All you can eat exclusion

One of my all time favourite books is The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. I first read it years ago, when I was involved in an unhappy love triangle. The story of love, loss, exclusion and redemption resonated so strongly for me that, as I was reading it, I had to stop occasionally and put my head down, it was almost too much. It's the book I most wish I had written, and it's a book I re-read every year, each time finding something fresh.

It was the theme of exclusion running through the novel with which I most connected. Of mattering, but not mattering, in all the most important ways. During that awful relationship, I was left out in all the ways that counted to me. It was a time when each day I felt like I was standing outside of happiness, looking in. I could see good things played out in front of me, and I didn't know how to get to a place where I could have those things for myself.

In the end, I decided I was sick to death of staring through the window, kicked a big fucking hole in the glass with my steel toed Doc Marten boots like the bad ass I so essentially am, and walked through.

I never thought I would be back to feeling so excluded in another area of my life, but I hadn't bargained on infertility.

At first, when it became a feature, I didn't feel too lost. I just accepted that it was going to take time, and more time, and still more time. But somewhere during all the waiting, the sense of exclusion arrived.

Part of it is that I am at a funny place in the process. I've never been pregnant, so have no frame of reference there. We haven't started treatment yet, so I can't claim my spot on Team ART. We don't know what's wrong, so I can't move on to making decisions about all the options- to keep trying, to adopt, to live childfree. I can't play along with the happy bouncing optimists newly into the "TTC journey" since I have lost any enthusiasm I ever had for cute acronym filled message board and babydust. (Note: Camp CF members, this does not mean you.)

And obviously, I have no children, so cannot take place in all that this entails. Out there, in a world full of parents, I feel it most keenly- because at least among fellow infertiles, there is a sense of community, of understanding.

But I feel stuck, in a general, overwhelming way. I'm in limbo, with my heart sighing and drooping, with my daemon left behind on shore while I drift off to an unknown fate.

Today I went out to lunch with the people in my office branch. Somebody decided the "all-you-can-eat Chinese lunch buffet" was a good notion, so we ended up there. As soon as I sat down, I realised I had made a grave error. A table full of mothers, five of whom have kids under the age of five. The pregnant colleague next to me. The other two, parents as well.

Along with the first round of wontons, cue endless discussion of more back-to-school adventures, of stern teachers, of playground politics.

I took refuge in my heaping plate of egg fried rice and spring rolls. As the talk progressed, I found myself making repeated trips to the noodle bar. One of my colleagues raised her eyebrows at the prodigious amount of food I was hoovering into my mouth.

"Running a lot," I said weakly, though a gob full of lemon chicken. "Always hungry."

Thing was, the talk. didn't. stop. Who knew there was so much to say about the care and feeding of five year olds. An hour and half later, I was slumped in my chair, distended belly groaning, still reaching for more prawn crackers with both hands. And still they went on and on. And on. And on. And...

Look, I am not saying I have to be the centre of attention. I'm not saying that people with something in common, like kids, shouldn't talk about it. But I have absolutely nothing I can contribute to those conversations right now. And sometimes recently, the sense of being so left out, so left behind- when I so much want to be a part of it- is sickeningly, gut churningly intense. There are downright bad moments, like that lunch, where I actually find myself experiencing an urge to stand up and scream.

But no. I couldn't have screamed, my mouth was too full of spare rib. And they continued on, oblivious

"Well, I guess you'll have all that to look forward to,' exclaimed the Big Boss to Pregnant Colleague. Oh, how they all laughed. Ho ho ho.

Fortunately for him, I was too bloated to reach over and stab him in the eye with my chopstick.