I Don't Feel "Cat Safe"

When we knew Gretta was coming to the end of her life, I started researching other dog breeds, various rescues, and adoption agencies.  One of the things we learned while researching Greyhound rescue was how they determine if the former racing dogs are "cat safe."  A cat is placed inside a carrier in the same room at the dog, and it goes from there, introducing the cat to the dog in stages.

This is how I feel right now.  I feel like a Greyhound in the middle of a room full of cats, i.e., pregnant women.  Suddenly they're everywhere.  Completely unavoidable.  Standing in an elevator surrounded by several women on their way to their OB appointments last week, I started to sweat and shake.  I couldn't look at them, I couldn't look up from the floor.  On the way back down, I caught myself actually trying to close the elevator before another mom-to-be could catch it.  What is wrong with me?  Noah picked up on something in my reaction, and grabbed my hand, leaning into me the way he does when he needs reassurance.  I pulled Avery closer, still not able to look at the other woman, unable to look up from the floor, wanting to just dissolve into a puddle and cry.

Let me be clear, I am not in danger of hurting anyone.  That is not the point I'm trying to make here.  My rage and anger are not directed at the ones who will be good parents--I will admit to some jealousy, because otherwise I would be lying.  My point is that I just don't know how to act.  I know I need to be happy for them, I need to be joyful.  What I really want to say when I congratulate them is, "If I ever find out you've hurt that child, taken him/her for granted, or mistreated that child in any way, shape or form--I'll rip your uterus out and feed it to you."

Seriously.  I'm angry.  I need to stop reading the news.  I'm frustrated that these people who kill their children, exploit them, mistreat them--these people who make the news for their crimes--I'm angry that we were able to have children in the first place.  And what angers me even more in my situation is that they will eventually get out of prison (if they even make it there in the first place), or the psychiatric hospital,  or wherever, and they will go on to have more children. And they will hurt those children too.  People are getting away with too much, and they don't deserve these children to begin with.  Why does this happen?  I'm angry with them, and I'm angry with my body.  I'm angry with the women who take their fertility for granted, and the ones who waste the gifts they are given.

My kids are my center.  I love them.  No, I'm not perfect, and yes, I have things I will have to answer for, but overall, I feel like I've lived my life doing everything the "right" way.  I just want to know--WHY?  When I posed this question to my friend, along with admitting she doesn't know (not that I expect her to, I just need someone to hear me, and she does), she said, "Amy, because you're strong.  He knows you can handle this."  Well, I'm tired of being the strong one. I'm tired of having to handle 'it.'  I really am.  And what does that say about the people who mistreat their children--yes, they aren't strong, it's why they abuse their children in the first place--but why isn't more expected of them?  If this is strong, I don't want any part of it anymore.  On the other hand, I don't want to be the weakling who abuses her children and takes them for granted.  I just want to be the nesting, happy expectant mother.

And I know... God does not work that way.  Chances are good I won't get an answer, at least not in this life.  God does not work by lives lived well and good deeds.  Rewards don't happen the way we want them to, or the way we tend to think of them.  I can scream and cry "IT'S NOT FAIR" until I'm blue in the face, and while I'm right, there's nothing about life that starts out as fair.  Life isn't meant to be fair.

I will never understand why some people are allowed to have children, only to bring harm to them, while others who would make outstanding parents are never able to live that dream to fruition.  I do know that I have two things I can do with this anger--deal with it before it eats me alive and ruins the good in my life, or allow it to do just that.  I do know that I am blessed to have the two children I do have.  That's more than some can even hope for.