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I'm Jealous of Pregnant Women — And I'm Totally Ashamed of That

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From Redbook

By the time I reached my twenties, I was sure I’d left jealousy and envy as firmly in my past as I’d left high school, beer bongs, and men who wore tie-dye.

As a grown-up, those emotions became a waste of time and energy. Wanting something just because someone else had it was as ridiculous as wondering why I’d never get to date Dylan McKay.

And then I started trying to get pregnant. Then I had the experience of many months of not being pregnant.

And now they’re back.

Let me give you some context. I’m new to this making a baby thing. And while it hasn’t been that long (less than a year), it also didn’t happen right away. I’m the first to admit that each month that I still get my period, I become a new kind of neurotic weirdo, even though I swear I’m not a neurotic weirdo in real life.

I’m also on the older side. At 35, one of my doctors already referred to me as a “geriatric” mother. I hate that guy.

Here’s something no one tells you until you are trying to get pregnant: Pregnant women are everywhere. I never knew there were so many pregnant people in the world. But the second you decide you’re ready to make your own small human, they’re unavoidable. There’s a cute sporty pregnant woman jogging next to me when I run in the morning. The checkout clerk in the express lane at Trader Joe’s is pregnant and so is the teller at my bank and the farmer with the heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market. My yoga instructor is still teaching yoga classes at five months pregnant. I thought I saw a pregnant dude the other day, but it turned out he just has a thyroid problem.

Part of me doesn’t even want to admit that I’m jealous of them (well, except for that guy with the thyroid problem). It feels shameful and immature and nothing like the me I was before I started trying to get pregnant.

Surrounded by all of these pregnant women, those long dormant emotions of envy and jealousy have found their way back into my life. I call it IPE - “Irrational Pregnancy Envy” - because it’s easier to give something that makes you feel uncomfortable a name, like FOMO or FUBAR or Tupperware.

I wonder, why not me?

I wonder about these women the way I’ve never thought about anyone in my life. What are they eating, what supplements are they taking, do they work out? Did they work out before they got pregnant? Did they ever accidentally drink a bottle of wine around ovulation time? Did they do all of the twists in yoga? Did they stop doing yoga? Do they do more yoga than I do?

I hate this pregnancy envy as much as I hate the doctor who called me a geriatric mother. It makes me feel icky and juvenile.

On bad days I get pissed. I’m not pissed at the pregnant women. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for them. Sometimes I feel it with a twinge of shame and begin to wonder if they’ve done everything right and I’ve done everything wrong.

I knew I was ready to have a baby for a lot of reasons - I met a really great guy who also wants to have babies, we’ve built a great life together. But one of the main reasons I felt ready is that I’ve reached a place in my life where I’m very comfortable with myself. After years of busting my ass professionally and doing all kinds of personal work to get happy in my own skin, I truly like myself.

That’s why I hate this pregnancy envy as much as I hate the doctor who called me a geriatric mother. It just makes me feel icky and juvenile. I know I’m better than this.

I also hate it because it’s irrational, and in other areas of my life I’m a wildly rational person. But what I’ve come to realize is that trying to get pregnant is one of the few times in your life when you can do all of the right things and it still might not work out for you. There’s no guarantee for success. And that’s what I tell myself when this feeling of IPE starts to sneak up on me.

I also try to remember that there isn’t a limited supply of fertility out in the universe. One person’s pregnancy doesn’t make it less likely that I’m getting pregnant. And, hey, if nothing else, this process is equipping me with a newfound patience that I’m sure will come in handy when I do have a toddler.

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