The Nightmare Scenario

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 28 March 2008 21:51:46

Which I get to play out every couple of days.

The scene: in town or similar, bump into an acquaintance I haven't seen in a while.

Her: Ooooh! Look at you! I didn't know you were expecting! How exciting!
Me: Oh, yes, I guess I haven't seen you for a while.
Her: Oooh! How exciting! When are you due?
Me: July - a couple of weeks after S (the friend through whom I vaguely know this person)
Her: Ooh, how lovely! You'll have little ones together!
Me: Yes.
Her: So what will the age gap be between Groover and this one?
Me: Three and a half years.
Her: Ooh! That's great, a really nice gap - I bet he's looking forward to having a little sister or brother!
Me: Yes, a few friends with the same sort of gap have said they found it works well.

At this point (so far in each case) something has happened to stop the conversation (a bus or husband has arrived, someone realises they're late, a child has distracted us, etc). But it's a tricky one. There are three categories of people in this scenario - the ones I'm obviously going to put in the picture (most of them already know), the ones I'm not (I hardly know them, it's just bus-queue conversation or similar) and the ones where I just can't work out which of the preceding two categories they fall into so I chicken out and don't say anything.

I do have to keep reminding myself that I don't HAVE to tell people stuff if I don't want to, or if I just don't feel up to going through the whole tale again right now. The worst thing is that I know that at some point the person I met today is going to have a coffee with our mutual friend and say 'I saw birdie, I didn't know she was pregnant - and due the same sort of time as you!', and then S will tell her what's happening, and she'll be mortified!

I often find myself feeling very sorry for the person I'm telling, when I do tell people. I mean, who knows what to say in this situation? I know I don't, and I'm one of the people it's happening to! Also, a lot of my friends seem to be pregnant at the moment (a few weeks ago at toddlers there were more pregnant mums than not - it was wierd), and it's hard in particular to tell them. If they're early on and haven't had scans etc yet you can see them go a bit pale and think 'please don't let this happen to me' - and then feel bad for thinking it - although it's a perfectly reasonable response. Those who are further on tend to feel guilty if they are having a straightforward pregnancy - which is bizarre but sort of kind!

A switch flipped a bit in my head the other week though when I realised that I don't have to talk about it if I don't want to. (Says she, spewing it onto the internet.) I tend to feel, if people are asking how I am, and really caring, I have to say something to them - but actually I don't - it's perfectly legitimate to say 'actually, I don't want to talk about it right now', and if they have a problem with that, that's their problem. It was quite a liberating realisation, that!