One week from today we will be in Atlanta, my donor's eggs will be unfrozen, and combined with my husband's sperm. If all goes well, I won't be brought back in till Wednesday, June 19th, for a five day, single embryo transfer. Then I will drive myself home the next day, and the following day is my 33rd birthday. My goal was to be done by my birthday, and sure enough, we are track for that. Of course I won't test till the week after my birthday, but at least we'll be done with the Atlanta part.
I had a pretty hard weekend after I last wrote. I recently have become good friends with a woman from my local support group. I had been close with four other women, and one by one, three of the four are all pregnant (or delivered a baby, in one case). That's been hard- I love getting their updates and am so happy for them, but sometimes I feel like a failure. I'm the only one who has gotten negative IVFs every time and am still here, infertile.
Anyway, recently I've become friendly with a new-ish member of the group. We're very different in a lot of ways, but we are the same age, and we've both been trying for a baby for 2.5 years. I encouraged her to shop around for a new clinic and she ended up switching to my clinic here. They did one IUI, negative. They did another one, and she texted me on Thursday that she had gotten a faint positive, but then a BFN the next day. She seemed upset and hopeless, and asked if we wanted to have dinner with her and her husband on Saturday night. I offered to cook, and planned a lovely meal that we could eat on the deck.
Well, Friday night she found out she is pregnant. Definitely pregnant.
I was.. deflated. Now, don't get me wrong: I am thrilled for her. She is wonderful and deserves to be a parent. I have wished nothing for the best for her. But to hear of yet another support group member's pregnancy can be hard. I wish I had my treatments work. I wish I had gotten pregnant from an IUI or an IVF and my own eggs. I wish, I wish. But, it isn't going to happen.
So, I was truly happy for her, but also sad that I'm losing yet another companion in this path of infertility, and that I feel like a failure yet again. But when I woke up Saturday, I was determined to be a gracious host to them for dinner, and to have a nice weekend before and after that.
Then, the kiss of death: Facebook.
I checked Facebook. And a high school friend of mine announced her pregnancy. In the worst, most obnoxious way: one of those ridiculous photo shoots with her and her husband and a due date and a stupid little baby bump prominently featured.
This was a friend (notice WAS) that WATCHED me do my shots one year ago, when I visited her at her home. She told me she probably didn't want kids, that she is really focused on her PhD, that both her husband and herself are "ambivalent" about children.
Why, universe? Why should someone who is ambivalent about wanting children get pregnant so easily, so quickly (I know they went on vacation in January- I assume they were not trying before then), yet I, who have longed for a baby for so many years, cannot? Life is so unfair, so deeply, deeply unfair.
As if this weren't bad enough, I looked back at my emails and we'd been writing back in April. When she was two months pregnant, by my calculations. She asked how IVF was going and I relayed that it hadn't worked and we are sad and don't know what to do next.
She said NOTHING about being pregnant.
And it's not that she should have to, but I would have really appreciated a short note or email before she posted that obnoxious, attention-hogging photo on Facebook. She KNOWS about my struggles and our pain and she couldn't even have said something, a short something? And she KNOWS about infertility, through at least me if not others, and she still thought her FB obnoxiousness was something wise to do? I have had plenty of other friends become pregnant, and I am happy for them, and when they've told me, via email usually, then it's totally fine.
What do you think, readers? Am I being way too sensitive? Should we not expect some sensitivity after disclosure to a close friend? Is this just not something people should be expected to think about? Am I crazy for being angry at her and wanting to tell her how insensitive this was?
I won't do anything. She lives far away and we don't see each other more than once or twice a year, and she's not obligated to protect my feelings or do anything, and I suspect she'd just think I was crazy if I were to say anything. Perhaps, if this cycle works, and I am coming from a more positive place, then I can say something... or perhaps not.
Oh, man. I completely understand your feelings on both these things. It is perfectly ok to be happy for someone else and feel horrible, sad, angry, and devastated for you when a fellow infertile is pregnant. I started out feeling "yeah! it worked for them! it can work for me!" and then when I cycled through FOUR GROUPS of fellow infertiles who "graduated" while I remained on the couch, it became more of a "Yay, I'm happy for you, but HOLY HELL THIS SUCKS FOR ME. Really? Left behind again? Will there be ANYONE left in my cohort when I finally get this to work???" So I stopped going to support group, because it actually became more painful than helpful. I did not want to be the constant anymore. I am still on an email support group, but I actually try hard not to get too attached to new people because it is too hard to constantly get left behind, especially by people who dart in and out of the group. I mean, I know it's hard and everyone's journey is difficult in their own way, but it sucks when you are STILL NOT PREGNANT and people are like, "Oh man, this IUI thing sucks..." and then they are pregnant within a month or two of group. And you are like, "Yeah, did the IUI thing, did the IVF thing, and now doing the DE thing, jeez I hope this finally sticks." Horrible feeling. So don't beat yourself up, you are NOT a bad member of the community if you have conflicted feelings about another infertile's pregnancy announcement.
ReplyDeleteNow, for the facebook thing... Facebook is evil. I can't seem to get out of this abusive relationship, but it is definitely an infertile girl's worst nightmare. I'm so sorry your friend didn't have the decency to let you know ahead of time that she was pregnant. Sometimes people don't know what to say, and it's just SO AWKWARD for them (boo hoo I say, suck it up if you are a true friend), that they choose to say nothing and ignore it rather than have a moment that is uncomfortable, again, FOR THEM. I have lost and damaged friendships from this very scenario. You could say something to her, and try to explain why saying nothing was really not the best choice and how that hurts you, but it may be the case that she continues to be "oblivious" and it doesn't matter what you say, and so you may have to make peace with it as is. Sucks so much. I hate all these additional ripples of infertility! The fact that she's pregnant despite being "ambivalent" just adds fuel to the fire of resentment on this one. I agree, there is no justice in the world in how babies are handed out. None. I will never understand why it's easy for some, and some who don't really care/appreciate it, but SO SO hard for others who desperately want it. No clue.
I hope this was helpful, as you can see I have some strong feelings on these topics! I'm sorry for both scenarios. Take care of yourself, write about it, talk about it with your husband or a friend who "gets it," and then concentrate on ATLANTA! I'm so excited for you. I hope this trip puts all this crap behind the unbelievable excitement of success. Fingers and toes crossed!
Thank you so much, Jess. It's so reassuring to hear from someone else in my situation. Locally, I only know one other woman who has made it all the way to donor egg, which is funny because the CDC reports that 12% of all IVF cycles are actually using donor eggs (http://www.cdc.gov/art/ART2010/section1.htm#f2). Where are all of the other women who haven't had success with IUIs or first time IVFs? They don't come to my local RESOLVE group. I wish they did! That's why reading your blog as well as a couple of others has been so helpful to me. Thank you.
ReplyDeletep.s. You must be getting very close to retrieval too, right? Hope everything is going great!
I'm glad I'm reassuring! Donor egg is lonely for sure, and I think by the time most people get to this stage of things they are burnt on support groups and don't go. I went all the time as a newbie but then it got too hard for all the reasons I said up there! So many other women who had long journeys also dropped out after a while. Interesting, 12%, huh? I did not know that! I think people aren't as open about donor egg also, which makes it isolating too. I'm glad to be of help! You help me, too--I am so excited when you have a new post. We're pretty close in terms of timing, which is cool, too. My retrieval is this week--she's still cooking, so it's looking later in the week. So weird to be so removed from it all. But exciting, too!
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