Good news and bad news

I heard from a few different friends yesterday, some good news and some bad. A very good friend of mine who miscarried at 13 weeks earlier this year, is now 13 weeks pregnant. I suspected that there might be an announcement in the offing, as she has disappeared off the face of the earth for the past six weeks. I have to say that I am over the moon for her and her husband, and usually when I hear that kind of news I always feel the stab of jealousy. But not for her, she has been through the mill. I rang her yesterday and had a big long chat. She has been absolutely petrified ever since she found out, and she was convinced that there would be no heartbeat when she had her first scan. I can totally identify with what she was going through. On my third pregnancy, the one that lasted longest, I went through 5 weeks of sheer heart in the mouth fear. Pregnancy after pregnancy loss is stressful beyond belief, and no amount of people telling you to relax is going to help. Anyway, she has had her first scan, is pretty much out of the woods at this stage and is beginning to calm down. I really wish her all the best.



A couple of weeks back I was looking on a school reunion type website, and I noticed a profile update from an old school friend of mine with whom I have sporadic contact. The gist of it was that she had got married a couple of years back and in her words "sprog due in September". When I read it, I thought there's another one beating me to it, as she hadn't even met her husband when we were booking our wedding. Anyway, the nicer person in me (as opposed to my bitter alter ego!) dropped her a note to say congrats on the wedding and impending arrival, and I just told her what has been happening with us. I didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks, so the thought crossed my mind that maybe something was up. My hunch was right. Got a mail from her last night saying that the baby had arrived six weeks early, weighing in at 4.5lb, but that she was home now and doing well. Not only that, but they had gone through one miscarriage, clomid, ovarian hyperstimulation and IUI to have her. Justs goes to show, you can't take it for granted that there hasn't been a struggle behind somebody's good news.



Onto the bad news. Someone else close to me rang last night. Her younger brother, who is in his early 30's, recently married and due to become a father for the first time later this year, has been diagnosed with MS. He isn't showing much symptoms of having any kind of degenerative form of the disease at the moment, but who knows what the future holds. I remember when I heard of his wife's pregnancy getting that old familiar stab of jealousy that accompanies pregnancy announcements from newly weds. It just really puts all of this in perspective. Now all I can think is God help them.