Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Dead Baby Jokes

Have you ever heard these? Who the hell ever thought them up, anyway? Who ever did is a sick, sick individual. I had forgotten that these even existed until one of my students in CPR class made a dead baby joke while we were learning infant CPR. I felt like slapping him and saying - you know, as the mother of a dead baby, I really don't appreciate that. Instead, I clenched my jaw, swallowed the lump in my throat and acted like I didn't hear him. Now that I think of it, I should have slapped him. Of course, he has no idea that I have a dead baby. He has no idea what his little joke did to my insides. It's not his fault my baby is dead. He's a fifteen year old kid without a care in the world in the department of dead babies. Bad karma is all that I can wish upon him. Anyway, did you know that there is an entire website devoted to dead baby jokes. That should be banned. Now that's off my chest, I can move on.

The lunch with my new mom friend got cancelled. I'm actually relieved. Now I'm going to go out of town on sunday and really won't probably have to call her back until mid-week two weeks from now when I return. I'm off the hook. It was more a nice gesture than anything.

5 DPO...nothing new to report. I'm really hungry today, but that could because I'm a cow. I need to learn to control my appetite.

4 comments:

Kat said...

Ohmyfuckinggawd. I would have told him off, right after beating him senseless and strangling him to within a few breaths of his life. Youth is no excuse for total disrespect and stupidity. Ugggh... I'm sorry you had to go through this.

Oh, and I'm right there with you on the 2ww. Good luck!

MB said...

To hell with that. I would have beat him and then called his mother. Little jerk.

I have everything crossed for you this month!

laura said...

may i just meekly add that these jokes are actually helpful to at least some parents of the dead? you should ask deadbabymama.

justin and i feel that whenever we are able to crack a little joke about hans (like how we hoped he wasn't getting everything dusty while we were out of town [his ashes sit in a box in our living room]), it's a sign we are making a little progress, living a little more.

i'm not saying this kid's behavior was wise or even in reasonable taste. but he IS a kid, so he's probably never encountered our kind of loss; i know i had never come in contact with it until i lost my son. and don't we all hope for our (living) children to be free of worry and heartache? the only way this kid could have understood the problem with his behavior is if he had been touched by such a loss - and i can't think you would want that for him.

if you care about him or have continued contact with him, i would encourage you to (tactfully and gently) confront him, tell him the basic facts of your story, and explain that it would help him to consider what he says before he says it. if you don't care about him, then i hope you can let it go. there's plenty to be angry about - don't waste your anger on someone who doesn't matter to you.

okay - i'm done being your mother now. :)

Susie said...

Oh, how horrible. I know you must have been livid.

I do think it was an opportunity to educate him or at least broaden his horizons a little, so maybe he would realize that he should think before he speaks, but I also feel like in such a situation you have the right to do whatever feels right to you. If you couldn't deal with getting into your story there in front of the class I certainly don't blame you. I'm just so sorry it happened.

Unfortunately I am one who cries when I get very angry, which makes it difficult to handle situations like that as well.

Not at all what you needed, especially not right now.