The Great, the Grand and the Ugly

If you are like me, and subjected to many a western, you'll understand that I had in my head "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" title in my head. But truth be told, two of the items are both really good, and only one topic is really UGLY!

The Great idea from Mel, the Commentathon. It has been so much fun and I love it. So much fun receiving comments from people whom I had not come across before. And I am also having a great time meeting others thru their blogs. Thank you Mel for creating this gathering of support!

The Grand, The Brain Tumor Society's Ride for Research . As many of you know, this occured May 20th. THANK YOU to all who donated. I cannot express to you how much it meant. The entire race raised so far $1,800,990. (By the way donations are still being accepted until September if you feel so inclined.) And our team, in honor of Bobby raised $16,248.00. Yes, we did exceed our goal and THANK YOU!

The Ugly. Yes, the post below instigated some more ugly acts. If it wasn't enough what had been said and done, she sunk to a new low in my opinion. After I waited six months to vent anything about the situation. After I was certain that I had chronicled the incidents without judgement. But to express my feelings. To put them into my pensieve. I got slapped in the face again by my former so called friend.

The events of the last few days have left me feeling in shock. She could not have been my friend, if she was she would find some respect remaining for what was our friendship. Instead, she preaches about wanting to be an adult and not to have been at fault. She insincerely apologizes, and then takes it back by posting on her blog. Then she tries to intimidate me by posting my post to her blog. She has pained me in a way that I did not think possible. It is a betrayal, yet again.

Sill, I have to much respect for what was and I will not be linking her blog to mine. But, the door is FOREVER sealed. Forgiveness will occur, but I can never forget.

Insecure, Unaccepted, and Unworthy.

Yesterday, my T and I went to a family party. It wasn’t a typical party, one in honor of my deceased cousin’s birthday. So, I felt an absolute need to be present.

Since December, I have completely avoided all of my maternal family parties. Mostly because, only way I can describe it, my girl cousins make me feel like I am in high school again – insecure, unaccepted and unworthy.

These feelings aren’t new. If I am realistic, they have always made me feel sub-par. I don’t wear designer jeans, own a house, or carry a Gucci purse. I wear JCrew jeans, own a condo, and carry a wide variety of cute purses but nothing too expensive. And when I am not in there presence, I feel mostly secure, accepted, and a worthy individual.

All of our conversations are superficial. I try to ask about there lives, at least the parts I know about, to find out how they really are. But, they never return the questions. They don’t want to know.

I feel like I am taboo.

Infertility has made it worse. It reinforces the feeling that I am being left behind with everyone I have grown up with. (All of the women in my lives, which I grew up with are either entering into motherhood or are mothers.) And I feel alienated from them. For the most part, this isn’t caused by anything they do, it is my own insecurity coming out.

It gets me to question, why would they want to remain friends with me. Since, you are friends with people that you have things in common with, and soon enough the largest part of their lives; I won’t be able to commiserate with, because I won’t have that in common with them.

My friends are limited. This really never bothered me before this last year. I have only a few very good friends. Unfortunately, the majority don’t live anywhere near me; only one lives within driving distance. I feel even more isolated. And in jeopardy of being even more lonely, since if I loose one more friend to infertility than I will only have two, etc. The loneliness I feel is increasing as we speak.

I have acquaintances, but I don’t see them regularly and they either work 70 hours a week or have families of their own. Although, I like them, and I think we could be very good friends. These circumstances make me feel less inclined to call them; because I know they are busy.

Work, I love my job for the content and excellent boss I have. But, it isn’t a very social group. No one around my age or able to go to lunch with (they are all part time). And it only increases my loneliness.

So, I’ve tried to do more activities on my own after work. Partly because I like the activities, but also I have a desire to make more friends. Granted, I have only started to do this recently, but I haven’t met one person besides the Yoga teacher or counselor. They are paid to hang out with me.

Maybe it isn’t my cousins, maybe it is me. And maybe they just remind me how worthless I feel. And the majority of the time, I can ignore it.

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.

BLESSINGS

My friends are blessings.

"Some People come into our lives and quickly go.
Some People stay awhile and we are never the same."

My friends are the latter. I will never be the same with them in my lives, for this I am grateful.

I have two groups of friends. My Real friends and my Vent friends.

(Please note that the names I have come up with are no reflection of anything, except my inability to be more creative. Real, only because I will see my real friends in real life. My Vent friends are in the cyber world, more than likely, I will never meet them in person. Doesn't mean they are any less my friends.)

My Real friends, I have known forever, a minimum of twelve years. They know me inside and out. They listen, they try to help, and they know where I am coming from. During my trying to conceive saga, they have done all these things, but something was missing. This was no reflection of them, it was me.

In January of this year, in desperation, I found my Vent friends. These are women all experiencing the trying to conceive saga. Some for as long as I, some for longer, some have completed many more procedures than I, and some have gone through less. But, they all are going/have been through the same thing. They listen, sometimes have advice, other times, they send there cyber hugs and words of encouragement.

I realized today, that God has blessed me with both of my groups of friends. They both help me daily. They listen, encourage, push me on, and for all of that, I am grateful.

For both groups, I feel: joyous for their victories, sad for their disappointments, devastated for life's unfairness, and ecstatic for life's blessings.

Why is that I must separate the two?

For my Real friends, I pray that they never experience infertility. They are able to get pregnant if and when they want to, that they experience a healthy pregnancy, birth, and child.

For my Vent friends, I pray that we are blessed to experience mother hood through a healthy pregnancy, birth and child, soon.

This is why I must separate my blessings, I need different blessings for them.