The mother of all denial

Ok, so it turns out that the thing that has possibly most upset me since last Wednesday's NT verdict and subsequent D&C is actually the hour-long phone conversation with my mother this morning (as they are driving through Maine back home.) It was an extremely pleasant conversation in almost all respects: I was excited to hear about their stay with friends on a remote island in northern Maine, their trip to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and she was excited to hear about my MIL and SIL's visit, our parties on Saturday; our house sale closing tomorrow and so on. But, not once did she say "and how are you doing? are you feeling ok?" Nope. Not a single reference to the news I gave them last Friday night on the phone that we'd lost their grandchild at 12w6d due to a gross (probably) chromosomal and physical abnormality. I very obliquely referred to it once toward the end of the hour (as I was realizing I was now running late for getting out to my spinning class) when I talked about my previously mentioned plan of maybe spending the last week of August at their lake cottage - and said something like "depending on what we're doing by then."

Why am I so upset? I know - and I know for sure - that my mom cares deeply about me and about what we went through last week. In fact, I imagine that they (she and my Dad) are pretty upset themselves that this didn't happen for us - and can even see my way to putting myself in her shoes and imagine she was thinking, 'well, I'm really upset about this and I don't want to make my daughter upset about this so I'm not going to say anything.' And if I were to call my sister right now (as I so desperately wanted to just minutes after the call - but realized it was mostly to selfishly whine about my mother) she would say, 'you know, H, this is just how mom is. And you know that she really does care.' And, of course, she'd be right.

And, being really truthfully honest with myself and with you, I know that I'm the same way. I will always, always regret my actions of about 12 years ago when my good friend discovered not terribly long after he'd been married (and I was a bridesmaid in his wedding) that he had testicular cancer. And I didn't call. I didn't call and say, "how are you? how are you feeling? what can I do for you?" I was so terrified that I'd call and not know what to say or I'd say the wrong thing. I think I sent an email. And maybe a card in the regular mail. I never called and talked to him on the phone. He apparently forgave me and I've seen him a couple of times since then when he's been back on the east coast a couple of times (including at our wedding) and one time when my parents and I were on the west coast and we visited him and his wife. And I know he came through it and is essentially cancer-free. But, I still regret having stuck my head in the sand and not called him; because I was afraid of upsetting him; because maybe I was afraid of upsetting myself.

So, maybe the thing that really has upset me the most about my mom's sticking-head-in-sand move this morning is that I might be the exact same way. And right now, I want to beg my husband tonight to never, ever let me do this to my child. To never, ever call them 4 days after they've lost the only baby they've been able to carry this far and not ask them one time how they're feeling.

I know what he's going to say too, 'why don't you call your mom and tell her how you're feeling?' Yeah, but that would be against the B family way. Ok, I know I should. Else I'll just be burying this in the sand myself.

On the other hand, why can't I just let it go? Why does it hurt so much? I know my mom does care. I think I have perspective about this whole incident by being able to put myself in her shoes. So, why does it still upset me? Some of it may be selfish: I feel like I just want to crawl into my mom's bed and cry and cry and cry with her over this terrible thing that's happened to us (kind of like the time I crawled into their bed at the lake and cried and cried with her sitting there over the boyfriend whom I'd left after 2 years when he didn't want to move on and get married.) I just want my mommy. And, I guess the only way she's going to know that is if I tell her. But, it hurts to have to do so.