Someone Else’s Unanswered Prayers

Today, CC told me that he and his wife are expecting a baby.  They had not been trying, it had just happened.  They are still in the shock and not-quite-sure-what-to-make-of-this time.  So, CC is caught between worry and delight.  He’s worried, because his wife recently quit her job, he is working a low-paying assistant job, and they are both living with his mother.  By all accounts they don’t have their life together.  They don’t even really have a plan.  He is naïve and unaware, and she is immature and ignorant.  Neither have a clue as to what they are getting into, what it is going to cost, or how it will change their lives.

Before they got married, I was having a conversation with CC about his choice for a potential mate.  I remember sitting in the parking lot of the library, enjoying a pleasant day in Missouri and watching a constant stream of patrons going back and forth between the stone building.  CC told me that his fiancé did not want to have children, because she was afraid of what it might do to her body.  This single statement raised multiple red flags to me. 

CC had always wanted children, lots of them in fact.  If I remember correctly, he always dreamed of having nine.  And the one person he picks to spend his life with wants none.  Not to mention her reasoning for not wanting them seemed selfish and self-centered.  This was not a woman that was going to be looking outside herself and caring for others.  This was a woman that wanted to be taken care of…period.  And lastly, it showed me that they really didn’t know each other.  They were rushing into something without really thinking it through or praying about it.  They were tired of waiting and desperate for marriage, so they rushed into the closest proximity, instead of waiting for the ideal.

All of this came back to my mind, as CC was telling me about their upcoming addition.  But occupying the other half of my brain was the thought that this is so unfair.  My wife and I desperately want children, and we can’t have them yet.  CC and his wife aren’t even trying, and it happens for them.  We have been so blessed, that we are in the perfect place to welcome a child into the world.  CC and his wife are in a state of complete disarray at the moment.  This seems so illogical that it is ludicrous.  I want to be happy for my friend, and I am happy for my friend, but I am also jealous.  He has the thing I want.

And the saddest part is that after almost six years of marriage, CC’s wife has not changed her viewpoint on children.  She still doesn’t want them.  She’s still worried about her body image.  When I asked CC how she was taking this news, he said that she’s struggling with it.  He added that she was planning on working out twice as hard, so that she doesn’t gain a lot of weight.  She is so selfish.  She doesn’t even care about what that intensive workout might do to the baby.  She has the blessing of this beautiful miracle, and all she can think about is herself.  CC told me that his wife had asked him to go “baby shopping” with her.  He was thinking they were going to look at strollers and car seats and baby clothes.  She wanted to go look at maternity wear for herself.  Her first thought is always about herself.

After I hung up the phone with CC, I prayed that when I saw him this weekend, that he wouldn’t mention the baby to my wife.  I definitely wasn’t going to mention it.  I knew that it would devastate her.  We were just starting to get into a semi-okay place with things, and this would forcibly throw them backwards a hundred miles.  Of course, in his excitement, the first thing out of his mouth to my wife was that they were expecting.  He is so innocently naïve that he has no idea the effect his words have on us.  He doesn’t mean to be insensitive or cause us pain.  He’s just not thinking.  He believes that people would consider this a happy event, and that his friends would be happy for him.  During any other time, he’d be right.  But my wife and I are not in the right mindset right now.  We are struggling.  Each day without a baby is like having another rock added to a sled that we are already struggling to drag up a mountain.  And this news was a boulder.

My wife dutifully put on a smile and offered her congratulations, even as she was screaming inside.  When the conversation was over, she escaped to the bathroom to cry.  She isolated herself from everyone all night.  CC asked if she was okay.  He is so innocently naïve; so far removed from being emotionally attached to anything.  He doesn’t understand the hurt, the loss, the struggling hope and faith.  And I pray that he never does.  I would not wish this on my gravest enemy.