That moment

So last night came the moment that for so long I had intensely dreaded, then felt ambivalent about, then finally looked forward to. It was the moment when my old nemesis, The Friend That Unintentionally Makes Me Feel My Life is Shit, tells me she is, at long last, pregnant.

I had been sporadically checking in on her status, sometimes being afraid to ask, since I now understand how intensely private this stuff is (and as month after month passed with no news, I became more reluctant to ask). But I knew after "several" failed IUIs they had been planning an IVF cycle for June (100% paid for by their kick ass executive insurance, grrr) and I imagined it had a good chance of succeeding, since all her labs had always been good and she was ovulating normally.

I had to ask, and her response was funny to me. Just very matter of fact and low key, and then she immediately started talking about all the new TV shows she was looking forward to in the fall schedule. So, no tears, no emotion, no long drawn out tale of the agony of getting to this point (as would have come from me, in her shoes). But she's a very different person than me. I'm not going to say she didn't suffer in her infertility journey...but if she did, she did so silently. But this is her way - as one who is used to things just always working out, she never doubted that this would just work out, too. Which is a great attitude to have, but out of reach for most of us.

Still I have to say how pleased I was that I was genuinely thrilled about her pregnancy. And I'm so glad I just ate my jealousy of her and never let on, because sure enough it's gone now that I have Bumpus, and imagine how rotten it would have been had I let the friendship go because I just couldn't deal with my feelings? I'm pretty ashamed of how I felt about her, and the vitriol I spewed here, but I think I deserve the same deference I would give anyone else in this situation; I was a person who had been horribly disappointed in life, who worked and scraped and struggled for everything I had, and was terrified I'd never get to have a family. Throw in a close personal friend who's always been handed things on a silver platter, and in a particularly vulnerable moment, it's a recipe for disaster.

But here we are a year and a half later and I have this practically perfect little baby, and now she's going to have one, too, and we'll get to raise our kids together, and I'm very excited about this. I don't even have any weird feelings about her husband being a great dad (probably) or their amazing expensive house. Because my life is pretty darned good, and I fought for everything I have, and I earned it, and I'm proud of that. And now we can all put away childish things and move on to the next adventure.