days after our heart-to-heart. When she told me today, I was so happy and excited I was jumping up and down. She's like a sister to me, and there's no one I know who's more deserving of the chance to be a mom. She's very worried that she'll miscarry and hasn't told anyone yet, besides her husband and mother. But I have this joyful, calm certainty that it will all be just fine.

I wish I was pregnant too. (Duh. That's like the duh statement of the year.) The day that I ovulated all on my own, back at the beginning of July, was the same day that I knew she was having her IUI, and I had this wild hope that we would both get pregnant on that same day and go through the whole experience side by side. I imagined raising our babies together and having them be like siblings, or at least cousins.

Now that she's succeeded, and I haven't, I feel like I'm watching her run away down a racetrack while I got left at the starting gate. I should be running down that track too. It feels wrong that I'm still stuck here and can't, due to various factors, even start my own treatment for two more months.

I was genuinely, thoroughly happy for her for about three hours, with not even a flicker of anything else - and the joy of her pregnancy was on my mind continuously during that time. But then around midafternoon I started to feel a sadness creeping up on me. I ought to just be simply happy for her. It's stupid to feel that twinge of sadness and envy. It'll be my turn eventually, I hope. But I want it now.

It's almost as though the universe was listening when I made my bargain that if only one of us could get pregnant, it should be her. Well? the universe is saying. You got your wish. And I feel greedy and selfish all over again because even though she did get pregnant, I want to be too.