Friend struggling with infertility and avoiding me, WWYD?

[marykitty]

My friend Lara (NC) and I have been friends since primary school. I love her so so much and I always felt we were born to be friends, but now we barely speak anymore.

I will put a lot of info on this OP, bare with me, it will be a long one.

After uni we moved to the opposite sides of the country but we kept meeting regularly and have calls every week.

Lara and I got married the same year and we were each other maid of honor. During my honeymoon I found out I was expecting DS. She was really happy for me and told me she would start TTC in the summer (basically 1 year after me). She was supporting me during my PND and PTSD due to bad delivery. When DS was still a newborn she told me that she had lost a baby. She was TTC since only a couple of months at that time.

Since then we spoke a lot about her TTC, IUI and IVF journey and I spoke less and less about my DS because I wanted to focus on her and did not want to make her suffer or else. We spoke about her checkups, our jobs, house reno, friends, gossip etc. She was never asking about DS so I avoided the topic. We were always meeting without him and I guess I was sort of hiding the reality of my life, because, let's admit it, my DS is the central focus of my life and I had to really push myself to avoid mentioning him, but I managed good.

Fast forward few years later and I am pregnant again, actually due in circa 1 week with DD.
I dreaded telling her, I know this made her feel really bad. Since then our calls were fewer and fewer and she stopped giving me updates on her TTC journey. I told her I did not want to push her and that she could decide if she wanted to speak about it or not, I would have always be there for her whenever she wanted to open about it. We never spoke about my pregnancy during these months. I felt our calls became more and more "superficial", the type of conversation you have with someone you know since only few weeks, and always going around the same "easy topics" such as work etc

The tipping point was couple of months ago at a wedding. I was heavily pregnant, the wedding was of a mutual primary school friend. I am not very social media friendly so a lot of people did not know I was pregnant and had a DS already.
We were bridesmaid, dressed in the same dress, and I was there, looking like a whale and running after my toddler, next to her. Of course a lot of people came to me for congratulations and asking how I was doing etc. I tried to minimize the talk if she was around but it was difficult.
I also think she was hit by the reality of me being a very involved mum. My DS is very cuddly and in a big mum phase.

Since then she is avoiding me. I texted her few times but she is always cutting our conversations short and we never manage to speak on the phone.

I miss her so so much and I feel so so sorry for the struggles she is facing. I know I will never understand completely, but I want to be there for her.
I wonder what I did wrong, what else can i do to make her feel better, I feel like I am failing her.

My DH thinks I should give her time and she will come back once she is pregnant but what if this never happens? Or happens in several years? I cannot let her go.

WWYD? What can I do? Am I being selfish wanting her close to me?

I think the card idea is the best one

You sound lovely, but at the same time, her not being close to you at this precise moment in time isn't validation of you being a bad friend.
You honestly need to keep her time and not come across as you're smothering her with a need to be close.
She's going through something horrendously traumatic, I'm sure when the time is right she'll be in touch.. Just send her a message as pp said above, let her make the choice, give her that choice.

I was in a similar position with one of my BFs only we both had fertility issues for 2 years beforehand which brought us even closer.

When I got pregnant with DC1 she was undergoing IVF and lost the baby. I’ve since had DC2 and she’s had 2 more failed cycles. We are 43 now so she’s accepted that might be it.

I try and be mindful, I don’t post pics of the kids on SM, mainly for her. We have maintained a friendship but only as individuals, she cannot be around my children

Sorry, posted to soon.

Our relationship is not what it was but we are still friends. It gets easier as time goes by as well.

You haven't done anything wrong. By the sounds of it you've been a lot more thoughtful and compassionate than a lot of people would be. She hasn't done anything wrong either though. I'd send her a text just saying you're there for her and ask her to contact you when she feels able to. Then leave it, the ball is in her court. In the nicest way try and move on. If she comes back then fantastic but you can't put your life on hold.

I struggled with the pain and grief of infertility for years. I also had a kind and caring friend like you, who kept in touch and offered support and rarely mentioned her child, who I only met once after it was born because friend and I always met up just the two of us. And then also like your story (weirdly similar!), friend and her child and I were all at the same wedding and I saw her as a mother and realised with crushing horror that I didn't know my friend anymore. She was a mother, that was the main focus of her life and I didn't recognise her. We drifted apart after that. I couldn't maintain the friendship knowing she was keeping the biggest part of her life away from me. I also couldn't have handled my jealousy if she had regularly talked about being a mother, so there was no win in that situation. I think you have to accept that infertility is the focus of her life and your children are the focus of yours, the two don't mix well and the friendship has reached an end, or at least a pause.

That is a beautiful post @Dochas121

I have been where your friend is for 4 years, it is really hard and distancing yourself from people is sometimes what you have to do.
Let he do what she needs to, don't push her or it'll end the friendship. Hopefully if there is a successful outcome she'll reach out

I have been where she is. It’s horrible and if she’s a few years in, the trauma and grief she will have experienced is likely to be dominating her life and her mental health. I hated missing out on my friend’s children and made an effort to be present as a friend but sometimes it hurt so much to be around that. I also felt so left out of baby focused activities.

I realized that the experience is very difficult to fully comprehend if you have not experienced baby loss and infertility. My friends did not get it.

I’m betting she still really needs you, but I think you need to reach out to her carefully. I’d suggest looking at accounts on Instagram such as as Trying Years, Parenthood in Mind, MissConception. They give a really clear insight.

Tell her you love her and miss her, and you can’t imagine what it might be like to experience fertilty issues but you’d really like to support her and you’re sorry she’s going through this. Arrange something special and child free that you can do together. She what she says. It may be that you have to accept a short term distance to your friendship but don’t abandon her, just recognize how much she might be hurting and what that is doing to influence her choices.

@DoobyDooos

Let her go. I struggled through infertility while a friend had children. It wasn't just the difficulty of being infertile, it was also a natural drifting apart as our lives went in different directions. Just leave her be. She can contact you if she wants to.

Totally this ⬆️ I get that you are saying you saw her without your DS and that is very kind of you. Generally I drifted away from most of my friends, they were all very busy with mum life. The ones I did see had to be child friendly, so soft plays, parks etc. Very hard emotionally at the end of the day. I have been completely blessed and now have two DCs, I'm still not on the same page as old friends... there kids are growing and becoming more independent, mine are babies: I still think of them as friends and fondly, but things definitely changed

We're not talking someone who just wants a baby but hasn't trued yet. We're talking about someone dealing with loss, intensive fertility treatment and all the emotional rollercoaster that entails.

Speaking from experience, my time as someone who 'just' wanted a baby but was very, very single... it was really dreadful.

I didn't have the side effects of IVF, but as we're talking about being supportive, please let's be supportive of single women who are also grieving their fertility.

Okay so at the moment you are at peak salt-in-the-wound time for someone struggling with fertility: one child who's a similar age as her lost baby and now about to produce another baby.

I'm guessing you've accepted she won't be supporting you with this new baby - it will simply be too painful for her.

I married quite a bit later than my close friends so I was "fortunate" that when they were having babies I was still single and optimistic that my time would come and had no idea that I would be infertile. I very much enjoyed their babies.

I had one loss and never conceived again. A family member had a baby around my due date who is in fact my godchild but boy it was hard holding it together at that christening.

Keep the lines of communication open OP but don't probe it with her. You've done nothing wrong except succeed where she is failing. Sadly your friendship will have a time out until you're ready to socialise without your children or she has a successful pregnancy.

Good luck with your new baby

There is not a lot you can do about your friends situation. and it's strange that she ignores you to some extent, as this is the way things are at the moment. Maybe she can't look at things realistically, which is a shame.

i would send her one message saying that you will be there if she wants you and then leave her be. I am childless not by choice, didn't even especially want kids but when I got to menopause and realised that "not yet" was now "not ever" I had a few bleak months. A few of our junior staff were on mat leave at the time and I found it best to be busy elsewhere when they visited with babe.

I had to distance myself from my dear uni friend as she had three children whilst I couldn't have any and suffered loss. I have recently been able to get our friendship back. It was nothing she did and not her fault but I needed to step away as it killed me watching her be a mother.

I had to watch two friends have eight children between them as I failed to have any. It was so hard. I don’t think anyone can understand this feeling unless they’ve experienced it.

You need to respect her wants rather than what you want. Just give her space and see whether she comes round in the future but accept she might not.

Slightly different but still similar with my bf.
Friends since primary, practically sisters. We were expecting our ds's 4 weeks apart. We had it all planned. Then my ds didn't hit milestones the way he should. It was too painful to be around her and her lovely ds so I pulled away.
I miss her so much but I just couldn't cope. It is like a grief like others have said. It feels like you've been robbed of a life you should have had.
Try not to take it personally as best you can, she just needs to guard her heart.

You sound very considerate to her situation, and @Dochas121 has articulated it so well

The only thing I will add is that when I was in the bunker of infertility and ivf and miscarriages, I sought out my childless friends to spend more time with, almost like I was ‘road testing’ their lives to reassure myself it wouldn’t be as bad if it was what life was going to become so as well as avoiding my close friends with children (who were the same ages as the babies I lost should have been), I genuinely had less time for them because I was deliberately prioritising other friends

So don’t be hurt or surprised if she isn’t being a total grieving hermit and is able to put on a happy face with some groups of people.

Hopefully she will find her way back to you in time, but infertility is a pain like no other

You sound like a good friend.
If she needs some space now then look holistically at the expected length of your friendship. From primary to death - over 70 years. The few years of low contact now will be just a blip if you hang on and wait for normal service to return.
Don't feel you have to do anything except wait.

I’m pregnant too OP, 1.5wks to go. I’ve also got friends who are struggling with infertility and going through hospital treatments to ttc. It took 20 months to conceive this baby and we were almost at the IVF stage so I feel incredibly grateful it happened without any interventions in the end. I can also really empathise with my friends who haven’t been as fortunate (yet). Infertility is incredibly painful and when ttc drags on and on, it does things to you. I took myself away from life to a certain extent.

I would say though that you have been incredibly considerate. I found I was much more likely to engage with friends who showed me consideration and also more likely to engage with their children too. I remember the people who rammed their family life down my throat and I still don’t want much to do with them.

You’ve been a good pal and I hope she realises this in time. If she’s not reaching out to you atm, I would leave her be and see if she comes round on her own. She’s living with a pain that follows her around every day, let her manage it her own way.

Good luck with your baby girl!

@Phoebesgift

She can't be friends with you because she's bitter with jealousy. If she manages to have a baby she will probably try to connect with you again. There's nothing you can do but wait it out.

Jesus, bitter? Really? She's grieving her losses and is sad about it. She's trying to protect her heart. An ounce of empathy wouldn't go a miss.

You haven’t done anything wrong, you haven’t failed her, there is nothing you can do except be available if she wants to talk about it, which she won’t.

Being around you (and other mums, but particularly you because you have what she expected to have) is very painful for her. When she’s not with mothers/babies, she may be able to forget about it all for a little while, but when you are there it hurts. Badly.

TTC that goes nowhere, while near mothers of young children, is a bit like being starving hungry and surrounded by people who have plates of yummy food - except you can’t share.

Hopefully as time passes and she gets used to the pain, the friendship may revive, but it’s unlikely while you have a young baby.

You need to accept that she can’t be a close friend to you right now. I’m sorry. I know you won’t understand. Infertility is not something that’s understood by people who haven’t been through it. It’s a hunger and becomes a painful obsession and intense grief can be triggered by small things. I once burst into tears because I saw a baby animal.

@Phoebesgift

She can't be friends with you because she's bitter with jealousy. If she manages to have a baby she will probably try to connect with you again. There's nothing you can do but wait it out.

"Bitter with jealousy"

The poor woman is grieving a loss, and undergoing intensive treatment and all you can think is that she is bitter and jealous? Never mind the grief, sorrow, pain, and heart ache this woman probably experiences every single day, in typical pitting woman against woman narrative you've jumped straight to jealousy. Such a cop out for people who just cannot be bothered trying to empathise with another person.

@dollysnightcap

We're not talking someone who just wants a baby but hasn't trued yet. We're talking about someone dealing with loss, intensive fertility treatment and all the emotional rollercoaster that entails.

Speaking from experience, my time as someone who 'just' wanted a baby but was very, very single... it was really dreadful.

I didn't have the side effects of IVF, but as we're talking about being supportive, please let's be supportive of single women who are also grieving their fertility.

I don't get why you don't think I'm being sympathetic. You've protected your own story into my words. I AM a single woman who is now trying to have a baby in my 40s and only having miscarriages. You don't have to tell me what that is like. I cry every time I think about it, which is most days.

I meant those people on the TTC board who are 23 and have been trying for 4 months and haven't conceived yet and are 'distraught' already. I was trying to point out that the OPs friend is is a totally different and much more painful place than that.