Best friend has just found out some terrible fertility news, but I'm 31w... :-(

[BellaCB]

I'm just looking for some advice, really, on how I should handle this situation.

My oldest friend has just found out that she and her husband are going to find it extremely difficult to conceive, that they then run a high risk of losing a pregnancy if she does conceive, and that there then is a 1-in-4 chance that any baby they do carry full term will be disabled. At the moment she is, of course, in shock and very confused how she feels.

With very unfortunate timing, I am 31w with DC1 which, awkwardly, I fell pregnant with accidentally (though she is a very much wanted baby).

I desperately want to be there for my friend but I have no idea what to do. I'm terrified that too much contact may seem to her as if me and my pregnancy are 'in her face' and that will be too much for her to cope with at the moment - but if I keep my distance, she might think that I am too wrapped up in my forthcoming baby to have any time for her. I'm even a little worried that saying something like 'I know I might not seem the person you want to talk to right now, so it's ok if you don't want to' might come across as rubbing it in

Can I ask what you'd do, and any suggestions as to how best I can support her and her husband?

What awful news. What condition does she have?

As a long term (unsuccessful thus far) ttc-er my advice would be to just be sensitive and be aware that her feelings might change. At times I am fine around my pregnant friends. At others I am not (particularly when I have just had yet another BFN or AF has arrived). Hormones aside, everyone has days better when they cope with the bad stuff than others.

Talk to her about her issues and tell her you are there for her. I don't think you need to do the "I know I might not seem the person you want to talk to" speech. You're old friends so you know her well. Just be sensitive. She might be better able to deal with you on the phone/over email when your bump is not right there when she is having bad days.

I think all you can do is ask her. My best friend found out she was infertile when I was about 6 months pregnant and I was due to go and visit her (we live a couple of hours apart). We talked a lot on the phone but I asked her if she would prefer not to see me face to face and she confessed that it would be too hard.

So we kept in touch over the phone and gradually things got back to normal. She has since adopted a fabulous little girl who is 6 months older than my DS.

Its her husband, actually, and it is some kind of chromosonal abnormality so there isn't too much that can be done about it.

I'm just so worried that its one of those situations where whatever I say will somehow be the wrong thing.

I think all you can do is listen (over the phone) and then ask if she wants to meet face to face and say that you entirely understand if she doesn't want to see you right now. I don't think that comes across as rubbing it in - far worse to leave it and pretend that this isn't a really, really difficult situation.

Put the ball in her court. It isn't easy, I didn't feel like I could moan about my pregnancy (which was a lurch from one horrendous thing to the next) to my bf so we did grow apart for a while - she was mourning her inability to conceive while I was totally bound up in my pregnancy. But if you are really close and have been friends for a long time, your friendship will survive.

Perhaps give her a call and talk about it over the phone like other posters have suggested as it might be hard for her to physically see you. We were TTC for 3.5 years and during that time, I didn't see a friend that got pregnant, I just couldn't deal with seeing her bump, etc. But once the baby arrived I was fine because, for me, I just wanted, and couldn't, get pregnant so to see someone else in that position who I was close to was just too much for me. Once her baby had arrived, it was just different for me. But everyone is different.
I'm now in a similar situation in that a friend of mine found out that her husband was sterile when they were trying following cancer treatment he had at 13 and his parents never told him. I haven't seen her in person but we keep in touch through texts etc but I sort of feel weird seeing her when we were once in the same boat and now aren't.

How sad Bella.

The main thing is that you are already sensitive to the fact that you being pregnant might be difficult for her so you will be a good friend to her through this.

pruney I'm also fine when the babies arrive. I can also cope with bumps (most of the time). It's the pregnancy announcements that hurt me the most. I feel like I am left behind on a stage of life that all of my peers are embarking upon.

Hi that sounds difficult, it is hard but I think you have to talk about it with her and see how she wants to handlle things.

I had a m/c earlier this year which was crap but it hurt me the most when I got purposely left out of baby stuff as other people had decided it would upset me, it made me feel even more isolated and out of the baby crowd.

For me personally, I had decided that if the closest I came to being with children was being a great aunty to my mates kids then so be it (at that point I was also questioning my fertility). Weirdly, my mate and her baby were the biggest support at that time. She was willing to talk to me frankly about stuff and he just gave me unconditional love.

I'm not saying that your friend will feel the same way but I really appreciated my friend talking to me openly instead of assuming what would upset me as a lot of others did (even though this was well intentioned).

Good Luck but also you shouldn't feel a sense of guilt about being pregnant yourself, it is life that bad and good things happen to people.

xxx

Bella, I've been in pretty much exactly this situation from the other perspective - I have a chromosomal abnormality too and in particular there was one of my friends who took a long time to conceive. We were quite close while we were both ttc (me not knowing at that time what was wrong) and when she got pregnant it was really hard to be around her.

My advice would be to let her be the guide - don't push it if she seems to be avoiding you, but if she does get in contact or suggest meeting, follow it up quickly so she doesn't worry that you feel awkward. And try and strike a balance with the pregnancy chat - for me I didn't want to ignore it, but it was good to just ask a few questions and chat about it for a while and then move on.

Also, usually I would say, don't suggest to her this or that treatment that she's probably heard of. But I'm going to break my own rule, because here I am 14 weeks pregnant with twins with the same condition as your friend's other half, after one cycle of IVF with preimplantation genetic diagnosis using array-CGH at the Bridge Centre in London.
They currently have something like a 67% live birth rate for IVF with PGD, which is about 3 times better than the NHS (Guy's, across the road, have a success rate of about 20% for PGD) and in fact when I looked up the HFEA figures last year I found that the only time they'd had unsuccessful IVF with PGD patients was when all the eggs that were collected were unhealthy.
One reason for the difference is likely to be that Guy's does a different analysis method (called FISH) which only picks out errors due to the translocation, while array CGH can pick up other chromosomal abnormalities. For example, I had 13 eggs, 8 with imbalances due to my abnormality, 4 healthy, and 1 with an imbalance unrelated to my abnormality. Using the other method, they might have put back embryo number 5 with the unrelated abnormality and I'd have had yet another miscarriage.
The only drawback, and it's a big one, is that we had to self fund - the NHS wanted us to go to Guy's. But there were people in Bridge who were PCT funded so it must be possible. Otherwise it's about 10 grand a pop. But honestly, best thing I ever did. The NHS messed me about no end, telling me it would be better to keep trying naturally, and that IVF with PGD would take longer. But with a 2 out of 3 chance of having a miscarriage or a severely disabled baby, and rapidly approaching the age of 35, I reckoned it was a much better use of my time (if not money, maybe) to put in two or three IVF cycles in a year rather than having another 2 shots at natural pregnancy at best.

One more thing: maybe the last thing your friend needs right now is to be talking to a mad lady off the internet about all this, but if she did want to know anything about the PGD route from someone who's just done it I'd be very happy to answer any questions she's got - just PM me and I'll give you my email address.

Thanks everyone, that's all really helpful. I'll give her a call and ask her (subtly) what she wants to do. George - that's really interesting to hear that you wanted to be involved and people didn't involve you, thinking it was for the best - I'll try and make sure not to do that.

If it would help to hear a positive story, my best friend had to have emergency surgery, which left her fertility severely compromised when I was about 7 months pregnant with my first dc.

I had no idea what to do but fortunately my friend, despite her woe, had seen the possible problem and had told mutual friends that she still wanted to see me and that she needed to be part of my pregnancy and my children's lives more than ever and that I had to come and see her straight away.

She has since had 2 children, although the second in particular was a bit of a struggle.

I agree that you should try to gently find out how she feels. It could be that she needs to cling to you and your baby more than ever and that they will have a very special bond.

I know that she will appreciate your tact and sensitivity.

I hope her story has a happy ending.

I really hope your friend's story has a happy ending. Let her be your guide.

Can I just say it sounds like she has been given only negative messages? When the dust has settled maybe you could suggest that bad news like that doesn't mean there is no solution, just obstacles? As someone who was told I would never have children by an insensitive after only one failed IVF cycle - and who five years later is expecting DC2, I firmly believe in looking beyond the diagnosis.
Another poster here has done that at the Bridge clinic...maybe if it is your friend's husband that is the problem, donor sperm could be a solution as well. I suppose these things sound aborrhent to people that aren't fertility challenged, so it will take time and tact for her to deal with it all.

Had a similar situation. We carried on as usual but she drifted away and finally admitted over email that she was finding it hard. I had suspected but didn't confront her, which found hard.

We both have children now and things are back to normal but it took a while. Everything was on her terms and I would cringe at how much i talked about babies when I saw her. It was really hard but it didn't last forever.

You are very considerate to post for advice. Now you need patience!

Not comepletely the same situation but a very good friend of mine lost her baby at 20wks when I was 9wks gone. I think I had only told her the week before too.

I offered her support if she wanted it and we chatted a lot over the phone and via text. I checked in with her regularly to see if she was ok and let her bring it up when she was ready to see me.

The key thing for us has been that we never stopped talking and that she can still now talk to me about it.

It was a bit odd at first probably for both of us but we worked through it. I think that and just her knowing that I was there for her helped.