No good deed goes unpunished

Another of my mother's favorite lines. Such an optimist, my mom.

On Friday, I got a call from one of my colleagues, T. She had to be out of town to take care of a sick relative and asked if i could cover her class on Monday (the same one I teach, just a different section, slightly different format). Well, if you were tuned in on Friday, you know that it was *not* a good day for me. I didn't say yes right away, told her I needed to check to make sure I could do it. She was really in a tight spot, as several other people who could otherwise have done it were in class at the time she needed, or were taking comps. T had been very sweet to me when I came back, very understanding -- she's someone I've always respected and whose company I really enjoy. She said she knew that it's been a difficult semester for me, so if I couldn't do it, it was definitely okay.

I called her back a few hours later, after bawling for a little while about how weak and scared I felt, and told her I would do it. Since the students were doing some presentations, it would be pretty low key. I would figure something out.

So today, I came to school, taught my session and then had about a 2 hour break until T's class began. I had some lunch, visited with some people, surfed a little.

About 3pm, I hear a familiar voice. And a baby crying. It's one of the women in my department who had a baby in February, visiting, showing off her 6-week old little girl. This is the same woman who came in to the office at about 39 weeks pregnant and told me my miracle would come, and that "there's a reason for everything." This from a 40-year old woman with her oops, 2nd child do I really want this pregnancy, sticking her huge belly in my face.

I was sitting in the grad student computer area, essentially hiding in the corner, staying quiet, hoping she would not come over to say hello. Please please... I was actually peering over the cubicle wall to see if her office door was open, if it was safe to walk by and pick up my copies off the printer. Her door opened, I heard her come down towards the computers, ostensibly to talk to one of my other colleagues, one who had taken the first part of comps today.

"Hey, S, how are you doing?" I smiled and muttered something like I always do (hanging in there, doing okay). "Getting back into the swing of things...?" Yeah. Whatever, just take your beautiful child and GO. So my colleague oohs and aahs over the baby and as she's getting ready to leave...

Yes, you know she's going to say it... You know she is. Say it with me... come on...

"If you ever need a fix, you know..." Oh, yeah... hah... huh...

"Yeah, you can come over when she's crying and screaming and cranky. You won't miss it so much then..."

Hah, yeah. And I literally turned my entire body back to the computer. I honestly don't know how I didn't scream and/or cry. My heart was pounding. And all I could think was, you don't actually think that a screaming, cranky baby would make me feel better about my sons being dead???

Oh my god. Luckily, there were nice, good, decent people showing up for class at 4, so I got to visit with them. Two women I had been in class with last semester, who knew what happened. One has a sister, I think, who had a stillbirth at full term a couple of years ago, hasn't been able to get pregnant since. She said that she knew she couldn't totally understand my pain, but she had an idea, from the family perspective. Very sweet. I vented to her and we checked in a little, then talked about her for a bit, talked about some program stuff... Then I had to go teach.

If I hadn't helped out, I would have missed out on the drive-by. I'm still kind of heart-poundy from it. Thank god I have no more classes with this prof.

Okay, now this feels very whiny, and poor me. Maybe it's because I don't get a lot of insensitive comments that I feel so shaken. So reminded of how much people can just suck, how much they can just be so freaking clueless. I'm sure that she just didn't know what to say, that she felt weird that I had been so pregnant last semester after 2 years of trying and now I'm not and I just went through hell and she has this adorable baby that she wasn't even sure she wanted at first.

I'm sure she didn't even know how uncomfortable she felt. Maybe she was just strung out from having a newborn and a three-year old. That's it.

I just don't even care.