Dear “soon to be pregnant” girlfriend
I am writing this because our relationship is very important to me and before hormones kick in and feelings can be hurt I want to share with you what life is like for me. As you know I am struggling to cope with my infertility and the prospect that I may never have children. I won’t burden you with all the pain it causes me on a regular basis yet I want you to be aware that there may be difficult times ahead for both of us. Why? Because I know that you are trying to conceive. If successful, your pregnancy could put a strain on our friendship and I wanted to share my point of view to prevent that from happening. Knowledge is power and together we can ensure your pregnancy announcement is a happy occasion for both of us. I want you to appreciate that …
Infertility makes dealing with pregnancy news difficult
I’m going to be brutally honest with you here. I am going to feel jealous when you tell me you are pregnant. If we’re lucky that jealousy will only be fleeting: however, it might rear its ugly head again as your pregnancy progresses. Why? Well I’m going to be watching someone I care for going on a journey that I desperately want to experience for myself too. How do I know I will feel jealous? Well I already feel if about people that I don’t know: the woman standing in the queue at the bus stop and the couple sitting in the park stroking their bump. There have been times when it’s felt as though the whole world is pregnant except for me. Life is not fare. Infertility is not fair and I admit it I am jealous!
How does that make me feel?
AWFUL! Jealousy is such a negative emotion, that eats away at the soul. Not only that but I feel so ashamed and guilty about feeling it. After all, if I can be jealous that you are so happy what does that say about me as a person or as a friend? How could I do that to you? Well it’s because I am angry and jealous that everyone is having children except me. I know this is wrong: it’s not everyone else’s fault that they are pregnant, just as it is not my fault that I cannot conceive. On a regular basis I ride the roller-coaster of emotions not knowing where the twists and turns will be. Not knowing when the relative stability of a “flat” stretch will suddenly plunge into the depths of despair. The route is continually changing so each time I ride that roller-coaster it is not the same as the last time. I can rarely plan ahead to protect myself from the bad times: however, there are some regular triggers and a friend becoming pregnant is one of those. However, not all of the 30 shades of infertility will manifest themselves when you tell me you are pregnant yet experience has told me that a fair few of them will. There’s going to be a lot of jealousy, anger, shame and guilt going on which doesn’t leave a lot of space for being happy for you. However, I will work on all these negative emotions so that I can support you because I know that you will endeavour to support me through my dark days in return. All of my negative emotions will probably make you feel apprehensive …
However, please don’t avoid or delay telling me that you are pregnant
Because the longer you leave it the worse it will get. I know that you are worried in case your news causes me pain. You are right, it will: however, that pain would be nothing compared to what I would feel if I found out about your pregnancy from someone else. Worse still if I found out on Facebook when you post a photo of you and your proud “bump”. So just bite the bullet and tell me.
What will my reaction be? Well for a start it will probably throw me for a moment. There could be an awkward silence. The smile may vanish from my face. That’s nothing to do with you personally: it’s just that I will have been kicked in the belly by the universe and need a moment to recover. I know that you are trying to conceive: however, there is a huge difference between trying and succeeding. I should know, I’ve been trying for eight long years.
All I ask of you is that you be patient with me. Give me a chance to gather my thoughts to feel and deal with the involuntary emotions that will flood into my being. I’ve been dealt an almighty blow and it will floor me to a while. However, I need to recover from the shock as I know it is very important for me to be happy for you: not simply to smile and go through a charade by putting on a brave face. I really do want to feel happy for you: you are my friend and deserve happiness and my support even if the source of that happiness is something I long for and can never achieve. After all, if I want you to be supportive of me, as I struggle with infertility, I have to accept that it works both ways. I have to be supportive of you during your pregnancy. Please remember though that it will be tough on me: you are experiencing something of great happiness whilst I will be reminded of my pain.
That pain will probably ebb and flow during your pregnancy because the pain and grief of infertility does that too. Some days I’m fine. At others I am standing on the edge of an abyss staring down into a bottomless pit of despair. Be aware that as the time of the birth drawers nearer I may distance myself slightly. I know you’ll want most support then: however, self-preservation will probably kick in and demand I look after myself first. This is not me being selfish by putting my needs first: this is about survival. At any moment I could stubble whilst standing at the edge of that abyss and fall to my doom: when you go into labour that risk becomes greater and I have to crawl away from the edge to save myself.
During your pregnancy could I ask you this?
When you are thrilled, feeling great and blooming please share your happiness with your other friends as hearing this will be like a knife thrust into my heart. Please don’t expect me to be ecstatic at the photographs from you latest scans, showing a tiny foot or a thumb stuck into a mouth for comfort. These images that fill you will love won’t have the same effect on me: tears will fall as another piece of my heart breaks off. Please don’t rush to tell me when you feel baby’s first kick or find out that there are two heart beats when you were only looking for one. I know that you will want to share your news and happiness with the people you love. This is only natural. All I ask is that you remember that I will be carrying the pain of my infertility around with me all through the months of your pregnancy. I am not saying shun me. I am begging you not to cut me out of my life. What I am asking is that you show compassion for my situation. Help me help us both reach the stage where I can share your happiness with you because I do want that with all my heart.
I also know that your pregnancy will not be all plain sailing. There will be times when you are feeling dreadful because of morning sickness or exhaustion. Later on there’s going to be the constant need to wee and the kicks in the bladder at 3am. I hope you don’t suffer from these too much I really do because here I need to ask you another favour. Although I might be the friend you turn to most when you’re feeling down could I ask you, again, to turn to others in my stead? I fear that I will not be as sympathetic as you would like if you moan to me about the less attractive side of being pregnant. My reaction could be totally the opposite as I would do anything to have a mid-night craving of roast beef and chocolate ice cream pizza. So by now we’ve covered your sharing your news gently with me and perhaps relying on other friends during the ups and downs of your pregnancy. After all of this I expect you are wondering …
How I will react when your baby is born.
Now this is the big question. You are going to be exhausted yet you’re going to be on cloud 9. You’ll want all you loved ones around you and expect them to join you on that cloud. However, I expect that somewhere in the back of your mind there will be added concern of “how will I react?” Well the truth is I don’t really know. There will be times when I’m able to put aside my own feelings and join you on your cloud. At other times it will be harder. I might be in pain or I may have received bad news regarding my infertility. It might simply be that there’s an “R” in the month. Yes, the 30 shades of infertility can be as random as that.
If the time of the birth has caught me at a bad moment the only thing you can do is wait. I know this puts the burden back on you again, which is totally unfair: however, please remember your understandable happiness will be rubbing salt into my already raw wounds. Give me time, and perhaps a little space, and I will come round. I will be happy for you because I am not bitter and twisted, despite all the devastation infertility has caused. I will eventually hold your baby although it might only be for a moment or two to begin with. In the meantime, again respectfully, I ask you to accept my reaction and remember that dealing with infertility doesn’t go away. It is something that haunts me all the time. So please give me the time I need to adjust to the arrival of your new baby.
I know there were all the months of your pregnancy when I will have been adjusting yet that was different. I was getting used to the fact that you were going to have a baby: it was your “work in progress” and not the “finished article”. Now I need to get used to you actually having a baby. There is a world of difference between seeing you with a bump and seeing you cradling your child, being asked to hold your child, being asked to feed your child. Watching you soothe your child when they are fractious or singing them a lullaby as they drift off to sleep is a whole world away from watching you interact with an “inanimate” bump. However, there is one thing that you do not need to worry about …
I don’t want YOUR baby I want MY own
Sometimes, when a person finds out that I am infertile they physically pull away. They hold onto their child’s hand more tightly. They look at me with fear and suspicion especially if I’ve paid some attention to the child. It is as if the parents are terrified I will snatch their child from under their noses. I know that this does sometimes happen: however, thankfully these instances are very rare. Let me reassure you again, I don’t want your baby I want my own. So you are perfectly safe. You can let me hold your baby, if I want to. You can invite me to the Christening/naming ceremony. You could even ask me to be a god-mother. Although please do it because you want ME to have that specially relationship with your child and not as some sort of consolation prize!
As your child grows I think the most important thing will be for us to have frank and open discussions about how much involvement I feel comfortable with. This shouldn’t happen just once soon after the birth of your child: it is a conversation that we should revisit on occasions. We may find that as you baby develops into a toddler and then an infant that the way watching them grow affects me differently. At the moment, I look at new born babies with desperate longing whilst the pain of watching a teenager is not so intense. Hopefully this will be the case as your child develops. So, if I struggle to form a close bond with your baby there is every chance that this will change over time so please don’t be hurt if I am reluctant to spend hours cuddling your baby in the early months. It may also be the case that over time my feelings towards not being a mother could change. Whilst there is a chance that I could step over the edge of that abyss and sink into depression there is also every hope that I will find a purpose in life that means the pain will have less of a strangle hold over me. I don’t think it will ever totally leave me because I longed to be a mother for so long yet I may wake up years from now and realise that the pain no longer controls all parts of my life. Enough healing will have taken place for me to play a full and loving part in your child’s life. That is my hope: we will have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, …
My hope for the future
Is that now I have come to the end of my missive you will realise that my infertility is not, and should not be, a taboo subject. I hope that by sharing my inner most thoughts you realise that you can talk to me about the situation. As long as you are not judgemental and do not make me feel that I am an inferior human being because I have not been able to have children I will be fine. Respect my desire for space if I ask for it. Ask me what you can do to support me rather than jumping to conclusions or running away in fear. Our friendship is important to me and I don’t want us to drift away because you have become a mother and I don’t want you to feel that you have to exclude me from your life because I have not. If we work together and continue to communicate in a non-judgemental and respectful way, we can protect our friendship from the strain that it could be place under as you start this new chapter in your life.
So, do we have a pact? I will be as supportive and as happy as I can be that you are going to be a mum, whilst you are as supportive and understanding as possible that I am devastated that I am not.
Your loving friend
If you are thinking that this is rather long for a blog and is more like the chapter of a book …. well it is. It’s one of the chapters from my forthcoming book about the realities of unresolved infertility. There is no publication date at the moment so if you are interested you’ll have to keep visit this website to hear to about the book launch.