Memorial to a Friendship

http://www.memecenter.com/fun/377795/when-losing-a-friend

Ok, so I don't really play video games anymore, but that has more to with an addictive personality and knowing I don't have time for it, then not liking them. Still the picture was applicable in this situation, because realizing I lost a close friend didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. Curiously, it would have if it had been any number of other people, but I think my lack of lamenting over it is what this picture is ultimately describing.

I suppose I should back up a bit lest you ask yourself repeatedly "WTH is she babbling about now?"

In 2008 I met someone that I became fast and furious friends with. So much, that she ended up being  in our wedding, as we had been hers the year before. On several levels, (politics, personality, likes) we were about as opposite as 2 women can be, but somehow we made it work and promised to be BFF's fo-eva. Her consideration towards others was what really drew me in about her.

In 2011, things began to change. Initially I chalked it up to the fact that she had a miscarriage and was TTC. Once she was pregnant, she became even more self-absorbed and rather than risk upsetting her by being my normal blunt self, I kept silent. A part of me feared upsetting a pregnant woman who had already miscarried.

Oh hell - I need to give her a name or my grammar skills will be tested too much. We will call her Sarah, because that's the first name that popped in my head of a person's name I don't actually know in real life. Ok, now we can continue with said fake name. Not sure why I need a fake name since my blog is anonymous, but whatever. 

I started noticing Sarah bullying a few of our other friends. Nothing big deal, but enough that it bothered me and it ended up with her losing friends. Every conversation was about her or her pregnancy. She had a blatant disregard for other people's feelings for all things and it was really beginning to show. Still, I chalked it up to hormones and let it pass. There was a few times I tried to approach her about it, but she didn't want nuttin to do with that.

By now hubby and I had begun our path of infertility that we knew we would have to travel when we first started dating. Sarah was distinctly aware of this path, as she was the one that had informed me when I had only been dating my now-hubby a few weeks, that he most definitely would want children being of Indian heritage. She knew my surgery earlier in 2008 prevented me from carrying anymore children. (As a side note: most AWKWARD conversation ever telling a man you've been dating a few weeks: "um yea, I can't carry a baby - wanna keep dating?") 

There were ups and downs in how she treated me, so I began to distance myself. After having to explain to her OVER AND OVER, that no it wasn't my doctor (I had seen several) misdiagnosing me and no there was not a chance I could get pregnant without a surrogate if I just changed to her doctor who was a regular OB\GYN that specialized in helping mothers-to-be that didn't want c-sections. Sigh. I explained the biology of how a woman has to have a uterine lining to carry a baby on several occasions, but I honestly don't think she even listened. Instead she just switched back to stuff all about her. It was tiring in the least.

Meanwhile, my grandfather was diagnosed with colon cancer. My father died when I was 3, so even though I was no longer super close to my grandfather (he had moved back to Sweden over a decade ago), he still was extremely important to me and who I recognized as a major father figure from my youth. I cried to her over his sickness and explained that hubby and I (as well as other family members) would be flying over to Sweden to see him. This was not a short conversation, but one that was rather long. When I saw her about a week later at a surprise birthday party we did for her, she hugged me and said "I totally forgot to say anything about your grandfather dying! I'm so sorry!" I quietly reminded her that he wasn't dead yet and she laughed it off blaming it on pregnancy brain.

He died a few weeks after our visit to Sweden. Nothing from her even inquiring about him or how I was doing. Internally I reconciled this and thought that maybe she just is bad about death. Maybe she didn't want to think about it while she was pregnant. I was making excuses for her, but that was easier than dealing with more sadness in my life that would have happened if I confronted her.

In the midst of all this, I had volunteered to throw a baby shower for her. Her attitude during this time became another slap in the face for me as I had explained to her that money was tight for us since our fertility treatments were expected to very expensive. I was planning the baby shower with 2 other ladies, who did not have tons of cash either. Sarah started telling us what food we needed to cater and about some special cupcakes she wanted that were super expensive. Then she presented us with a guest list of 70+ people. At this point, my patience cracked.

Every female person she had ever known was on that list. People who had simply inquired about her pregnancy were on that list. People from all over the country were on that list. At first I tried to gently explain that it was too many people. That it looked like she was just asking for presents. Then I explained that logistically it was not possible to host such a party. She had only had a little over 100 people at her own wedding! I explained that different people could throw different parties (family, co-workers, friends, etc) and thus maybe we should keep this to immediate family and our group of friends. She threw temper-tantrums and then threw the guilt trip in about how if her mother was still alive, then she would have just had her throw it for her. Her mother had passed long before I had ever met her and I felt this was extremely callous given what I was currently going through with my grandfather.

Ultimately, I had to tell her while I understand she wanted her party a certain way, it was not in my budget to do so given our current expenses. That if she wanted it that way, I would understand, but that someone else would have to throw it. The other ladies backed me up and she finally gave us a more reasonable list of about 36 people. She calmed down, but even with the smaller list (that only about half showed up to), I still went out of pocket for several hundred dollars. As hostesses, we sat in the back and split a bottle of wine to help deal. In the end, I barely got a thank you, although not surprising because  she has always sucked at thank yous. A few months later I got a demand for pictures I had taken during the shower.

I will take a side note here to explain another one of my close friends - we will call her Karey - became pregnant at the time and she was and has always been completely awesome. Two of us threw a baby shower for Karey and she was nothing but a pure delight. She was, and still is, my main go-to-person for all things and played a major role in supporting me through my entire infertility process. I'd like to think she feels the same way towards me because I think she is TOP banana. 

Needless to say, I really started drifting away from Sarah after this. Her baby came and everything was still all about her. I wasn't able to immediately rush over to see her baby, and honestly I didn't want to. I was having trouble all around, including major ones with work and my emotional bank was running low. We saw each other a few times and shared emails, but like many of her other friends, I quit reaching out to her because I felt it was one-sided.

The next year (2012) saw me in India twice for fertility treatments, the loss of my job, and many emotional ups and downs. I simply did not have the ability to prop her up anymore. I wanted to surround myself with positivity and as another friend put it "Sarah is toxic and I no longer can have such toxicity in my life." She contacted me in the middle of one of my trips to India, but I instantly felt it was more because she didn't feel "in the know" and not because she actually wanted to be a supportive friend. A mutual fried had jokingly told her I was dancing with monkeys in India after I sent the mutual friend my monkey siting story and Sarah WANTED DETAILS. This was further confirmed when Sarah didn't respond to a heartfelt response I sent to her about what I was going through in India. She had received the email, but then got "too busy" to respond. Apparently she was really too busy all the time because she never reached out as a friend and instead told the mutual friend she felt too awkward to because SHE didn't know what to say to me.

During this whole time I never lashed out to her or said WTF. For the most part, I'm non-confrontational and tend to give people a ton of chances. By now we were on year #2 of her attitude change and the world still revolved around her. If I sound bitter, it's because I really was back then. Hurt doesn't even begin to describe what I was going through.

After all of this, I did try a few causal emails with her. Our mutual friend disclosed that Sarah felt bad because she had lost many friends. That made me feel bad for Sarah. The emails I sent weren't super deep or long, but still just something to let her know that I still felt something towards her. Mostly joking about one of her favorite shows that I had started watching. Initially I got a brief response, but then she stopped. I wasn't going to sweat it. She was busy or uninterested or whatever. My emails dwindled away as such. We still invited her and and husband to events, but I never heard from her.

Fast forward to last Tuesday. I attended our mutual friend's production and low and behold - Sarah was there. She BLATANTLY ignored me with such rudeness that I was in shock and missed a part of the production. I went over and said hello to her, but she could only spit out a curt hello as I tried to hug her. When I went up to her at the bar she purposely turned her back on me and continued talking to the person she brought. In the show, she was sitting in front of us and besides loudly talking with her friend the first part of the show, she never even acknowledged my presence.

At intermission I went over to some of our other friends that were seated far away and they made me feel better. Some of them had long since given up on Sarah. Some of them reminding me how I had defended Sarah way past when they wanted to deal with her anymore. Oddly enough, Sarah went over to talk to them when I went away.

By the end of the show I had reconciled the situation with myself. Sarah was toxic, and I could no longer let that hurt me. I allowed myself to briefly wonder what was the cause of this latest rudeness, but I didn't feel the need to obsess like I normally would. (Was it because I told other people what was going on in my life but not her? Was it because I was so close to my other friend that had a baby at the same time? Was it because I had drifted away?) Ultimately, I didn't want to ask because I simply didn't care to be a friend with her anymore.

My husband and I talked about it when we returned home that evening. He had been close friends with her as well at one point and she was equally rude to him. He didn't understand how someone could be so publicly rude and had never experienced it before. (I can't remember it happening to me since I was in my early 20's!) We discussed how sad it was to lose someone that had been such an integral part of our lives at one point, but ultimately had become such a drain. We were sad to lose a friendship, but not sad to lose Sarah.

This post is my memorial to a friendship. The picture at the top of this post pokes fun, but I have no desire to be passive-aggressive about it on facebook, nor do I have an interest in stalking Sarah to see what she may be saying about me. This post allows me to put all of my emotions about it to rest and say farewell. And when I think about it, this is much more productive than anything else I could do about it. Including saying F-it and playing a video game. My old therapist would be proud.

Tuesday Catch up

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that Tuesday was a bad day for us. It was also a very busy day for me.

After getting our bad news of the failed chemical pregnancy, I had to get up and go to my dentist appt. My dental hygienist is also going through IVF and just had a failed cycle (though she has had success in the past.)  We both gave brief updates of our failures and the all-knowing, strong grieving/supporting smile passed between us. It's weird that after only 2 cycles I feel like some sort of veteran. 

After that appt, I call my vet. She was a few miles up the road from my dentist (but is far from my house) and I had discovered the wonders of tapeworm segments in my friend's puppy that we are babysitting. Fortunately my vet is also my friends vet, so she was able to RX a dewormer without me having to bring the puppy in to see her. As I was leaving, I noticed a Kroger next door and headed over to grab some food/coffee. 

Tuesday Morning was also next door and it occurred to me that I should see if there was something there to pick up for my friend who had a baby that morning. Had told her that I would come the next day to visit her and the baby. I wandered in the store, but somehow couldn't bring myself to buy any baby items. 

Next on the list, was a visit to the DOL. I have entered into my 1st tier EUC unemployment and there are new validation rules I have to follow. Unfortunately there was also a gap when I was informed of these new rules and thus a few weeks had passed without the new information being entered. Not only did I have to turn in a previous weeks validation, but I had to make sure that the other previous weeks validations weren't required. I will spare you that conversation. As with typical government offices, people are trying to process you as fast as possible and rarely listen to what you are actually saying. When the gentleman realized I wasn't going to budge, he slowed down enough to get the right information for me. 

After finally getting through that eye-poker of an errand, I drove across town to pick-up my BFF's dresses she had on consignment at a wedding/formal dress boutique. They are expensive gowns and my one job if she went into labor was to make sure they were picked up. The store is awesome and we had visited when I was wedding dress shopping a few years earlier. I browsed while they found her dresses. Even wandered over to the wedding dress side and was promptly reminded that I must wear gloves to handle the dresses. They are all designer and some of them are quite exquisite. I was happy to see that I still did not see a dress that I liked more than the one I chose. 

Another Tuesday Morning store was next door and I told myself that I needed to try again. In the store I found the most beautiful fake fur bear baby hat. It had bear ears and everything. I bought it not even knowing if I would give it to her or keep it. The only other things I have bought for our [possible] baby is the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (English AND Hindi edition). Now that I think about it, I bought that book when I was shopping for her baby shower. 

After that, the time was about 4:30pm and I know I need to get home to let the dogs out. They needed some reprieve from their crates - especially the puppy. I rushed home and let them romp about for about an hour. Meanwhile, I got ready to go to the seminar at our local infertility clinic that I had signed up for the week before. "Free AMH test" the newsletter announced. I really wasn't in the mood to be around a bunch of hopeful infertile couples, but so be it. Yes, I know how awful that sounds. I don't care - it's how I really felt and I just wanted the to take the test. When I left for the clinic I texted my husband where I was going and why. 

The seminar was pretty good. I already knew most of the things they went over, but it was still cool to see the science parts. Most of it was a slide show that we watched in the dark. Non-interacting - yay. There was a super-peppy "success story" lady that spoke and for a moment I secretly imagined punching her. The moment passed. This was followed by a Q&A session with the clinic's newest doctor. (I'll post the questions I asked in a separate blog post, because I'd really like to get your opinions on the answers.) 

The Q&A was followed by the blood test. My recent trips to India gave me some secret tricks to getting ahead in line and getting out of that office as soon as possible. The lady that took my blood was cheery and asked how my day was going. It was going crappy and I kinda told her as much. Pretty sure she wasn't ready for that and she gave me some pre-canned pep talk answer that didn't even apply to me. I just nodded. I didn't really want people to feel sorry for me, but I was DAMNED if I was going to sport a fake smile and act like my day was great. 

Drove home in the dark. Still had not cried. Walked up the flight of stairs to the living room level of our house. My husband greeted me with kisses and a long hug. Then he held me and burst into tears. For a really long time. 

Locked in the Bathroom

Ok, not as dramatic as it sounds, but it is true, I was locked in a bathroom, unable to escape, for 1 whole hour on Wednesday. Went to my new OB/GYN's office and upon leaving I decided to make a quick trip to the restroom. Bad idea.

The door was one of those handle doors that you pull down or up to unlock the push button. I reached for it and pulled handle down. I watched as the lock button popped out, heard a weird clunk, and then nothing. Crap. Did what I think just happen, happen? Shake it a bunch more times - yep, it did.

The only thing between me and freedom

I then proceeded to politely knock on the door. Nothing.
Then  I shake the door. LOUDLY. Still nothing.
Then I see this:

Helpful button by the toilet

Not exactly "intended use", but I really don't want to be stuck in the bathroom all day, so I ring it.

Someone comes and knocks on the door. I explain the situation and after convincing her I do NOT - in fact - have the door locked, she calls in reinforcements. They can't open it either. They shake and wiggle, but that door is not moving.

About this time I realize how hungry I am. I forgot to eat breakfast, but I did have the forethought to throw a yummy, blueberry bagel in my purse (wrapped of course). I'm starving. The bagel napkin peeks out from my purse sitting in the sink. It's after 3pm and I haven't eaten a thing. I text my BFF who I was on the way to visit and let her know my predicament.

Seriously. I could just imagine the door opening and a crowd of people standing there. And me. With my mouth full. Of what - they aren't sure of. I could totally see that happening to me. That's the sort of thing that would happen to me. Kinda like getting locked in a bathroom.

10 minutes later I overhear someone say "we could slip her a really, really thin pizza under the door" which is super weird because

    a.) I never said out loud I was hungry

    b.) girl aim is usually not that great - the floor would be the only place to set down a urine sample container  

    c.) HOW THE HELL LONG DID THEY THINK I WAS GOING TO BE IN HERE?

As the minutes tick by and I hear a new group of people attempt to bang on door handle with a hammer, it occurs to me that I am standing (in one of the few places available), directly across from the door. It occurs to me that this is not the best place to stand and I move to the corner beside the door. So here I am, a 40 year old infertile woman, trapped in her OB/GYN's bathroom, standing in a corner. And somehow the absurdity of it all, makes me smile; when all I have wanted to do for the last 2 days is cry.

At that moment the door handle goes flying across the room at lighting speed EXACTLY where I HAD been standing. POW!

The door still does not open.

So they screw around with the door some more. More hammer bangs ensue. I inquire as to unscrewing the hinges, but they seem to think it won't work. I inquire if I should try and use a credit cards - they give the thumbs up and I watch as my marta card splits in the middle for cramming it in the too tight space. I begin to wonder if they are going to have to break out the metal saw. Or if they even have one.

Someone tells me to make sure I'm not standing in front of the door. I refrain from a smart aleck comment. 5 minutes later, the door unceremoniously opens. Hurray!

A crowd is gathered  outside (of course) with my doctor standing in the middle. "Welcome to our practice!" Several people ask if I am ok (I was only in there for an hour folks). Knowing I'm starving and having a severe aversion to people staring at me, I quip "yea, this sort of thing happens to me all the time." As I am handed a free parking validation (woo hoo!), I notice the strange look on the lady's face. I realize she is trying to figure out if I meant I get locked in bathrooms all the time. Perhaps "yea, weird things happen to me all the time - no biggie" would have been a better response, but the moment has passed to clarify and I run out the door. There is a wrapped bagel with my name on it.

A Carrier's Perspective (possible tissue alert)

This is a hard one for me to write. Because even with my veil of anonymity, it reveals something so personal and secretive, that few people in my life actually know about it. Many of my closest friends do not know about it and it was even hard to admit to my husband, but I realized recently how very relevant it is to my journey. And how much it will make me cry to write about it. 

Some recent stories I arrived at via Stirrup Queens showed me the importance of sharing my story. I apologize in advance for any grammar mistakes, for I don't plan on check editing like I normally do for long posts. Feel free to comment, but if you ever meet me in person let's agree not to bring it  up - ok? Alright, here it goes:

When I was barely 16, I gave up a child for adoption. 

There. I said it. Or at least wrote it. 

Surrogacy is not an easy option for me. Wait, I need to rephrase that because surrogacy and infertility are not easy options for ANYONE on any side of the fence, as blog after blog can attest. Let me try again... Like many cases in infertility land, our path to use surrogacy was an extremely difficult one.

For you see, I know the pain of carrying a child in your womb for 9 months and then giving it to someone else. I can pretend that my pain was "more" because the child was genetically linked, but I really have no way of knowing that. The best I can hope for is that the verbal evidence I am given from those "in the know" is what my surrogate will experience: that it's not easy, especially that day in the delivery room, but that the surrogate knows from the beginning that the child is not hers. Knowing that her GIFT will enable her to help her own children - something HUGE that I think most articles on the subject seem to miss, but mothers pick up on right away - helps to ease the worry. At least a little. 

My main nurse in Anand is twice a surrogate. She is always happy with a smile and her recent deliveries occurred when she was about 39 and 41, the last one being only a year earlier. She has worked at the clinic for approximately 9 years. She's not the only nurse that is a former surrogate and I dare say that they would certainly have inside information on what the women go through before making those decisinos for themselves. 

The life and emotional well-being of my nurse is a strong contrast of how my life was a year after giving up my child for adoption. Maybe emotionally she's an exception, but I don't think so. Speaking and reviewing empirical information on former surrogates lets me see how their lives are changed for the better, but I still don't fool myself into believing that the initial period after births are easy-breezy for them.¹

When I was pregnant and 15, I listened to people tell me that, "if I loved my baby, I would give it up for adoption." No one told me how the pain would rip me apart. The pain didn't even fully settle till months after, when it was far too late by legal standards to do anything about it, (even though I did try). Having been ostracized by any "good girls", combined with an already deep ability have depression (even before my pregnancy), it's no surprise that I continued making bad choices for awhile. I have no doubt that post-partum equally contributed it's ugly head during those times. 

And then I stopped making bad choices, (at least for awhile). At 19 I was engaged to a man 5 years my senior and became pregnant. While I certainly had not (I promise) PLANNED on being pregnant, after I got over the initial shock, there was a sense that a huge hole in me was in some way going to be repaired. I had to clean up my act for my baby. My marriage lasted for a very brief period, as my husband did not share my epiphany, but my second son helped me heal. Tremendously. 

I won't pretend that I haven't had other ups and downs in my life, many of my own doing on both accounts, but to say that giving up my first-born for adoption didn't have a huge impact on my life would be a lie. My first-born is now old enough to have tried to seek me out and even though I put in the initial papers that he could, he never has. Something that both grieves me and relieves me. It's probably been over 20 years since I dared even open the box containing all of the documentation and correspondence I had during those difficult times, but I still have the box. And it's a big box. It has been a long time since I grieved on his birthday, but there were many, many years that I did. Now, most birthdays go by without even remembering. Not because I don't love him, quite the opposite, but I guess my mind finally kicked in it's defense mechanism that we humans are so famous for. 

Invariably when I see surrogacy articles, I get enraged when I see all the comments about "they are selfish and should just adopt!" Do people think the mothers of adopted children didn't equally grieve? Some maybe less, but many possibly more. (There are more reasons that these comments enrage me, but I will save those for another day.) Do people not know that the amount an Indian  surrogate makes, even though small by western standards, can effectively change her and her families life? The surrogate can start a store or buy a rickshaw for her family to earn more. Things that were never even remotely possible for her prior.

Surrogate mothers choose their paths for a variety of reasons, but as long as it is their choice and they are fully informed, we should not take away that right or even judge it. Not even if the woman is poor and does it simply for the money. A poor woman wanting a better future for her family should not be held to a lower standard than other women. Knowing a little bit about Indian culture, I know that these women don't do it for pure altruistic reasons as I sometimes see touted, but that doesn't make their GIFT any less. 

Surrogacy is hard for me, but the adoption option would be even harder. My baby may have been unplanned, but he was definitely not unwanted. Not any more than my second child. I can not imagine reliving my 15 and 16 year old life from the other side of the fence. Adoption is not even on the table for us for us for many reasons, including simple ones like wondering if we would even be allowed AND our desire to have a genetic child. It was not until my most recent trip to India that I even acknowledged to myself about how my teenage years affected some of my angst of our current journey. 

Does the 40 year old me regret giving up my child for adoption? Surprisingly - no. I don't think the 20-ish one did either. I knew that the 16 year old me could not give a life to a child that even a 20 year old me could give. Even the 20 year old me had difficulties, but I think my second son turned out pretty awesome,. My first son would have had less of a chance and there is a high likelihood that if I had kept him, my second son would not have been born. 

I don't doubt that most surrogates go through pain when giving a child they have carried for 9 months to the intended parents, but I don't believe that most would want to keep the child either. The financial burden compiled with the stigma would be something that we westerners could not even begin to understand. At 16, I may not have understood all the pain that would occur with my decision to give my baby up for adoption, but it was the right decision. For me, my future self, and both of my sons. 

¹  I can ONLY speak from my experiences with my clinic, there are tons of nefarious ones out there that I hope are regulated out of business soon.

Shopping and remembering Kashmir

Two years ago, my husband and I visited Kashmir for a few days. I could write an entire chapter surrounding those days, but for now I will keep it to a specific recollection that I was just reminded about while reading another blog: shopping and bargaining in India. Not for the shy introvert. They are serious over there and you should come prepared, or only go to towns that have some fixed price stores.

Let me preface this with a little notation that I tend to stand out in India. Besides the normal thing of being a westerner, I usually wear sindoor in my hair (signifies I'm married), bindi on forehead (I love any excuse to wear these), and bangles on my arms (besides the role of jewelry, signifies love and good wishes of health for my husband). With my blonde hair and blue eyes, you can usually spot me a mile away. In Kashmir, even the ever popular Indian tourist town of Srinagar, there are people notified of my presence before I even arrive.

The areas of Kashmir are quite breathtaking. The shopping is exquisite, as long as you have a good driver. A good driver will drive you to incredible places, knows the owners of all the good stores, and will constantly keep you entertained. You can have a daily driver at an extremely good rate, and he will make sure to look out for you every step of the way.

That last part is actually pretty important given that the US government tends not to advise travel for westerners there too often. Levels go up and down, but we naively managed to plunk ourselves there only to find out there was an elevated alert. Again, our driver was excellent, and both my husband and I have good instincts for caution. One day we stayed in the hotel room and another day we moved from our houseboat. (For those of you wondering, the culture there is quite different from where my husband was born in India.)

Back to the point (as I have wandered quite far): the shopping is great. As I type this, I am looking at one of the beautiful rugs we purchased on our trip that adorns our living room floor. We bought 4 of various sizes and they wrapped them so tight for us, the $50 charge the airline gave us was negligible. I've never even seen rugs of this quality in the US, quite possibly because the shops that would carry/import them here, are way too expensive for me to even enter.

On one shopping trip, our driver took us to a wonderful marble store. We were able to watch the workers outside meticulously inlaying the color designs into the opal like stones. Upon entering the store, the main salesmen was already prepared for us, much to my husband's irritation (he's not a fan of big sale pitches). When they tried to turn the lights off to show us the glow of a lit marble, my husband cut to the chase - he was not in the mood for a show - "how can we tell the price of items we may like?"

With a completely serious expression, looking from me to my husband, the slick salesmen replies, "On the back of each item there will be a number. Multiply that by 10 and that is your price."

Needless to say, we did not buy any marble that day.