Getting it wrong.

You are only an acquaintance - we met at a coffee morning, probably a year ago. I remember I had an obvious bump - probably about the same size as the one you are carrying proudly now. I was probably stroking my wee girl - in the way that absent minded and unburdoned pregnant mamas do in public. You didn't say much then - I thought you were shy. My best friend fears you are just arrogant.

I can't tell how pregnant you are - I think you must have been pregnant when Emma died. That at least would explain why you look like a rabbit in the headlights when we pass each other at the school gate. It's your third - like Emma was my third. I shouldn't judge but I suspect you've had no losses - your children are close in age. I wish I knew what you are thinking when you look at me with such empty eyes. Are you feeling sorry for me? Guilty over your third beautiful bump?

Most pregnant women seem to exude an air of relief around me - a naive assumption that because I was the unfortunate 1:200, their odds are somehow lowered. I've done the suffering for them. I could tell them that I'm the third of three generations to experience stillbirth in my family or I could tell them of an internet acquaintance who lost her baby daughter to a placental abruption back in September and posted a heartbreaking message just weeks ago to say that her sister's tiny boy had been born too soon to survive life outside of his mama. The fact is their odds remain the same - low but not somehow lowered by my tragedy. Perhaps your reaction is more honest; perhaps my daughter's death has shocked you to the core. But I dislike you and I go out of my way now to avoid eye contact with you. NOT because of your pregnancy - pregnant bellies do sting me but I can't stop the world gestating and I hope to do it myself again one day. No, I dislike you because I can't read you - you don't warm your sad eyes with the ghost of a sympathetic smile. You make me feel worse - if that is even possible - about being a deadbaby mama. I don't like you because when it comes to reacting to me, you got it wrong.