Tuesday, July 21, 2009

How do other people see me?

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm not sure how people view me, with regards to being infertile. I am very open about what we're going through (sometimes to a fault, I suppose), but I try to match the level of detail I share to the kind of relationship I have with a person. I have one friend who has been avoiding me - or at least I feel that she has - for over a month. Last time we got together, I was leading up to the most recent IUI, and she told me that she and her husband had started trying for their second child. I shared with her all about my injections, my follie count, my great lining, and my hope that I wouldn't get pregnant with quints. Now I've emailed her and called her a few times, and haven't heard back (though she's on facebook daily, so I know she's around and doing fine). My paranoia says that she got pregnant and now is afraid to face me.

About two weeks ago, just after I got my period, I had lunch with a different friend who I had been trying to connect with for some time. Our schedules just kept differing, and we each had to cancel a couple of times. Finally we got together, and one of the first things she shared with me was that she was really hoping that by the time we finally got together I would be pregnant .... "too." She was - what? - fearful? of telling me that she got knocked up, if I were still struggling.

I hate being seen as this fragile thing that can't take a friend's good news. Yes, yes, yes, of course I give the stink eye to pregnant women that I see when I'm out and about. (Especially if they have more than one kid already.) Strangers though. And yes I roll my eyes at all the "you never know!" stories that people tell me about their friends. Clearly I share Mel's sliding scale of happiness. But really, that's for strangers and celebrities. (At least, mostly.) I would never begrudge a friend her happiness, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't be bitter to her face. For the most part, my happiness level only goes up for fellow infertiles, rather than sinking down into jealousy, anger, or bitterness for my fertile friends.

2 comments:

  1. Oh boy, yes, this hits close to home. You already read my post about it... it's my biggest pet peeve with my friends and family... they do treat me like I could break at any second.

    I have a similiar story to yours with a very close friend doing the "avoid" and then popping me with the news AFTER the free world knew about it (I already knew). I was so incensed, and she didn't "get" why I was. It is so hard to be surrounded by joyful news from friends and family while you are in the muck of infertility. So hard. Worse when the silence is deafening.

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  2. Thanks for the comment on my blog. :)

    I am facing the exact same thing. During primary infertility, I was very close-lipped about the whole thing. Now I am sharing our struggles with friends. It hasn't happened yet that anyone has gotten pregnant (we've only been in treatment for a week or two) but I know it's coming very soon. I don't want to silence conversations when I walk up, because they don't want to hurt my feelings. I don't think there's an easy way to handle it! Let's hope we both get pregnant soon and it becomes a moot point. :)

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