Counselor, procedures, and friends, oh my!

In November, when I first talked to my counselor – lets call her Saint – I told her that I was on a break until February. But, I was mulling over the idea of waiting out all the pending babies of 2007.

She quickly asked me why. I told her, “Well because when I am actively cycling using procedures, I get more emotional and I am afraid to go thru those emotions at same time as the events that go along with those births.”

Saint said, “If you start to do that now, you’ll never start any procedures. I will help you get thru those emotions.”

And I can’t help but agree. But, I am still fearful of the procedures and what it will do to me and my friends.

Luckily, I ran across this entry
by Tertia at So Close and I was given a voice to my thoughts. It is an entry about how to be a friend to an infertile.

(Yes, I know I’ve written a similar entry. But, this is from someone who has survived the infertility journey – jumped over the chasm and landed with twins! When I wrote my post it was written from the newly infertile point of view. I was starting to enter the middle portion of my journey, but I still was new at infertility.)

The following words Tertia uses, spoke volumes to me:

“5. The tricky one. Announcing pregnancies / baby showers / births and other kid things. The best advice I can give here is trust the Infertile to know what she can or can’t handle. Don’t hide things from her, but respect it when she says to you “I don’t think I am going to be able to handle that”. Your Infertile knows when her good days and bad days are, and what she can or can’t handle. But do invite her, give her the choice of saying no. And then respect her to know that sometimes she needs to protect her own fragile soul more than she needs to fulfill social obligations.”

This is what I originally left out. Such an important part. Ask me, and I will tell you. But, most importantly accept it when I am having a good day. I still need and want to be your friend too. I want to be able to celebrate your blessings. I want to be able to go to the maternity store with you, the baby store, etc. I want to be able to see you experience mother hood. Because what you are experiencing is life changing. And, I want to be there for you. Seeing you going thru it all, because that is what friends do.

I know that I won’t always be able to go to those places or do those things. There are times (even when I am not going thru procedures) that I am not emotionally strong enough to do those things. But my good days (at least for right now) out weigh my bad days. And when I say, “Lets go.” Take me up on the good day, because I want to desperately share in your joy as much as possible. Since that is what friends do, they share in your life.

And it will help me feel like I may have won a battle against infertility – I’ll be reminded that my whole is stronger than my malfunctioning useless reproductive system. Enforcing, I will survive.