Trying to sort this all out.

I have been very lucky in that I have never had any one extremely close to me pass away. But my best friend did and she once told me that for 2 years after she felt as though she was living in a fog and that one day she woke up and finally felt herself again. She hadn’t even realized just how hollow she had been.

I did not fully understand what she was going through but I could only imagine. And while [in]fertility is not comparable to losing a loved one I think it kind of is.

When I was told that my dream of being a Mother was highly unlikely, something in me definitely did die. The child I was waiting for was now gone. The future I had envisioned and planned for was no longer going to be a reality. It has only been the last few months that I have finally been trying to find a new definition of who I am without the word Mother in it.

I think this is extremely hard for women to understand that are either already Mom’s or do not want children.

I have seen the looks of “She’s being overdramatic”; or the “Why doesn’t she just deal with it and get over it already” looks. And I strongly believe that most fertile people will never understand there is no “getting over” this. There is only “dealing with” this.

And while for the last 2 years my entire life has been centered on starting my family and then dealing with [in]fertility I feel as though I too have been living in a sort of fog.

This has greatly affected my relationship with my husband obviously. It has brought us closer together and has also come very close to ending our marriage. I am working every day to hold onto my love for James and to keep the communication open so that there is no option for divorce.

The other area that [in]fertility has affected is the relationships that I have with friends and family.

I have found myself either consciously or unconsciously pulling away from pretty much everyone in my life. I have found it very difficult to have regular conversations because the only thing going on in my life is the sorrow, stress and emptiness that I am going through. I get very tired of sounding like a broken record. I also find it hard to “pretend” that everything is fine.

But for the last few days I have been really thinking just how much I have allowed [in]fertility to segregate myself from so much love.

Friendships that I had been forming were suddenly halted when a child came into the picture for the other woman. While I have been very happy for these women, ecstatic even, I have been unable to fully be there for them.

And it wasn’t until the other day when someone very close to me mentioned that she was upset that I had yet to call her about her miracle baby (it had been 5 weeks since I had heard the news) that I realize just how selfish I was being.

Many people have told me to be kind to myself and give myself time to sort out my feelings regarding other’s good fortunes. But I can’t help feeling that in this case I was being a “bad person”.

Here is someone very close to my heart who has finally and unexpectedly gotten news that she is pregnant with a baby the doctors told her would never happen and what did I do? I ignore her because it was too painful for me. Is that ok? I don’t think so.

And while there is no manual for dealing with these types of situations I think it is important to remember that we should to be there for the mommy-to-be because some day, if we are lucky, someone will be there for us too.