It's true. I have become selfish and self obsessed with my infertility. I relied on friends to talk me off the ledge, but do I do the same?
Two situations happened to me today that have helped me come to this conclusion:
1) A very dear friend of mine has two beautiful daughters. Last April (IVF #3) when I was still sharing my journey with a select group of friends I found out I was FINALLY pregnant. I was thrilled, obviously. I had dreamed about the moment of telling friends and family our news and for once being the pregnant one. As this friend knew when Beta day was, I did not keep her in the dark about our amazing news. After she congratulated me, she dropped her bomb, she was pregnant too. Seriously! She couldn't give me just one day of being the pregnant girl? I pretended that I was not hurt and feeling overshadowed and we enjoyed the day of being two pregnant best friends. She started feeling as if something didn't feel right with her pregnancy and it was my job to reassure her. She started spotting and went home to rest. I went to her house and brought her fun snacks, magazines and movies to distract her while she was at home resting. That's when I got the call. Our second beta dropped and just like that I was no longer pregnant. I was pregnant for two days. Obviously, I left her house shaken, in shock and totally devastated. She called me two days later after she had emergency surgery as her pregnancy was ectopic. She wanted to bond over this, and I wanted to grieve in piece, however I felt I couldn't. I felt I needed to be there for her as she was fragile. This was difficult.
Fast forward six months and she is pregnant again (around the time of FET #1, BFN) and again it is not looking good. She continues to get monitored as her betas are increasing, but not at the rate the drs want to see. This goes on for two months and in this time, she is telling me how unfair this is and how no one can get what WE go through. Excuse me, when did she and I become a WE! Last time I checked, she had two children and I had none. I again tried to pull away, however again I felt sucked in and felt bad. As she was contemplating what her options were (either surgery to remove her blocked tube or the shot to end the pregnancy) I was secretly hoping for the shot. Why? Not because this was what was best for my friend, it was because you can't conceive for three months after the shot. I was selfish, I know, but I didn't care. I needed to know I had the security blanket of three months without an announcement. It turns out she had the shot and needed the surgery as well. Again, she cried to me about how unfair it is and how the decision for whether or not her family grows was taken away from her. Again, WTF! Seriously, this decision was taken away from me before I even started. I explained to her that she could always try IVF and our government funds IVF for people with no tubes. She wasn't thrilled with my suggestion. Luckily, they only removed one tube and she has good chances of conceiving naturally.
Fast forward to present day. It has now been three months since her shot and she had an "oops" with her husband. Today she found out, she is not pregnant. I was happy. I am a horrible person.
2) I am literally on the phone with a friend who is telling me that she is pregnant with her 5th child! All natural. Again, I'm a horrible person.
What has this infertility done to me? I have become a petty person who is selfish and unable to be thankful for what I have. Sometimes, especially today, I HATE myself. I hate that I can't be the friend to my friends that they are to me. I am a horrible person.
-R.
OK you are NOT a horrible person. I, too, have thoughts like this ALL THE TIME. I don't want my fertile friends to keep having babies while I'm stuck.
ReplyDeleteI love your part about "when did I become a WE!" check out a comment on my latest post where someone tried to compare my passage of time and still not getting anywhere with her passage of time and having three kids from ART? WTF?? I don't get it at all.
Don't hate yourself. It's normal. You're normal. Yes, IF can do a number on friendships but we are only human and hell, we've been through a lot.
You're not horrible - you are honestly normal and people who have never walked a step in the shoes of IF just don't get it. They can't. Anyone who can get pregnant through an "oops" will never know how awful it is to go through treatment and cycling. They get for FREE what the rest of us go through hell for.
ReplyDeleteIF does do a number on your friendships but I found that for me, it really showed me who my true friends were. I was like you, very hesitant to tell people we were having trouble conceiving because it seemed that everyone was lapping us and it was driving me crazy. I remember when I finally plucked up enough courage to tell one select group of friends and the response I got - crickets. They all had kids and couldn't fathom what it is like to struggle with it like we were. It sounds like you got what your friends were going through but they certainly don't get what you're going through and I'm sorry they haven't offered better support to you. I agree with Mrs. LC - you're only human and you've been through a lot so cut yourself some slack okay?
There is a woman on one of the boards I used to really be a part of. There was about 50 of us, all "infertile" so we had a pretty good bond going. One of the women gets pg with IVF #2. A different woman gets BFN after IVF #3 and decided to move on to foster-to-adopt. Woman 1 makes a post about how, when she was at the OB for one of her pg appointments, there was a woman in the next room who was pg with #2 and how unfair it is blah blah blah. So Woman 2 makes a post that Woman 1 should be grateful for experiencing pg at all since that's something she'll never have. No response. From anyone on the board. Crickets. So I respond saying that Woman 2 should have a right to voice this opinion. Woman 1 jumps down my throat and says she has a "right" to say those things because that's how SHE feels blah blah blah. Sooo.... Woman 1 has a baby. Then about 3 months ago she posts on the board that they are going to do IVF #3 for baby #2 before her husband's insurance changes so they don't have to pay for the cycle OOP. The betas were low initially and I kept hoping it wouldn't work. But it did. For about 8 weeks then earlier this week there was no heartbeat. And all of a sudden I realized what a horrible person I am. This woman is a truly insensitive person but it was still wrong of me to wish ill on her. I can't even believe I did. But I know I did. And I'm embarrassed.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely not a horrible person. I'm sure we all have thoughts like this - it's impossible not to. I have a good friend my age (39 going on 40) who just got married last spring. She was going to be out in NYC last October when I had my FET at CCRM (which turned out a BFN, as you know...), so I had to tell her why I wouldn't be able to see her when she was in town. I didn't talk to her again for a while. Cut to 3 months later when she writes me, telling me that she found out she was pregnant shortly after coming to NYC and that she was thinking about me and wondering how I was doing since we were about the same amount along in our pregnancies. WTF???? First of all, I was so confused and upset that she just assumed I had gotten pregnant because I did an FET. And then I was so jealous that she had gotten pregnant after only being married a few months, when we are the exact same age. And this is one of my best friends in the world, since we were 12 years old! So you see, you can't be a horrible person, because if you are, I am one too!
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