Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Are you jealous?

It's hard to see pregnant women around us, especially during the holiday season, especially if we've been trying to conceive for awhile.

One woman posted about her emotions at this time, on the Choice Mom discussion board, and here's the response of 46-year-old Morgan, mother of twins who is trying to add one more child to their family:


Your feelings are so normal and you're very much where I was at some years ago. I have an older sister who had three children and around the time I was thinking about becoming a choice mom, she got PG with twins - her 4th and 5th children. When I heard her news, I was twisted up with jealousy. It seemed so unfair that she was onto the 4th and 5th children, and was only 17 months older than me, but married for 17 yrs by then. By contrast, I was 4 yrs out of my last long-term relationship and desperate for a baby.

I felt sick and ill when she told me. At this time in my life, it seemed as if everywhere I looked, every woman I saw was PG or had children and none seemed to appreciate their children properly. My sister had a stay-at-home husband (she has a high flying career) and a nanny and parents-in-law and went back to work 2 days after she gave birth to her twins. She didn't seem to me to want them as much as I might have wanted children, and her husband hadn't wanted them at all.

It's a horrible feeling to be riven with jealousy. Focusing on wanting what another has can make you stagnate in those feelings of bitterness.

I chose instead to focus on what I could do for myself. And three years down the line, I ended up having my own twins, the day before I turned 38.

Set your sights on your own dream and pursue that goal as much as you can. I still have times when I feel jealous of other families where there's a partner, grandparents, and au pair supporting the family and I'm doing this completely on my own.

But then I see what happened to my sister's family....two years after she gave birth to her twins, she went through an acrimonious divorce. Her husband has refused further contact with the three older children and rarely sees the twins - now 11 - except when it's with the twins of his housekeeper/lover at the same time.

There's much I haven't got, but at least there's so much I HAVE, and my sons will never be torn apart by parents in conflict, which was both my own experience as a child and the experience of my sister's five children.

I don't think there will be a woman on this forum who hasn't felt that jealousy at a very visceral level. But my experience is that you can use the energy locked into that feeling to power your own journey towards your goal.

What about you? How have you channeled negative emotions into something positive?