No, you don't understand. (But that's okay.)

This one might be a bit controversial, friends. You might think it's about you. (Though, if you are sensitive enough to think it's about you, it's probably not--I promise.) But I feel like it needs to be said.

Ever since our miscarriage in January of 2012, people have told me "I understand because...". And, while I appreciate the sentiment, I am--quite frankly--annoyed. I understand that you're attempting to be sympathetic, but what you need to understand is that you may very well be lying.

Let me explain.

My mom had a stroke in July of 2005. It was a long night and a long road to recovery, but she has recovered. I can talk to her on the phone any time I want to, and I've seen her hold my daughter in her arms and watched my daughter giggle in delight with her multiple times. So it would be completely inappropriate to tell one of my friends who has lost a beloved parent that "I understand because my mom had a stroke and I thought I might lose her."

I experienced two early miscarriages. They broke my heart, and they erased memories of the life I'd imagined. However, I don't know what it feels like to enter the second or third trimester and then to lose a child. I don't know how it feels to have a completely prepared nursery and drive to the hospital with a car seat strapped in only not to bring home a baby. How heartless would it be of me to claim to a mom of a stillborn baby or a baby tragically lost to SIDS, "I understand because I had early miscarriages"?

I have one, amazing, wonderful daughter. She is currently playing on the floor with Jeff (and an empty beer bottle), and she will be happily eating a full meal in 2 minutes, then having a lovely bath before settling down to nurse and sleep by 8pm. Though she may wake in the night, that would be an unusual occurrence. To say "I understand reoccurring sleep problems because Lily occasionally wakes up to eat at 4am" would be ridiculous.

Being a teacher is a gift as a parent; it allows me approximately three months of the year (2 weeks in December, 2 weeks in March, and 2 months in the summer) at home with my daughter. But I have friends who are stay-at-home moms (or dads) year-round. Who slog through the winter chill and the rainy spring, who deal with planning new activities daily, who have to schedule every minute of their lives, seven days a week, around diapers and feedings and potential meltdowns. Would I ever tell them "I understand because I get to stay at home a few months of each year?"

Even now, I have several friends who have little ones around Lily's age who are due once again late this summer or early next fall. And I imagine trying to look them in the eye next August and extolling how "I understand how tired you are because I have a toddler, too." But I won't understand. I won't understand what it means to chase a toddler while nursing a newborn. I won't understand what it means to control a "terrible 2" tantrum while trying to soothe an infant to sleep. And any pretense that I do would be nothing more than an insult.

And so I am led to my point. Jeff and I are in an unusual situation; though we are "older" parents, few of our friends are married and fewer still have children. And yet I have heard over and over again throughout the past 11 months from friends without children that "I understand having children more than you know."

To put it bluntly: no, you don't.

You may be an aunt or an uncle. You may have helped out in the weeks following the birth of a friend's child--you may even have stayed under the same roof as a newborn--but that doesn't mean you understand what it is to be a new parent to your own child, to never have an actual break from caring for that little life, to put an innocent baby's interests before your own at all costs, to make every decision in light of how it will affect your family. It doesn't mean you understand what it is to wake to either a cry or an alarm for work every morning for a year or that you can fathom what it is to perform your daily responsibilities with no promise you will get more rest that night or over the weekend or while on an upcoming vacation.

All I ask--all I plead--is that you think before you say "I understand because...". Do you really? Have you walked in those shoes? If not, might it be better to say, "I can't possibly understand, but can I hold the baby while you shower / bring you dinner / babysit so you can have a date night"? Might it be better to admit that "I don't understand yet, but I know and love you and can see your exhaustion / frustration / anxiety, so how can I help?"

It's okay not to understand. In fact, it would be weird if you did, for how many of us truly walk in each other's experiences? But it's not okay to patronize me, to express that you "get it," to minimize my experience into your fraction of it.

Just think before you say it, okay?