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We always thought we would have kids. We started trying when we believed we were ready. A month went by, then two months, six months, a year. Nothing happened.

Something was wrong, but nobody could tell us what - and they still can't to this day. We tried IVF three times but our results were not good. We were devastated.

Eighteen months after our last IVF cycle, we knew we would not be having our own children. And, somehow, we have moved to a life that is much different to the one we thought we'd have.

This blog is about what we do now we know we won't be having children - the thoughts, dreams, realities, sorrows, and joys that have become our new life path.

I hope you will enjoy what I will be sharing, and I hope that if you are at the point where life without children is a reality for you, that you might find some hope and inspiration here.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Lost friends...

I never expected that it would happen to me. I always thought that the friends I cared about most would be my friends throughout any situation – including when they had children. I imagined being there for them, spending time with them and their kids, listening to funny stories about what their sons and/or daughters had done, and being a sounding board whenever they needed one.

The truth is – when you can’t have kids, and your friends who were without children when you met them have their babies, you may find yourself on the outer edges of their world, or not even in their world at all.

This has happened to me. Fortunately I still see most of my friends who have had children and I am so grateful and blessed for this. But, there have been a few that no longer contact me or make any effort to try and catch up. I’ve tried a couple of times to organise coffees or a trip to a local play cafĂ© so their kids could come too, but to no avail.

I don’t know why this happens. Some people have told me that it is because my friends have children now and they will have made friends with other mums – women who have more in common with my friends and understand their situation more than I do.

Maybe that’s true. But, I have friends from a range of different situations – from single to partnered or married, to divorced or widowed; friends with and without children (some children are young and some are adults); people in their twenties to people in their seventies; people who are gay and people who are straight; people from all different cultures…I don’t see why becoming a mum means you can’t have a range of friends from all walks of life as well.

Especially when a friend outside of the parenting community is willing to drive for 45 minutes just to have a five minute coffee, if that’s all the time their parent friend has to catch up.

I don’t get it. Maybe they no longer contact me for some other reason – something I’m not aware of that has upset them perhaps.

Anyway – I need to remember the friends and family I do have that are amazing, that seek me out as much as I do them, and for whom I have such love and admiration – family who are my blood relatives, and friends who are my soul family.

3 comments:

Mali said...

You're right - there's no real reason for this. But I had one friend - the last person I would have thought I would have lost - who withdrew from me when her children started school. A few years later I was invited to a dinner, and there were all these new friends I'd never met - all parents of her kids' friends. None of the friends she'd had five or ten years earlier.

I'm lucky though - the friends I have who have children have mostly not changed. And you'll find that once their kids are older, they start to come back too. Case in point - I'm going to my aforementioned friend's new house for dinner this week.

Kate Bettison said...

That's a really good thing for me to think about Mali. I hope that the friends I'm thinking of do come back to my life someday - they would be welcome with open arms x

Unknown said...

This is so true.