Feeling deflated/like a crap friend

[Cornish13]

Like all of us dread, my friend has just told me she’s coming off of contraception and trying for a baby. Which is normally quite hard to hear in general.

However this hurts a bit more as she caught a couple of years ago and had an abortion and thought nothing of it, made it a joke. Her partner has an existing child and she often confides in us that he’s rubbish with this child and she’s having to look after her step child all the time. He doesn’t help around the house etc. and is rubbish with money.

I obviously can’t express to her how sad I feel as I don’t want to ruin anything for her. But equally it breaks my heart. You know when you think bad things and then feel bad for thinking them? The side of you infertility brings out and no one understands. Like my partner is an amazing dad to our miracle baby and it breaks my heart that we need ICSI to have another and my friends partner doesn’t deserve these children. Or she’s had an abortion before and found it hilarious, she doesn’t deserve to be blessed with a baby. And I know these thoughts aren’t nice but my mind goes there.

I want to be a good friend and be excited for her but then I feel bad because my heart isn’t in it fully. She’s never been massively supportive or understanding of my situation and will often make hurtful remarks that she doesn’t realise is hurtful. We’re at the start of our treatment and things have been hard mentally anyway, I just need to decide if I can be there mentally for both myself and her 😢

Maybe you need to step back from the friendship for a bit until you are feeling in a better place?

Insensitive comments are really tough. I remember when someone was moaning to my friend that she was devastated when he found out she was having a second boy, as she badly wanted a girl, and my friend was struggling to conceive and would do anything for a healthy baby of any gender of her own.

Your friend is probably also just having a rant about her partner, he's unlikely to be underdeserving of his children, but she's painting that picture as she is having a moan. Either way, it's not helpful for you to hear right now.

I'm so sorry for this situation. I think as pp said, you might need to take a step back. You could also be honest and upfront with her and that will take a huge load off your shoulders. I have a friend who walked me through her abortion as it was happening and it killed me as the year before hand we needed a TFMR at 4mths gestation with a muched loved and wanted IVF baby. But I tried to support her but 6months later she messaged me and said her body clock is wanting to have another baby and I completely lost it at her, that was the last straw for me, as she aborted twins at 8 weeks gestation, before this she tried to compare my loss with hers, yes both were losses but one was done on purpose and the other was a loss of pure love and wantingness. In the end she profusely apologised and that was the end of that. I was probably very harsh with my words but in my opinion she needed to hear it.