I have a friend with whom I recently reconnected, well I guess it's been 3 years now. We met in college and then she went west and I stormed east. Somehow we both found ourselves back here in this college town in the midwest, much to our surprise and, often disappointment, but that's a whole story unto itself. Anyway, we got in touch, had lunch, caught up, and arranged a time for our new husbands to meet at a dinner for four. It was a lovely evening, lots of laughter. I felt great relief, really, knowing that there was another soul, two actually, and thus making a whole couple, that we could hang out with and share our adventure. Sean has great friends back in NY and we often feel like we are missing something without such close frineds that share so much in common with us here. So this, this was BIG!
We talked about life and what we were hoping to make of it. I truly felt I had found an island, and where people spoke my language! What are the chances? They love the outdoors almost as much as we do and we talked about taking trips together, skiing, camping, exploring. What great fun we would have. We talked about wanting to have kids and how fun it would be to share that together as well. She is a few years younger than I, 3 to be exact, and they were just starting to think about kids. We had been trying a few years, on our own, still foolishly optimistic with no idea what kind of infertility journey lay ahead of us. I had been fighting enodmetriosis awhile, but back then, we still had great hopes that the kid thing would happen any minute. It's all a matter of time, right? We had already put in our time, or so we thought. I thought the chances would be good that kids for both of us would happen in close proximity.
That night, our newly reconnected and newfound friends went home and decided to start trying, just like that. And would you believe it, they got pregnant.
She didn't say a word to me until about 3 weeks later. We joined them at their new house for a fantastic dinner. She asked me if I wanted a tour of the new place, "Of course!" We set out, her showing me the rooms, this is the living room, this is our bedroom, the guest room, my craft room, and this is the nursery. I smiled at her, and thought, yes, when that happens this would be a great room for that. But there was this pause, she didn't turn on her heels to show us the other rooms, and it hit me. She meant it right NOW this is the nursery. I looked at her and she was beaming, I faked it the best I could and congratulated her trying to disguise my own tears of disappointment for tears of joy for her.
This was the first time I had had that feeling. I had heard others talk about this feeling with other women, but I hadn't felt that way before. Up to that point, I really believed our time would come (and that is was right around the corner) and I could geniunely be joyful for the newly expectant mothers making their baby announcments everywhere around me, but this time I was plagued with heartache and guilt. It was awful. The months passed, I started my infertility treatments that were followed by one negative result after another, and it continued to get harder and harder. I don't think she's an insensitive person, I don't, but she really didn't seem to get that any of this could upset me. So the gushing from her would occur and my own private pain continued. We'd meet for lunch, she was having a difficult pregnancy, so we would talk all about how she was handling it. I'd support her as she would complain. We'd meet for tea, for a walk, and we'd talk all about her pregnancy, I secretly making deals with the devil that I would take the discomfort if only I could also swim in the joy of having a healthy baby.
She finally had the baby. We met them at the hospital right after he was born. We shared in the celebration with her family. We came for the baptisim brunch, we went to their house for dinners. She would let me bathe him and help put him to bed, but this all was getting to be too much for me. I would leave and hit rock bottom. I decided I could still have lunch with her, only her, and not do the whole family thing. Somewhere I read it didn't make me a monster to feel this way. I slowly pulled back, I tried to explain why, but I don't think she ever understood.
We bought our house, a fixer-upper, so I had a great excuse for awhile why we couldn't get together. But being such great people they really wanted to help out. I finally gave in and the three of them spent a day with us. The men worked on the difficult crown molding in the bedrooms, and she and I and the little one spent time playing down at the edge of the lake and with our new puppy. Then she came into the house and my dear Sean picked up their son and my friend and he cooed over him in the kitchen together for a lifetime and it sunk me. I didn't want to watch, but it was like having a train wreck happen in front of you, you can't help but look, even if it was going to be gory. That was it, the breaking point, and I couldn't take it another minute. I didn't say a word outloud, but I'm sure I turned a deep green while I began screaming terrible things in my head like, "Get out of my kitchen! Step out of my dream! It isn't yours to have! Please don't do this right here in front of me!!" I was so relieved when they finally left that day.
She keeps asking us over and wants us all to get together. I feel horrible, but I just can't do it. Honestly, I don't know if I ever can. I know my husband thinks I'm rotten for feeling this way, yet, I can't change my feelings.
Another email from her came today. I must come up with yet another excuse. All the while the guilt washes over me.
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