When a friendship runs it's course

I've been wanting to write this post for several weeks but I haven't been able to find the right words to say what I want to say how I want to say it.  It's been weighing on my mind so I'm just going to write.

I lost a friend recently.  A good friend.  This friend and I went through the worst parts of infertility together.  We were each other's support system.  We talked almost every day.  To tell the whole story I need to rewind to this time last year.  We made the decision to stop trying, to not pursue fertility treatments, and to live childfree right around the time that she found out that she was pregnant.  I'll spare you the details, but how she handled her pregnancy with me was a case study of what not to do.  She hurt me deeply, irreparably in some respects.  We were able to talk through it and salvage our friendship, but it wasn't the same.  I moved past it as much as I could and was able to support her through her miscarriage.

As the months progressed we remained friends but I was very guarded with her.  She had hurt me deeply and I needed to protect myself.  Our friendship became more about her.  She was traveling deeper down the treatment path at the same time I was headed in a completely opposite direction.  Even though she couldn't express it she was having trouble supporting me with my choices and even though I was having trouble admitting it, it was difficult for me to support her because she was still immersed in the TTC madness and I was trying to move past that.  It all came to a head when I decided to get the IUD.  She outright told me that she thought that I was giving up.  That I was making the wrong choice.  It hurt.  It was around this time when I realized that she may not be the healthiest relationship for me at this point of my life.  More hurt followed, little jabs here and there.  But they hurt.

It all came to a head one day in May when I stopped talking to her.  There wasn't a big blow up or anything like that.  I was sick of all the jabs.  I was sick of having my choices questioned.  I was sick of me supporting her but receiving no support in return.  I was just done.

I'm not quite ready to declare our friendship dead, but I don't know if I'm going to make an effort to rekindle it anytime soon.   I honestly don't think she ever intended to hurt me.  I think that she's the type of person that, when hurting, lashes out at those around her.  I really do wish her all the best and I hope she gets her much wanted baby, but I just don't know that I am the right person to support her right now.  I know she's not the type of support that I need in my life right now.  It makes me sad, but I also know that I deserve better.  I guess our friendship has just run it's course.

They wouldn't want us

Earlier today NASA announced that they discovered the most Earth-like planet to date.  Hubs and I are closet space/sci-fi nerds and watched excitedly as the story played on the news tonight.  After the story he posed the hypotheitcal question "If they found out that this planet could support life and NASA asked for volunteers to go there and start a colony, would you go?"  We discussed the pros and cons of going and ultimately decided that we probably would.  We decided that we don't really have many ties here on Earth so we'd be good candidates.  I mean, how cool would it be to go and start a new civilization on a planet that is 1400 light years away?

A little bit later hubs said "you know, I don't think NASA would choose us to go and live on Kepler-425b."  I asked why.  He said "reproduction is essential for species survival and we can't do that."  Oh yeah.  That.  I suppose we wouldn't be good candidates.  Their loss.  I guess we'll just stay here on Earth.

At least we can have our ashes blasted into space when we die, so the dream of going to space is still alive (even if we won't be)!

You did what?!

Saturday started off well enough.  We slept in a little bit, ate breakfast, and then I headed upstairs to take a shower.  When I came back downstairs hubs and I had the following conversation:

Hubs: "I told (family friend and his wife) that we would come to their* baby shower"

Me: (sits down on steps) "What?"

Hubs: "Yeah!  It's on (whatever date-I wasn't listening).  It's going to be at (whatever place-also not listening)."

Me: "You RSVP'd?"

Hubs: (sensing this is going downhill fast) "Yeah...."

Me: "Without asking me first?  To a baby shower? I'm not going to a baby shower.  I'm not going to a baby shower ever again!**"

Hubs: "But I RSVP'd..."

Me: "I don't care...I'm not going" (I'm crying and yelling at this point)

Hubs: "It's just one day...."

Me: "I'm not going.  Period.  Not open for discussion.  You can go if you want but I'm not."

Hubs: (a little angry at this point) "What am I going to tell them?"

Me: "I don't really care.  Tell them the truth for all I care.  Maybe you should have thought about that before you told someone that we would go to an event without asking me first."

Now hubs almost never commits to something without running it by me first.  So this is what I will file in the "momentary attack of stupid" category and try to forget about it.  It did result in a good conversation about my feelings surrounding baby showers.  I've told him many times that I won't do this or that but I haven't really told him why or how it makes me feel.  So he unintentionally did something pretty hurtful, but the end result was growth.

I won't lie, Hubs and I don't have these conversations often.  He's the sort of guy that wants to fix things***.  But this can't be fixed, and definitely not fixed quickly.  This quality makes him somewhat hard to talk to about my feelings.  This is just something that I have to go through.  And it will get better.  Eventually.  I've said more than once that I don't think he'll ever truly get the emotional toll infertility has taken on me, but conversations like this help.

Then he told me that his dad and brother were coming on Sunday to spend the night.  Apparently he found out two weeks ago but forgot to tell me.  Ugh.

Oh and my mom told me that I was overreacting to the whole baby shower thing.  Just when she starts to earn back a little bit of my trust and I think she might be trying to understand a little bit, she goes and ruins it.  Back to arm's length she goes....


*Since when did baby showers become a couples thing?
**This should have been known.  Six months ago I made the same exact statement concerning my sister's baby shower.
***I totally get that it's his instinct to protect me and try to make the hurt go away.

A little bit of miscellany

I haven't been writing much because there really hasn't been a lot to write about.  I'm doing really well at the moment.  I'm not thinking much about infertility.  The grief is in the background but it doesn't feel like a kick in the stomach.  I'm mostly content with my life right now.  I don't know if this feeling will last another hour, day, month, or what, but I'm going to enjoy it while it while it lasts.  At some point I know the grief monster will come back and kick me in the stomach again.

*****

I fell off of the exercise wagon.  I was doing really well until about four weeks ago and then a combination of life, work, and getting sick all hit at the same time and working out got pushed to the very bottom of the to do list.  Thankfully my eating is in check so I haven't gained weight, but I do want go get back to a regular exercise routine.  I hope that by writing about this it will be enough motivation to get my butt back to the gym!

*****

Someone close to me recently had a breast cancer scare.  There was a biopsy done and it turned out that the lumps were not malignant, but it was scary because there was about a 10 day stretch where we just didn't know.  During the biopsy all suspicious tissue was removed so it shouldn't be an issue in the future but she will continue to be monitored.

As someone who has found lumps in my breasts (one at 25 and the other at 26), I know first hand how scary it is to find something that's not supposed to be there.  My lumps were just cysts and eventually went away on their own, but it's a disconcerting feeling when you find something that isn't supposed to be there.  As a result I've always been extremely diligent with monthly self exams.

So I guess that's my round about way of urging all of you to do a monthly self breast exam and to go to your doctor if you find something outside of the norm.  If you're not sure how to do one, this is a great guide.

Dear Universe,

I get it.  I'm infertile.  I can't have kids.  No need to provide multiple reminders.

But sometimes there are so many reminders that it stretches past "ouch," and "zing" and just becomes "are you freaking kidding me?!"

My weekend was of the "are you freaking kidding me?!" variety.  It got to the point where it was laughable.

To provide relevant back story, you'll remember that hubs started a new job back in May.  As a result he isn't eligible for any annual leave until he's been there for a year.  Without time off we couldn't go on a vacation so we settled for some little local trips, a staycation of sorts.  This past weekend was one of our planned staycations.  In my last post I also whined about being sick.  While I was feeling better by the weekend, I was still only 70% or so and wasn't in the greatest of moods, but we had really been looking forward to our plans.

Hubs and I are both huge sports fans.  We found out that our local baseball team was playing on July 3rd (a free shirt Friday to boot) and our local soccer team (by far our favorite sport) was playing on Saturday, July 4th AND they were letting fans stay in the stadium for our city's fireworks AND they gave reduced rate parking with game tickets.  So we bought tickets to both games.

On Friday I was still feeling pretty miserable but was excited about the game.  Or, more accurately, hubs was excited about the game and I was excited about the food truck festival going on outside of the stadium.  I'll start with the food truck festival.  I expected large crowds.  I expected a lot of kids to be wandering around.  But sweet Jesus.  The strollers.  They were everywhere.  And with the exception of breastfeeding (so eloquently described in this fine piece, and this one from the Onion), I'm not really sure if there is anything that leads to a greater sense of entitlement than pushing a stroller.  Someone isn't moving fast enough?  Bash them in the ankles with your oversized stroller.  Junior wants out of the stroller?  Definitely let them out and expect all 40,000 adults in the vicinity , at least half consuming adult beverages, to watch out for them and not trip over them as they weave in and out of all of the people.  Junior tosses (insert name of important item) out of the stroller?  Just stop with no warning and park it in the middle of a crowd of people.  It's cool.  Because you're essentially pushing an armored vehicle so you can defy the laws of physics.  A year ago I would have wanted to leave then and there.  But I was feeling strong and all of the reminders had progressed from "ouch" to comical in a short period of time.  After navigating the sea of strollers food truck festival relatively unscathed we made our way to the line to get into the ballpark.  My achilles tendon was nearly severed by, you guessed it, a stroller, while in line.  Because apparently a big yellow sign saying "patrons with strollers* and backpacks use this line" wasn't abundantly clear (spoiler alert: we were not in the stroller line).  I may have expressed my displeasure in a manner not appropriate for "little ears" but I was able to sleep soundly that night knowing that the likelihood of encountering this woman again are nil.

So we make it into the stadium and decide to use the restroom before heading to our seats where we encountered another line.  As I'm waiting in the line for the women's restroom, I started to relax because there were no kids (or strollers) in sight.  Next thing I know a little boy, probably around four, runs up to the woman in front of me.  Ok, he's cute.  I can handle this.  THEN he climbs up on a bench beside his mom, lifts her shirt, and starts to breastfeed.  Two feet from me.  A four year old.  Breastfeeding.  Suddenly I didn't need to use the restroom anymore (no I didn't wet myself) and left the line absolutely disgusted.**  We get to our seat and low and behold, there sits a woman right beside my seat, drumroll please, breastfeeding.  I told hubs (oblivious to what was going on immediately to my left) that I was going to go grab a beer for each of us.  He tried to convince me to wait a bit, seemingly having difficulty understanding that I needed out of there NOW.  In the beer line I was bashed in the ankle by yet another stroller.  At least this woman was apologetic so she was spared my wrath.  I went back to our seats, the lady beside me had finished feeding her child, and the game started.  Then it started to rain.  It was a miserable night.  But at least I got to spend it with hubs.

Saturday the weather was much nicer, I was feeling quite a bit better, and we were both excited for the game.  Thankfully strollers are not permitted in this stadium so my ankles were not damaged and there weren't a whole lot of really little kids.  But this game brought older kids en masse.  Everything from the group of four teenagers in our row who felt it necessary to get up 13804857 times to go to the concession stand to the little girl, approximately 8, who sat directly in front of us who was possibly the most annoying human being that I've ever encountered.  Not that her parents noticed because they were too busy playing on their phones.  Hubs and I would have had so much fun teaching the game to our kid.

The fireworks were awesome, but also the hardest part of the weekend.  I'll admit that it was hard to see all the kids captivated by the fireworks.  I had a brief moment of "I'll never get to experience that with my child."  But it was brief.  

The high point of the weekend was on Sunday when the US Women's National Soccer Team won the World Cup!

All in all it was a good weekend.  What I've written about here was actually a relatively small part of the weekend.  I realized how much I've grown in a year's time because I was actually able to laugh it off and not let it keep me down.  And it was really nice to spend quality time with hubs doing things that we love to do together.

*I can't believe that people actually bring strollers to ballparks.  Particularly on nights with a sellout crowd.

**Just so we're clear here, I support breastfeeding.  I think it's great.  I even support the right to do it in public (because just because it's hurtful to me doesn't mean it's wrong).  But I also think that by the time a child is four they are more than capable of getting all nutrients from a well balanced diet of solid food, eaten at a table, with utensils.  Plus nipples and teeth just seem like a bad combination (in that context, at least....).

I'm sick and June reading

Who gets a sinus infection and respiratory infection at the same time in the summer?  This girl.  Ugh.  Antibiotics, a breathing treatment in the office, an Albuterol inhaler, and rest were prescribed.  I don't get sick often, but when I do it's always at the most inconvenient times.  I don't have time for this crap!

*****

I made it one of my 2015 goals to read at least two books per month (links to past posts here).  I've done a pretty good job to this point, but this month life happened and I didn't meet my goal.  :(

I did read Ever Upward by Justine Brooks Froelker (review here) earlier this month, but that's the only book I managed to read in June.  So I believe that brings my annual total up to 14.75.  Hopefully I'll be able to meet my goal in July!