Invisible?

I have been absent from my blog this last month.  Life has just gotten busy and my blog and blog reading got moved to the back burner for a bit, but I’m catching up. 

I do have a question for my blog friends.  I want to know if this situation is common, or if it’s just something about me that makes people not remember important information about me.

I went to lunch today with a friend and our waitress turned out to be someone that I was friends with several years ago.  She actually grew up in M’s neighborhood so he has known her since they were young.  About 6 to 10 years ago I hung out with this girl quite often, until she got pregnant and had her son.  Her son is now 5 or 6.  I do see this former friend about once a year in random situations, but we are not friends like we used to be since our lives went in different directions when she got pregnant.  We don’t contact each other or keep in touch, but the town I live in isn’t huge so we do run into each other occasionally.

I know last fall when I saw her, she had asked if M and I had kids yet, and instead of giving the common “no” or “not yet” answer I told her “we were not able to have a child”.  I remember this because I started using this answer and people’s reactions are a lot different when you say this to them.  I remember having a brief conversation that we had tried for years and used fertility treatments, but didn’t go into details. 

So, why would she ask me again today if M and I had kids?

This is a big piece of information to tell people, and this isn’t the first time I have told someone that we weren’t able to have kids, only to have them forget and ask us at a different time if we have kids.  Is it just me, and people don’t remember what I say, or invest the thought to remember that I had shared this important information with them, or does this happen to anyone else out there?

This is really frustrating.  I don’t want to keep having the same conversation with people.  Bringing it up once is bad enough.  I don’t tell this to people that we just meet, but rather people that know, or have known us.

When she came back to our table with our food she asked my lunch friend if she had kids, and she doesn’t.  My lunch friend is in her mid 20’s and just been married for 1 year.  Then my former friend started to tell us how lucky we are that we don’t have step children and have to pay out $XXX.XX dollars a month, and that how she could buy a house, or this or that if they didn’t have to pay child support.  I am pretty sure that my former friend has just turned insensitive and can’t see past her own life.  It’s a pretty weird thing to say to someone you were friends with over 6 years ago and a stranger. 

Compassion

My mom has turned into a surprising listener to my IF emotions in the last few months.  I don’t get to see her very often, but I now feel like I can talk to her about a few of these things.  I reached out to her about my emotions in December and she has sat up and started to take notice of things.  She admitted that she knew I was suffering, but didn’t know how to approach me about our infertility.  She was waiting for me to bring it up since I am generally a private person and don’t talk about my emotions.  How surprised she would be if she found this blog!  I think that being raised in a family with 6 children I just grew accustomed to keeping my feelings in.  It seems like there are a couple of my siblings that have always required more time and emotions from my parents, and still do to this day.  It took a lot for me to reach out to her, and I was so relieved when she was open to listen.

I was talking to her recently about some struggles I have been having with jealousy and the ugly green monster, and she told me that out of all of her children she considers me the most compassionate, and she had always thought I would be a great parent.  This comment made me think a lot.  I think that a lot of my compassion in my adult life has been created out of my infertility.  It has made me stop and think about other people’s situations.  At the same time I don’t feel compassionate to certain people.  I can’t tolerate to listen to a friend or family member complain about how hard it is to be a parent.  I can’t listen to someone talk about how excited they are to be pregnant.  I absolutely can’t stand to hear someone say that they got their miracle, wish, or prayer answered when they got pregnant.  When I hear these things I don’t think about their feelings, I automatically think of myself and what is missing from my life.  I don’t agree with my mom.  I am not a truly compassionate person. 

Maybe someday this can be a goal for me.  I don’t want to become a bitter old hag and have a piece of me remain broken and be uncompassionate to other people.  But for now I’m going to have to leave that part broken while I work on healing my infertility wounds and becoming whole again.