Infertility can be a blessing or a curse to friendships. You’ve been trying to get pregnant and instead your friend who wasn’t trying to get pregnant—did. How do you respond? How does she respond?
I’ve heard so many times of a woman struggling with infertility so rattled by the news that a friend got pregnant that she couldn’t bring herself to be around her friend(s) anymore. This of course is the saddest of all scenarios. I imagine the difficulty of seeing her progress in her pregnancy and the realization that your children won’t be close in age. You’ll watch her belly grow and try to muster up the words to say when she calls excited after just having heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time or finding out the baby’s gender. I could see how it would be difficult to hang around through all that.
From the friend’s perspective, you are pregnant, possibly unexpectedly, and your friend has been trying for a long time to get pregnant. You don’t want to rub it in her face. You want to protect her, so you distance yourself so that you don’t have to show excitement as you grow to love this new human growing inside of you.
After we started trying, I remember hearing that one of my close friends was pregnant unexpectedly. I remember the blood rushing through my body and I went numb for at least a second. Immediately it caused this dilemma inside of me. At first I was jealous and couldn’t see how I would be able to show excitement for her. But, then I asked myself, what has her pregnancy got to do with me? Just because she got pregnant before me didn’t mean I would never get pregnant. And, how selfish of me to be jealous that she was going to get to wear the cute maternity clothes first and she was going to be getting all of the attention. What a slug I am! By the grace of God, He redeemed me from my pride and selfishness and gave me a genuine excitement for my friends and family when they got pregnant. In fact, I loved (and still do) hearing about their experiences. I wanted to learn all I could so that I could be prepared when my time came!
My friends and family have been amazing through all of this. I saw incredible compassion from a friend who was so worried about how her unexpected pregnancy would affect me that she cried when she had to tell me. She cared so much about my feelings that she didn’t even allow herself to feel excitement right away. One friend dreamed she was pregnant and that God told her to give us the baby. She was actually open to that if God wanted her to! I attended a Lamaze class with one friend. I was invited to be in the delivery room twice! I mean, how could I not be happy for amazing women like that? No one has ever hesitated to share her excitement with me, and for that I am so grateful. I love my friends and have had so much fun watching their children grow. I know they’ll be incredibly happy for me when God blesses us with a child someday. Thank you God for these friends.
Next Post: 4/12/07
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You are an amazing friend! I will continue to pray to the Lord to bless you both with a child. Kevin and I have talked many times about you two and have said if we had to pick parents for Luke it would be you and Andy. Not because of this situation but because we love how much you both love Christ and each other. There is not a doubt in my mind that you will be parents!! I can't wait to celebrate with you.
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