So alone

Lately, I have felt so alone in my IF journey. Back in July 2006, we applied for foster care (FC). My best friends (both of them) said some very hurtful (but true) things on the reference forms about my relationship with my husband. I have forgiven both of them and I am working on moving past the pain of what happened, but I think there are residual effects of what happened that I will never get over. They were my best friends, two people I would have trusted my life to and given my life for and yet I am not sure if they felt the same way. Because of the betrayal I feel because of their actions, I am not able to trust like I used to. I am not open and honest with people like I used to be (there are a select few out in the world I can be myself around, but mostly I wear a facade that all is ok).

Because of my fear of trusting others, I do not have many friends-actually I only have 4. One of them is my cousin. I never really thought of her as a friend, but since we started spending time together at the beginning of the year, walking the mall near us twice a week, I have gotten to know her better and I am very glad that I am taking the time to forge a friendship with her that goes beyond familial ties. She is at a different place in her life, though, because she works full-time and is not married. She doesn't know what it's like to wait, month after month, for that big fat positive (BFP).

One of my friends is much older than I am-more like a mother figure. I can call her and be 110% honest with her about anything and I *know* that she will give me sound Christian advice about it. If her advice is not what I would want to hear or is critical, she always says it in a kind, loving, compassionate way. She also doesn't have a very good memory, so I can tell her just about anything because she probably won't remember it anyway. *wink* She, too, is at a different place in her life. Her children are grown and out of the house. She never struggled with IF, so she can't relate, either.

My other two friends have children. I really feel like they are at a different place in their life from where I am. They are about school and scouts, t-ball and soccer, diapers and bottles and here I am, all about reading good books, scrapbooking, hanging out, talking on the phone, and playing softball. Don't get me wrong, I really value the friendship of *both* of these women, it's just that I feel so akward calling them because I am afraid it is nap time and that the phone ringing will wake the kids up or that they'll be spending time with their kids which is **very** important, and I don't want to interrupt.

That's where the similarities end with these last two friends. One of them is a fertile-mertle (enough said, I hope).

The other one struggled with IF for several years. After being told that she would *never* be able to conceive because her tubes were so twisted and kinked, she and her husband got licensed for FC and got a little boy whom they adopted. Shortly after the little boy joined their household (they brought him home from the hospital, but it took several months for the adoption to be finished), they found out they were pregnant (she actually conceived the day before they got the call for the little boy). I know that this friend will *never* forget the IF journey she traveled. While her journey may never be ended (if she wants to TTC again), her journey has had some sort of ending so-to-speak, because she knows what it is like to *be* pregnant, to feel a child moving inside of her, to feel the unconditional love that a parent feels for a child, etc. (Let me say, too, that I do *not* want to hear about how "that" happens all the time-people with IF adopt and then get pregnant (pg). There is absolutely no correlation between adopting and getting pg!)

So...here I am, all alone, with nobody to understand the pain of IF, to understand the emotional ups and downs of IF and each cycle that is unsuccessful.

The only "people" I have who understand are my cyber-friends from an IF forum, but they can't wrap their arms around me when AF rears her ugly head after another round of hotflash city.

I wish someone I knew (in person) was going through the IF struggle so that I'd have someone to lean on. WAIT!!! No, I don't, because I would never, ever, in a billion years, wish the painful, hurtful, frustrating, tiring journey of IF on anyone-not even my worst enemy!