"HCG results day" or "V strikes again"

I ended up having to push my HCG draw up one more day, due to plans this evening.

Results: Less than 2. I feel SO much better. Almost have tears in my eyes (that's happening a lot lately).

Here's the bad news:

V, my new-mom co-worker who knows all the gory details of my babymaking story, was talking to me two days ago about how scared she is on nights when her husband is gone on work trips. She was saying how she calls him every 12 hours just so he knows she's alive and knows to get worried if she doesn't check in on schedule. "I know," I said, "I hate it when DH leaves, everything becomes a lot more scary. Like I get anxious walking the dogs by myself or taking out the trash. The dogs help a little of course but they're kinda small and probably not much of a deterrant."

"Oh," she responded blankly, condescendingly, "I didn't mind it so much before I had a kid. Now that I have a kid it's much worse." Like she couldn't understand what I would be worried about if I didn't have a kid to live for. Then she got more specific: "People out there can't have kids, no one is having kids, there's NO kids but everybody wants kids, so they steal them." I'm not sure what she was getting at but I have to think she was suggesting that infertiles are crazy baby-stealers. That anyone who can't get knocked up as easily as her (effectively her first month trying) is somehow irreparably damaged in the head and prone to felonious conduct. If this is what she meant I can't imagine a more offensive thing to say to someone who is having trouble. I absolutely can't imagine it. What is wrong with this person? Was she trying to make me feel better by saying "no one" is having kids? Like I'm part of a cast of thousands? And if so, then why would she imply that said cast was the psychologically disturbed, criminally inclined type?
I still can't quite get over the shock. She's acted on so many occasions like she's trying to be a friend and at times I've been totally convinced. I've trusted her, that's why she knows my story. She's smart, too, in a lot of ways. She has about three OBGs in her immediate family so I know she has probably heard some hard stories. In fact I know she has. Is it possible to be smart and friendly and then be a complete nutjob bitch when it comes to sensitivity and social grace? Is it possible that despite her experience in this area and sophistocation in general she can know so little about how very very difficult it can be to become a parent? And how very very emotional and sensitive that process is?

Stupified, I said "well there are plenty of things to be worried about EVEN if you don't have kids...like being raped or killed." I thought I was pointing out the obvious at this point. I really just wanted her to leave.

V: "Oh no one would rape me, there are plenty of better looking, younger girls out there. [V is beautiful and she knows this so this comment came off as a pathetic and fake attempt at self-deprication. Not to mention offensively naiive.] And death is just like sleeping, I kinda don't mind that. I'm not afraid of death. I'm just afraid of leaving my kid." I HATE how she says kid. Probably because, as I've mentioned before, it's every third word in her vocabulary now, as natural as blinking and breathing - she just spews this kind of shit out all the time in front of me.

Me: "Yeah, see, I don't really want to die. There are just too many things I still want to do. So I'm afraid of dying even though I don't have kids," I explained. I really wanted her to leave at this point. Never to return. Why was I trying to rationalize with this person? And what was her problem exactly? Then she seemed to try to backpedal, as if she understood that I was getting offended but wasn't exactly sure why. And get this gem - she said: "Well it's much worse when you have a kid, you'll understand this someday...in the near future."

O. M. G. Back the eff off, will you? That's what I should have said. Instead I think I raised my eyebrows in disbelief and started to ignore her until she left. I have snapped at her before. I thought maybe she had gotten the hint then. But she doesn't get it. She's one of those people I would really have to hurt emotionally in order for her to leave me alone - but I have to work with her. And the thing (or one of the seventeen thousand things) that kills me about this is that I wouldn't even have to deal with this mess if things had just gone the way they were supposed to last year. I'd have my child. The conversation would have gone differently - "Oh yes, I know what you mean, V, it's so scary when you have a kid, I mean imagine the possibilities." But now, even when and if I do have a kid, the conversation will always go the way that it did. Because I have been through my own struggle and I have heard the struggles of others. I have had the privilege of sharing in the intimate details of the daily lives of people who struggle, as I do, but for so many different reasons. And I am forever changed by that. I will never be able to understand people like V. Never. And not only will I never understand it, I will never condone it.

After this conversation with V, I happened to be talking to my other new-mom co-worker, C. She also knows my story and while she didn't know about the above conversation with V, she does know that I've been frustrated with V's insensitivity about this subject in the past. C mentioned that she had not asked V to a particular happy hour we're having tonight.

Me: "That's fine with me," I said, "I'm not a fan right now."

C asked what V had done and I told her. C then told me about her own recent conversation with V:

C: "I told V to knock it off. We were talking about kids in front of [X co-worker who is a guy, not married and not a parent] and afterwards I mentioned to V that people without kids probably don't like it that much when we talk about kids so much in front them, like X...and Astrid."

C told me that V had responded "Oh no, I think Astrid wants to hear about kids, 'cause she's like moments away from having them herself. I think of her in the "pregnant" category. I think she likes to know what it's like, etc. etc."

C told her that she was wrong and that I didn't like hearing so much about kids and about the stresses of parenthood - which is true, but probably not for the reasons C conveyed. It wasn't clear to me that (a) C was articulating my feelings properly or that (b) V was receiving the message, but if it gets V to stop talking to me, that would be fantastic.

See, the thing is, I like kids. I don't mind hearing about other peoples' kids. I find the stories funny and cute and interesting - sometimes. The worst that usually happens when people are talking about kids is that I get bored. I don't really get hurt anymore. It only hurts when some idiot like V says something downright offensive. Like "just be glad you don't have another mouth to feed," or like the conversation about why I wasn't invited to V's lunch. Or telling me that she is more entitled to be afraid when she's alone and that everyone is out to get her kid. Whatever it is, whatever stresses you have as a parent, V, they are not as bad as losing your child, and then getting cancer. They are not as bad as staring at that big 11w space in your uterus on an ultrasound screen and realizing that there are no signs of life inside, followed by 56 trips to the lab in six months and four doses of chemo. And I had it easy, relatively speaking. She would never wish away her child, no matter how bad it gets. She wouldn't wish a childless existence on anyone. If she stopped to think about it, she would understand that. What kills me is that she doesn't stop to think. I hate that people like that are not only walking around in our lives, but so very prevalent.