Dear Shifted Orbit:

Sorry, this was too long to fit in the comment box!

I think it’s natural for anyone, when faced with a new situation in their life, to seek out information from and camaradarie with people who are knowledgeable about that situation. And some situations are more unfamiliar and more all-consuming than others, plus some *people* are more apt to completely throw themselves into their new situation than others (think of bridezillas—some people, when they are planning a wedding, don’t get all hyper-focused on the details of the wedding and some people throw themselves into the planning like it’s an Everest expedition.).

Pregnancy is one of those situations, and I think it’s more likely to be all-consuming, even for generally reasonable people, than most things. First of all, you want to make damn sure you don’t do anything to screw it up because this is another person’s life you’re talking about, plus biologically your body makes sure this is not something you can forget for even a minute—you spend your first trimester feeling vaguely ill and unbearably sleepy ALL THE TIME, then someone starts kicking you from inside, then the third trimester is really odd because not only is your body taken over, which you’ve gotten used to by then, but your brain is too—it’s nearly impossible to focus on anything for more than a few minutes. And all the while, you’re also doing the equivalent of planning a wedding—rearranging your life and home so a baby can fit into it (making a decision about work, finding childcare, getting a bedroom ready, figuring out how you’re going to add the equivalent of a second mortgage into your monthly budget, etc.).

Think about life decisions that you’ve made that you knew would have a big impact on you—these are things you probably didn’t make a snap decision on, and they probably DID affect how you interacted with people (and who you interacted with). Even something like getting a dog—I’m sure there are some people who see a cute dog in a store and go in and buy it without thinking for a second what they are getting themselves into (these people are also the ones that tend to turn their puppies in to the rescue organizations after a while) but most people, and all reasonable people, are going to seek out information, so they will start talking to people who own dogs to find out about different breeds, and how to crate train, and how to find a good vet, and how much does it really cost, etc. And then they get a dog and spend months having to run home at lunch to let it out of the crate, and they take time off of work for vet visits, and they have less time in their days for other activities because they have to budget time for walking and grooming, and even have to get up earlier each day to feed the dog and let him outside for a while.

Switch that dog to a baby and you’ve got some idea of what’s going on with your friend—a baby is like a dog multiplied 100 times. Right now she’s in the information gathering phase so she’s seeking out people with the information she needs. And to make matters worse, pregnancy and childbirth are one of those topics of conversation that is just lots of fun to indulge in for people who have been through it or are planning to go through it. But it’s insanely boring for just about anyone else.

To give another analogy—say you, I, Amy, Katie, and Emily are sitting around talking and Katie asks about Ireland because she’s planning to honeymoon there. You and I and Amy have all been there and will be more than happy to go on at greath length not just giving advice but also just generally reminiscing, pulling out photos, and comparing notes. Emily has never been to Ireland and may want to go at some point, or maybe not, but in either case she doesn’t have a lot to add to the conversation so she’s going to feel left out and bored. Is the knowledge that she’s feeling left out going to stop our conversation? Eh, maybe. But if it does at that point, out of sensitivity to her feelings (maybe we know she really, really wants to go but her husband loathes the Irish so it’s a particularly sensitive topic. Daniel is kind of oddly controlling that way), we will probably find many opportunities when Emily isn’t around to talk about Ireland.

In addition to being all-consuming, and important (as in you don’t want to screw up), AND fun to talk about, it’s also a sensitive topic for many people and everyone knows that. When you get pregnant, you are happy and excited (one hopes) but you don’t want to hurt the feelings of people who you know might want to get pregnant but can’t for whatever reason or who recently had a miscarriage, so you are careful to limit your discussions, whenever possible, to people who you know will be receptive to the topic. If you include other people, it means you run the risk of both boring them and making them feel bad.

So this leaves you where you are—feeling bad anyway BECAUSE you are being excluded, which, of course, is also natural. Wait, what was the question again? Oh yeah, you want to know if this means that you’re out. Well, yes, but probably not permanently. If your friendship is based on real compatibility of personalities, it’ll live through this phase. Your friend sounds like she’s the sort of person who relies on other people for advice and support (I tend to rely more on fake people who live in my computer) and she needs advice and support on her pregnancy, so she’s getting it from people who can offer it. Depending on her personality (babyzilla(?) or not) her current hyper-focus might stick around forever (the boring SuperProfessionalMom sort who only identify themselves through their role as a mom and tend to lose sight of who they were before. I wonder what happens to these people when their kids leave home. Are they the sort of controlling mothers-in-law that you hear about?) or go away when she gets more balance in her life. But it’s very, very hard to maintain that balance during pregnancy and with a new infant (see the bit about all-consuming), so it may be a while. Be patient.

Your other question was how to deal with being the only one without offspring. This is part of a broader question that I think everyone deals with at some point in their lives—feeling like they are the only ones dealing with whatever situation they are dealing with, and it’s harder when it’s a Big Thing (instead of a silly thing, like being the only redhead in a classroom, or being the only Steelers fan in an office full of Ravens fans). I deal with this all the time with Connor and his issues. Now, obviously, I’m not the only mother of a kid with autism (although I guess it’s possible that I’m the only mother of a kid with autism and hyper-IgM syndrome, but I don’t know that), but among the people I talk to and interact with on a daily basis, none of them have kids with any serious disability. And it’s hard. I know people don’t mean to be hurtful when they talk about where their kids want to go to college or what they want to be when they grow up—these are normal conversations about normal kids and it’s not their fault that my child isn’t normal. And I know they don’t mean to exclude us when they plan activities that just would be torture with Connor. But logic and emotion rarely interact well. It’s at those times when I try to remember what a very wise man once told, well, not me but a whole crowd of people: you can’t control the things that happen to you. You can only control your response. My response, in this case, could be to try to surround myself with people with similar experiences—I could get a job with Kennedy Krieger and start going to the Autism Society support group meetings. Or I could try to make the people feel bad for bringing up the sensitive topic of what their kid wants to be when he grows up (“when he grows up he’ll probably live in a group home and not do much of anything. Remember when you wished your child could stay young forever? This is what it looks like. You think it’s such a good idea now?”). Or I could be realistic, understand that I live in the real world where I can’t hide myself from other people just because I’m not like them, and that most people are generally good and well meaning and understanding, and that I can’t change who Connor is and I have to live with that and not rail against it. Sometimes that means I can respond with humor (“as far as I know when he grows up he wants to be naked”), but mostly it means that I just let a lot of “normal” bypass me without too much input from me and without many hard feelings. I’ve got a lot of good stuff in my life (admittedly not this week) so I try not to get bogged down in the not-good stuff.

And you could do the same thing—you can respond by starting to hang around more with people without offspring, or be snide and constantly remind them of how much more free and easy your life is without kids (plus, no college to pay for!), or just keep doing what you’re doing—being flexible and understanding so that you are still good friends with these people in 10 or 15 years when their kids are teenagers and don’t have to be cared for as heavily as they do now so these friends can get their lives back! That’s the other thing about kids—while having them is all-consuming, the heavy work really is pretty temporary in the grand scheme of things.