Feeling very hurt

[Conundrum12345]

I've been friends with a girl from school for about 20 years. We're not super close but rather part of the same group and text from time to time (usually instigated by me). I've invited her and her husband to dinners in our home, sometimes she attends, sometimes she doesn't, Ive never been invited to her home. Generally I would have been the organiser of meet ups in the group - usually group dinners, drinks etc.

She currently has 3 kids under 1 and is a stay at home mum. I've send gifts when each child was born.

Over the past 3 years I've have a number of miscarriages. She knew about the first one but not the subsequent ones. Each were more traumatic than the last. I've also had a lot of fertility issues independent of that my husband and I were told that we may not be able to have children. By some miracle we are pregnant with our first after lots of IVF treatments and a difficult, long protocol. I primarily confided in one friend about this as she'd been through loss and IVF and she was an amazing support. I would generally have been a very open person but found it hard to relate to my friends with kids during this time. I

I texted a couple of friends from the highschool group when I hit 20 weeks. A few days ago I met the friend with the 3 kids for lunch. I told her about all we went through to get to this point she then turned to me and said how I made her feel guilty for having kids, that I never asked about them in texts, that I went for lunch last year around her due date and didn't invite her, that she needed a friend and I wasn't there for her, which I found strange cos she never initiated contact or to meet up. She never asked me how I was after my first miscarriage.

She also said she knew countless people that went through miscarriage and after her termination when she was younger she didn't behave the way I did

I tried to explain to her that I had to protect myself and I wasn't comfortable telling anyone beyond that one friend what I went through. I struggled massively to be around babies or pregnant women and I suffered badly from depression as a result of my infertility. I said that its very hard to comprehend how difficult it's been until you have gone through it and I got very upset. I felt like it was a person attack.

I'm not sure how to best handle this going forward. I'm very upset and I'm trying to be happy and focused as I approach my due date. I was taken a back by her comments and I didn't bring up about how she hasn't reciprocated invites, meet ups etc.

@Conundrum12345 oh no, this situation sounds awful. I don't really have a suggestion on how to move forward here but I am currently in a similar boat - it does at times feel like there is a gulf between those people who can naturally conceive and those struggling.

Please don’t feel bad for feeling how you felt and protecting yourself - she doesn’t seem like a particularly great friend to begin with so I’d be tempted to just try and forget about this and resume conversation once the baby arrives.

Best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy, so pleased for you, particularly after all you’ve been through.

Congratulations for your pregnancy and all that awaits you as a Mum.
As for your friend, I’d pull away from her. The friendship plate is cracked so can never be the same.
She’s sounds tactless and unnecessarily forthright at such a lovely time for you.
Concentrate on you and your health, your baby’s father and your baby. That’s the most important thing in your life right now. She’s just “noise” you can do without.

Wow- how ungracious of her to make your infertility and subsequent successful pregnancy all about her.

Congratulations on your pregnancy, it's been a long and hard road to get to this stage. And now it's your time to enjoy being a new mum and experience lots of parent things for the first time. You'll not forget how painful it was to go through infertility- a pain she'll never know. But it's not your responsibility to educate her or bare with her petty grievances now. She's probably tired and exhausted, overwhelmed and under supported. But not your job right now. Or ever. She just hasn't got the capacity to be kind to you at the moment.

You say you aren’t close anyway, I would just pull back from her.
You each have your own issues to deal with and neither of you have the capacity to support each other by the sound of it. It sounds like she has held onto a lot of unnecessary resentment too. She doesn’t seem to bring much to your friendship and she seems to be attempting to make YOU feel guilty for your difficult IVF journey, but twisting it and saying you have made her feel guilty. I’ve been where you are, I was even blamed for my friends PND even though I hadn’t mentioned my fertility issues for her entire pregnancy.
Congratulations on your pregnancy. Concentrate on yourself and your baby. The less drama Llamas you have in your life when your baby arrives, the better.

Thanks for your responses. I don't even want to tell her when the baby is born now. I might just let the news filter to her

Firstly congratulations.
It sounds as though you are trying hard to stay friends with someone who is not really in it. Why are you trying so hard with her?
Sounds like both of you have had rather a lot going on, and if she is saying she feels guilty for having kids and that is the reason for her not approaching her, let her. She is showing you clearly that she is not in it as much as you are. Friendships change, perhaps focus on the amazing new chapter in your life and remember you do not own the world an explanation on what is happening in your life. Focus on the people who are there rather than force someone you went to school with 20 years ago into a relationship you need but she does not.

sorry typo, approaching you

Thanks I'm not going to reach out to her anymore.