Friendship Defined

Saying Cheers but not Goodbye

Today is the day before my dear friend moves to George. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her life there is going to be immeasurably blessed, she’s going to live by the ocean (I’m green with envy really miss the ocean), and she’s going to be growing her twins in her belly and watching them grow up and frolic in the waves…

It sounds like bliss.  But it makes my heart sad.  Cos I will miss her very much.  I still remember when we were the first two little farts on Fertilicare, I remember how nervous I was to meet her for the first time, cos it’s one thing to like someone via your computer screen and another to like someone in real life.  But I was nervous for naught.  She was (and is) as divine in real life as she was on the computer.  We have shared many a laugh, many a sad time and many a good dinner and mojito together.  We’ve been pampered together and she’s laughed unmercifully at my sometimes inadequate golf swing.

So while I wish her all the best for the move and her new life in George by te sea, my heart is heavy today.  Thankfully we live in the day of the internet, twitter, skype and msn.  So as much as I’m going to miss her, right now I’m saying Cheers but not Goodbye.

All the best Super M – you better stay in touch, otherwise I’ll have to come and box you (any excuse to come visit you know?)

Contagious?

There are many stigma’s attached to admitting that you’re infertile.  But for me I think the worst stigma is the one where people think that you’re contagious and they avoid you for fear of catching it from you.

Initially we were very quiet about the fact that we were trying to conceive.  We only told those closest to us – that being my Mom and sister and my two closest friends.  But as the time went by and we realised just how big a challenge conceiving was becoming, we started being more open about our journey.  We started trying before any of our friends did, in fact we started about a year ahead of everyone else.  And now we’re the only couple in our circle of “fertile” friends to still be trying for baby # 1.  Of all the couples we hung out with at the beginning of our journey, we’re the only childless ones. 

As we’ve graduated from clomid, to AI’s to IUI’s to IVF we’ve told these people about our journey.  We’ve shared what we’ve been through and when people ask we like to think that through us they’re learning about something that they would never have imagined.  This openess definitley has a downside.  I’ve seen many a pitiful look in their eyes when we talk about it.  I’ve seen them take (sometimes physical) small almost imperceptible steps back from us – just in case they catch it.  Just in case by hanging out with us they also battle for their next baby.

I’ve seen this in the cyber world too.  You reconnect with someone on Facebook.  They ask if you have kids.  You say no and add glibly ”unless you count my dogs of coursem, they’re my kids for now” (Word for the non wise - this is code for I’m battling to have human kids… at least it is 9 times out of 10, trust me).  They comment on how long you’ve been married and ask why not.  You tell them the truth.  And poof just like that, the reconnecting becomes a quick disconnection again.  Cos they do not want to be tarnished with the anguish of infertility.

How sometimes people actually state how they’re so happy that they aren’t like you.  That it was easy for them to have their two children.  How they would hate to not be able to have kids (with a look of abject disgust pity on their faces at the thought).  How they look at each other and think secretly “Thank God its them and not us”.  How when you talk about child rearing you get told “what do you know, you don’t have any kids anyway”.

And while I know that many of these people do not know how to deal with the reality of infertility, while I know that they say glib things to hide how uncomfortable we make them feel, while I know that they mean well when they offer platitudes cos it’s all they know how, I have to wonder if just a teeny part of them wonders if we could infect them with our “disease”.

And if it’s this fear that keeps them from having us over to their homes as often as they used to.  If it’s this fear that makes them ask other friends about our journey behind our backs.  As if asking us directly could make them like us.

Sometimes I just wonder if it’s me that’s pulled back from them cos we are in different places in our lives?  Or if it *is* as my mind see’s it and that its them who have pulled back cos they pity us and see us as contagious.

I wonder.  All the time.

Been thinking…

I was working merrily yesterday and all of a sudden I get a msn pop up from an old friend”wanting to chat… I did not really think anything of the whole situation until later last night.

This is the friend who I had a little spat with a while back (read about it here and here) and while we have been trying to make the friendship work, due to the fact that she lives so far away and that our lives are in such different places the friendship we have now is more like a “hi how ya doing” kind of friendship than a deep one where we share everything.  Also there have been a couple of instances where I’ve been left thinking “WTF just happened?” in recent times that have also got me thinking…

The first WTF moment was shortly after I’d found out that our last fresh IVF had failed and I was crying (I don’t cry very often so this is BIG) and she called me to chat and find out how life is.  I thought I had pulled myself together enough to chat to her but she could hear that I had been crying and asked what was up.  I told her that my last IVF had not worked and that I was pretty upset.  She then crapped all over me for not telling her we had done an IVF and then proceeded to tell me that she’s so sorry but she had to go cos she was at her son’s prospective pre-school for an open day and it was due to start in 2 minutes.  WTF right?  Why call someone for a long chat if you’ve only got 5 minutes to spare and once that person tells you her heart is breaking hang up on her?  Crikey!  Maybe I’m from a different planet, but in my world we don’t do that here…  But I left it.  It was important for her to be there to see the school she wanted her son to attend and I do understand that I am not the be end to end all…

Then about three weeks ago I get this call from her out of the blue – I was in a meeting so missed the call but she had left no message.  I called her back and we had a long chat about life and how things were for each of us.  She then says to me oh I’m actually in Joburg this weekend and would like to meet for coffee – how about tomorrow… Um hello?  Last minute anyone?  I was working over that weekend and had made other plans as well so could not meet up with her and when I told her that she sounded all peeved at me.  I asked her why she left it to last minute to tell me she was coming and she told me that it was a very spontaneous trip to Jhb for her neices christening.  Alarm bells ring for anyone else?  I don’t know how it all works (not being a Mom myself yet) but I’m pretty sure that when you plan a kids christening a little more preplanning than one or two days goes into it right?   This experience just left a sour taste in my mouth and I was really annoyed at the fact that she expected me to drop all my plans and just meet her for coffee cos she had deigned to call me at last minute for a catch up.  But I left it.  I mean it *can* happen that her anal type A sister in law would not have planned her babies christening in advance right?

Cue the msn conversation of yesterday, which stared well with the how you doings and what’s news and all, then turned all chirpy and telling me that she’s looking into getting a job cos her kids are bigger now and she needs the stimulation;  but that she really just wants to see what’s out there and does not want to waste time with agency interviews if the market is bad,  and gosh she’s been out the loop so long can I suggest anything to her??  Of course I’m going to help a mate out and so gave her a load of suggestions of job sites to look at etc and hey ho, sorry she’s gotta go – kids need to get to swimming and time to toodles, kbyenow…

The more I’ve thought about this friendship, the more I come to the conclusion that this is looking pretty one sided.  I’m cool to chat to when she’s got 3 minutes to spare in her hectic shedule (which I get I really do, I know life gets busy and hectic), and good for a last minute hook up, and good for work suggestions but when push comes to shove, and I need her (failed IVF and crying – crying for gosh sakes honest to goodness tears and sobs for crying out loud) it’s inconvenient.

And while I don’t want her out of my life exactly, it’s just that I’m not really prepared to put in the effort I have been until such time as it’s recipricated.  I’ve got wonderful friends out there who give as well as take – and they are the ones who deserve my love and energy.  Cos that is what I get back from them in return.

What you say internet?  Good decision or bad decision?

Cos Champers makes me Tiddly

Over the festive season my dear friend of 19 years ( let me check my math again – 14 years out of school, were friends for 5 years in school – YES 19 YEARS – GO ME!!!) came to visit her home country.  We got to spend some great quality time together on Boxing day and well,  honestly?  We drank copious amounts of champers together…

On the way home to drop them at her sisters home (Cliff was sober and driving – good boy, here’s your cookie) her husband took some photo’s of us… and we obliged by posing and playing the fool….  Well, nuff said!  Evidence that clearly champers makes me tiddly!!!

Taking care of some business

Sorry I’ve been quiet, but we just had a bank holiday here in SA and I took full advantage of it by having myself a nice long weekend   Still no closer to having completed the Christmas shopping but we hope to get that done sometime before Christmas… and yes internets I know I’m running out of time!  ONE WEEK TO CHRISTMAS!!!  I simply cannot believe it!  2008 had literally blasted away.

So back to taking care of the business at hand, while I was on a quiet diet, I was tagged by Babysmiling.

The rules are:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs.

Right so here we go:

1.   As a kid I used to hang my barbie dolls from a tree and pretend that they had been kidnapped and that the Ken doll had to save them.  I just LOVED the idea of Barbie being this damsel in distress being saved by her knight in shining armour. * dreamy sigh*  Sometimes though the situation would get out of hand and Ken would be too late to save his love and she would be cut down from the tree to fall to her death. (Macabre I know but I loved it)

2.  My absolute worst pet hate is when people call you and have the wrong number and JUST PUT THE PHONE DOWN.  It is NOT going to kill those ass wipes to say a simple “sorry wrong number”.  It really drives me dilly.

3.  In 12 years of schooling I went to 10 different schools.  And when one considers that from half way through Grade 8 (Std 6) to Grade 12 (Matric) I was in one school you can imagine how many times I moved schools while a lightie.  These included a stint at home schooling (not good, not good at all) as well as  a tiny German school where the only subject I passed was English – all the others were taught in German – go figure.

4.  While I worked in Egypt a few years back I came really close to being able to hold conversations with my staff in Arabic.  Tough language to learn.  But just as I was getting the hang of it my visa expired and I had to high tail it out of dodge.

5.  My Dad can wiggle his ears.  I have always wanted to be able to do that.  It would be such entertainment for our future kids (see positive thinking) but alas I did not inherit that wiggle the ear gene.  Strangely neither did my sister or half brother.  Maybe Dad is an alien?

6.  I’m pretty flexible.  Even now with the added padding I’m carrying around I am able to put my leg behind my head from a sitting position.  Great party trick.

7.  I’m also a pretty great burper.  I used to be able to burp “Supercalafragilisticexpialidosious”.  I don’t think I can do that today, but I do know that if you need someone on your side in a burping contest I’m your girl.

I suck at tagging people, so if you’re so inclined, please feel free to tag yourself!  But remember to link back to me so I can read all about your weirdness.  Come on people.  Don’t make me feel weird all on my own

Then!

I was also given an award. 

A pretty special one that was created by Murgdan and given to me by my friend Sharon.  Shaz, thanks for the award.  I know my positivity can be a bit annoying at times – but everyone needs a silver lined ute at some point  in their lives – I’ll always be on hand to flash that sparkly ute for ya.  Love ya too!!!  And consider yourself gifted with this award twice over.

I would like to hand this award over to some special gals too…

Bee Cee – for showing me that determination and grit gets a girl far.  You’re in my thoughts and prayers daily my friend.  I hope with all my heart that you get your deserved prize for all the guts and grit you’ve shown on your journey.

Tam- in the short time we’ve known each other I’ve really come to call you “friend”.  You’re an incredibly strong amazing chicken.  And I thought you should be reminded of that!

Aunt Becky – you make me laugh, and laugh and laugh.  You’re such a cool chick and one day when I’m big – I wanna be cool like you.

Brenda – you’ve been a special source of  steadiness for me in my down times.  Thank you for taking the time to make me feel better even when you’ve been feeling down yourself. 

In fact to each and everyone of you who read this blog and keep me sane.  You are all my sparkly ute’s – so give yourselves a pat on the back and have a glass of wine on me.

So that concludes the business, “proper” post soon I promise!

2 Sides to Every Story

Ok so I promise this will most likely be the last you hear of the friend saga…

She called me last night so that we could talk this whole thing out.  She was pretty upset that I called her the night before and “basically shat me out”.  She has been feeling like I have not been putting enough effort into our friendship and that I have not been forthcoming with information about what is going on in my life with the IVF etc.  She told me that although it might look to me like her life is perfect cos she has kids but that she has other problems to deal with and that her life is far from perfect.  She also told me that she did not ask questions and enquire about the IVF cos she did not want me to feel pressured and had assumed that I had a great support system already and did not really need her to be harping on about it as well.  (As it is I did have a fantastic support – our families, you guys, some close friends, we were so very blessed)  She told me that although she never asked about our IVF, she was thinking of me througout and was praying for us throughout the process.  She told me that she also feels that because she does not know enough about the process that she asks silly or stupid questions.  She was very upset that I did not invite her to my 30th birthday party and felt like I was wanting us to drift apart in our friendship cos I did not call her or text her or invite her to my party… 

If I am brutally honest with myself I can admit that I have not put a lot of effort into the friendship in the last few months.  I *have* been pretty self absorbed (rightly so of course but I can understand where she came from after we chatted), and have been focused on my life and our IVF and our grief after the BFN…  I have not really been putting much effort cos I felt like I was not going to share details about our journey with her if she did not ask, it seemed to me that she was disinterested so I never shared with her.  I told her last night that I would much rather have stupid questions that show her interest in what is happening in my life than nothing.  I also told her that I guess I never invited her to my 30th cos I thought she would not be bothered to come cos our friendship was clearly drifting apart.

Seems to me that this whole debacle is a clear cut case of miscommunication.

Both of us agreed that we did not want to see our friendship in the gutter (I was her maid of honor for gosh sakes and am honorary auntie to her kids) and that we were both in the wrong for what had transpired between us in the last couple of months.  We agreed that we needed to nurture the friendship more and both make more of an effort if we wanted to continue being friends.

So for now our friendship is in the process of getting back on track.  We’ll see how it goes…

Wicked Wednesday

Thank you so much for all your comments on the friend situation, I have decided that I will give it another few days and if I still have not heard from her to give her a call.  Because I was so upset with her, I was all for the “I’m not licking her arse to be friends” mindset, but I do realise that sometimes tones or feelings can get lost in translation when one writes to another.  So a phone call it will be.  I’ll gauge whether the friendship is “worth the effort” once we have talked.  Again thank you so much for the support!  You girls rock!!!

In the lines of support needed, if you have time, please pop over to my dear friend Super M, she got a BFN from her first IVF today, and although was kinda prepared for it due to negative HPT’s, the hurt is still intense.  She needs some love.

And my other friend Shaz needs some hugs as well – her house sale has fallen through which means that her emigration plans have had to be put back onto the back burner for a while - she has also just received a visit from AF and is not happy to see her…

Wicked Wednesday struck twice today.  I wish I could help heal my friends hurts, but know that support and love from you chaps makes it feel better, so head on over if you can.  

Friendship Loss

It seems that I have lost one of my closest friends to infertility.  I know that it happens (I bear the scars of others lost), but I cannot stop feeling bitterly disappointed in this friend. 

Let me back up, this friend and I met at work, and soon we became more than just work colleagues.  We trained at gym together, went to each others houses for braais and dinners, got drunk together and shared our lives with each other.  In times of need we were there for each other.  Then I got engaged.  Shortly thereafter she got engaged.  I got married and started ttc.  She got married.  I was one of her maids of honor at her wedding and things were hunky dory.  Then she got pregnant, after one month of being off the pill.  I was there for her during her pregnancy in SO many ways even though I was wishing I was in the same boat and was going through failed fertility treatment after failed fertility treatment to get there.  Then she moved to another city.  It was hard to see her go as I missed her and her new family.  But we still remained friends.  In her new hometown, she met a lot of really fertile people and constantly told me how fertile all her friends were and how they were all pregnant and how easily they all got their dreams fulfilled.  Then she called me out the blue to tell me she was 12 weeks pregnant with # 2 (also conceived within 8 weeks of being off the pill). 

Things got a bit shaky cos here we were… me the infertile and her the fertile mertile who was onto baby #2 while I was still battling towards having # 1.  BUT she is my friend, so I made the effort and was happy for her and we continued on our merry ways.  Somewhere in all of this, I asked her to send weekly pics of her kids so that those of us in Joburg that she left behind would keep up with the growth of her babies… Weekly pics became every three days pics then they became everyday pics.  Daily reminders of what I had not been able to accomplish in over 4 years of trying… So after my first IVF resulting in a BFN I started resenting getting the pictures every darn day.  They started making me sad instead of happy so I sent her an email asking her to take me off the email list for a short while… This is the email I sent her:

Hi ”Friends Name”

 

Thanks for the pics; it is undoubtedly clear that your family is gorgeous! 

 

I’m not really sure how to put this request to you without hurting your feelings, but please know that this is all about me and what is going on in my head and my heart right now and has absolutely nothing to do with you, your children or my love for all of you.  Because I do love you all – A HELL OF A LOT.

 

As you know our first IVF did not work out for the positive and while I am “fine” and am getting through it, I am still emotionally raw from it.  It was a huge step for Cliff and I to take – financially and emotionally, as it really is the last step we can take to realize our dream of having our family in a marginally “normal” way.   I am all the more hurt by the fact that the cycle went SO perfectly and SO well only to have my embryo’s not make it when they were put back into my womb.  As silly as it sounds I feel responsible for them not taking (logically I know that there is nothing I did or did not do that caused the outcome, but I still feel like my body betrayed me).

 

I need a massive favor, and as one my best friends I know I can ask you without you being hurt, please can you take me off of your picture email list for a little while?  As irrational as this might sound, seeing pictures of your perfect children reminds me very clearly of what my body has not been able to do, of my failure as a wife and a woman.  It shows me what I could have and I am terrified of never getting that, so right now I need to protect my heart and not be reminded so clearly of what I have not been able to do in just over 4 long hard years of trying.

 

I love you and believe that you deserve your wonderful blessings but it’s just painful to see what I desire so much. It’s not forever and I’ll let you know as I am ready to receive the pics again. I don’t mean for you to feel guilt over your success – I am SO happy for you that you have been blessed with a perfect family, but it is just a bit hard right now for me to see the pics of the kids.  I don’t think that you will be hurt or angry by this email because I know in my heart what a good friend and kind person you are but I am just so sensitive to everyone’s feelings right now – I guess because mine are so hurt. I would understand though, if you did feel that way especially considering that I was the person who pushed you to start the picture email list in the first place but I am trusting that you will understand, so for a little while please can you take me off the list. I will soon bounce back and be demanding to be put back on, but right now in this headspace I need to not get them.

 

I really hope you can understand where I am right now.  I love you lots my friend and miss you daily.

 

Lots of love

Sam

Since sending this email nearly 2 weeks ago, I have not heard ONE word from her.  Not a “fuck you”, not a “sure”, not a “I don’t understand your stupid feelings but ok”. 

N.O.T.H.I.N.G.

A friend told me that if we are going to fall out over this simple request then perhaps it is time for me to realise that our season is over… BUT I am angry with this friend.  I needed her to understand what *I* am going through JUST ONCE and it seems she cannot do it.  She cannot see through the rose shaded fertile glasses long enough to recognise the pain in my heart.  She cannot even tell me that she is obviously pissed off at my request. 

More than anger though, I feel this immense disappointment, this huge let down by someone who was supposed to be one of my best friends.  Perhaps it is time to let the season of our friendship go, but it still hurts.  I am tired of being the person who gives my all and ends up getting kicked in the teeth. 

I am so tired of this all.  I really need my turn to come up soon.