The things that are lost when one is unable to conceive...

Well, another niece just had a baby boy this morning. I hope I get a turn at some point.

Jeepers, I'm a great-aunt 4 times over, and I'm not even a mother yet.

I will have to send a gift by mail (thank God, we live too far away to be immersed in the celebrations), if I can stand to go shopping for a baby present.

I have gone to only a few baby showers in my life. Since I've been TTC since I was 24 (and I'm nearly 30 now), all of these women in my life have been procreating on and on, while I've been at the sidelines. I avoid them like the plague - I just don't go, and I make up some lame excuse. I don't send a gift, either, because I can't bear to be constantly in the baby section of Wal-Mart: we have huge families, so babies are always coming and coming. (I've dropped all of my female friends, basically, because the baby thing was too much for me, too.) I don't tell anyone why, or make any apologies, because I have to protect myself.

I'm regretful and embarrassed, though, when I think about the possibility of my own baby shower in the future. There won't be one. I have pretty much no friends left, and almost no extended family (that's a long story, but my mom's family is too huge for anyone to really know each other anymore, and my dad's family is poisonous). So who would come to a shower for me, especially since I didn't go to any for them?

I'll make a list: my mom, my mother-in-law, my brother's wife, at least three of my four sister-in-laws, my one married female friend who has no kids, and her mom. And maybe one of dh's (single and childless) female friends. None of my cousins, and certainly none of my former friends. After all, I didn't go to their showers or send gifts or even have the courtesy to RSVP.

Very sad, I tell you. Especially since I used to have a lot of good female friends. It would be humiliating, actually, to have such a sparsely populated room for a baby shower. I'd be grateful for all the attendees, of course, but I miss my gal pals.

I don't want a shower, anyway. If/when I get knocked up, I will be too paranoid about losing the pregnancy to want any material baby items hanging around, just in case. I'm not superstitious, but in that case, I would feel that the baby things would be a harbinger of bad luck.

But I'll still feel self-conscious about my lack of female friendship.

The things that are lost when one is unable to conceive...