Not sure where to post this, being that I am in my 2nd year of grief and haven't posted in awhile and it's more related to infertility/ttc than anything. I have lurked occasionally, but just haven't done much posting. I think of many of you often, but being here too much keeps my grief at a level that isn't really good for me. I'm just trying so hard to live in a positive place (out of the pit) as much as possible while still on what has become a long ttc journey. Sometimes being here is just too painful. I hope you all understand!!
Hopefully those of you who have been around awhile will remember my dilemma with my friend last fall. Well, another friendship seems to be dying. I had a similar conflict with this friend around the same time as the conflict with my other friend last spring and I took a "break" from both friendships to sort things out. But this friend actually seemed to really want to make the effort to fix things (and I felt the same), while the other friendship was really unfixable. After a lot of counseling (and sound advice from all of you), I ended the other friendship last fall and it got ugly before it was over. Her heart towards me was revealed and I was thankful to know that I made the right decision. I just regret that she wasn't willing to take responsibility for her part in the relationship and love me at a time that I wasn't able to give back. I have forgiven her, but I don't feel compelled to pursue reconciliation at this time. Anyway ...
This other friend has been really insensitive in the eight or so months since I welcomed her back into my life after our conflict. At first, I tried hard to dismiss the comments, but found that they affected me more than I was willing to admit. Several times I confronted those feelings and asked her to be more sensitive, trying to explain why they made me feel the way I did. At times I felt that maybe I was being overly sensitive, but she considers me her "best friend" so I felt I should be able to share my heart with her. And she expressed wanting to work on the relationship, so it seemed only fair to be honest about how she was making me feel. She had stopped asking how I was doing with ttc and my grief and, whenever I did bring it up, she would change the subject and talk about herself or someone she knew who was pregnant. "Oh, did you know this person is pregnant" or "that person is pregnant?" She had a 12-week miscarriage and it took 6 months for her to get pg again, so I figured she would know to be more sensitive (she was the friend last year who fought with me over whose grief was worse). Her loss was over 4 years ago, so I thought this was a time she should be there for me. I have a history of infertility and have been trying to get pg again for over a year now. She knows that. She walked through it with me then and knows the hurt feelings I had when I didn't know if I'd ever have children. So, I couldn't understand why she couldn't see that her comments were hurtful. But, after letting her know how I felt, I kept trying to make the friendship work.
Things seemed to be getting better lately, but now I realize that it has only been as long things remain mostly superficial between us. As long as we don't talk about Abby, my grief, or my trying to get pg again/infertility, we're fine. Most of the time. Usually I just avoid being alone (or on the phone) with her for any length of time and give her a million excuses as to why we can't get together or talk. But today it just felt right to see her again. I even prayed after thinking about calling her, "Lord, if you want me to see her today, please have HER call ME!" And right after I prayed that, she did! I took it as a sign and went to lunch so we could let our boys play. She surprised me yet again ...
I am on CD 37 and AF hasn't shown yet after having surgery earlier this month to treat my endometriosis, so I'm waiting to ttc again. When I told her, she actually said that it could be MENOPAUSE and that women who take fertility drugs tend to experience "the change" earlier than women who don't (we've been doing infertility treatments for 4 months and took them to conceive our son almost 5 years ago). When, stunned, I said, "Uh, no I'm only 37," she actually started ARGUING with me and telling me about all kinds of people in her family who started menopause when they were in their late 30s/early 40s. I defended myself and said that my mom didn't go through the change until her 50s and that my sister was 42 and had no signs of it yet. I even told her that my grandmother, who lost a baby at term and a 9 year old son, had her rainbow baby when she was 40 ... and she continued arguing with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was like, "Well, I don't know if you can depend on that, people in my family didn't follow the same pattern. It's not always genetic." I was furious, but I kept my cool. Telling me and arguing that this could be "the change" is certainly not something an encouraging friend would say right now! I finally just said that I didn't think that was the problem, that I was sure that Sarah (from the Bible) had already gone through menopause when she got pg with Isaac, and that I wasn't worried about it. "God is in control! I'm not worried!!!!" I hope she got the hint. But I was really shocked at what she said. And it hurt me that she didn't even think about it being insensitive.
Anyway, I have really wrestled with whether or not to continue this friendship over the last 15 1/2 months. It has been a very difficult relationship since our conflict last May, but I really wanted to try to make it work. But I can't help but feeling like she is either completely and totally STUPID and has no idea of how insensitive she is ... OR she is actually TRYING to hurt me!!! I mean, you don't say something like that to someone whose baby died and is experiencing secondary infertility on top of it! Is it just me, or is that common sense? I was just livid over it today. I've calmed down tonight, although writing about it is bringing the anger back to the surface a little bit (in case you didn't notice, lol). I just want to know, am I overreacting? Should I continue a friendship with someone I've confronted over and over and still doesn't seem to care about my feelings? I feel like it's draining all my energy to have her in my life or to even spend time thinking about this when I'm trying to stay positive. Kind of how I felt about my other friend. I am still going through so much, trying to get pg and not succeeding has only added to and prolonged my grief. Can't she see that? Part of me says to continue doing what I have been doing and just blow off her invitations and phone calls. The other part wants to tell her how I feel and hope that she's not like the other friend and will actually put my feelings first. Anyway, I know this has been long (like my posts usually are, lol), but thank you if you've gotten this far. I really hope you can help me know what to do about this friendship.
