Best buddies
It’s often only in hindsight that you can look at the positives that come out as a result of going through any personal challenge. After years of IVF and now well and truly into parenting a fabulous albeit crazy toddler that I am able to do this. Despite how shitty the IVF experience was, I absolutely always knew that there were worse things that could happen. I only had to watch the 6pm news to know this. For me, being childless not by choice would have been sad and devastating but I conceded that it would never have been a tragedy in the true sense of the word. As difficult as it would have been, at some point I would have learnt to accept it. I had a pretty firm grip on reality and knew my “lot in life” was good even if it meant giving up the baby dream. I got lucky. There but for the grace of God.
I am blessed to have a number of female friends in my life. Some that I would speak to frequently that I’m very close to and others that even though we may not speak or see each other often there is special bond between us. I know no matter what I can always call upon them and they would be there for me and likewise I would like to think they know the same about me. Last year Rebecca Sparrow wrote about having a baby and becoming a crap friend. http://rebeccasparrow.com/i-had-a-baby-and-became-a-crap-friend/ I love everything about Rebecca’s writing (girl crush alert) and there is so much that she writes about that resonates with me and this post was especially fitting. I suppose I was fortunate in that I was the last of most of my friends to have a baby so since they’d all ‘been there, done that’ I’m pretty sure (hopefully!!!) they knew I wasn’t intentionally being a crap friend but rather a busy mum attempting to crack the cat nap therefore unable to function outside of this mindset because I was mostly too busy reading Tizzie Hall.
Years ago I met my friend Melanie when we were clients of Kirsty Eng Acupuncture. Before we actually met (in the waiting room one day) Kirsty would often talk about Melanie and would frequently say how much we’d get along etc etc. Little did Kirsty know just how right she was and now a few years on I can describe my friendship with Mel to be one of those IVF blessings I spoke about in my opening sentence. In some extraordinary twist of fate and despite both of us having a ridiculously shit time with failed cycles, we had the same success, the same month, the same year and her son was born less than 48 hours after Charlie. Mel also had a challenging and complicated pregnancy so our friendship was born out of sharing many highs and lows whilst attempting to grow a little human being. In the last two years there is not much we’ve not encountered together – sleep patterns, feeding patterns, wine, teething, milestones, baby’s first fever *, emergency department visits (shudder), champagne, tears and almost always laughter. Returning to work around the same time we somehow managed to swing a share nanny arrangement and Sarah has been a big part of our lives in the last 6 months. Another blessing.
Friendships, new and old, how lucky I am.
* Allow me to point out that ‘baby’s first fever’ is nothing like the panadol commercial much the same as ‘changing baby’s nappy’ is nothing like a huggies commercial.
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