Unexpected friendship

Today I met someone. Someone much like myself. Someone going through the same struggles I go through everyday. Someone who I now call my friend.

I didn't think it would really happen. I was very skeptical. My sister (L) has an assistant at work who is lucky to be bestowed with the wonderful "gift" (note the sarcasm) we call infertility. So L has been telling me about her for a while now, saying we should get together because she is feeling alone and maybe if we talked we could find a kinship with each other.  I thought yea maybe. But about 2 weeks ago L emailed me and asked if she could give her assistant my email address so I figured sure what could it hurt? Within a few minutes the girl emailed me asking if I would like to get together. I thought "whoa, that was quick". Not even "Hi", "how are you doing" but just"let's get together".  It felt weird. I am not sure why and this may sound strange but it felt like I was being set up on a "blind date", and I have never been one for blind dates. But, I agreed and then the following 2 weeks was followed by going back and forth in email about when, where, blah blah, blah. 

To tell you the truth I was not looking forward to this. I felt I was kind of doing my sister a favor. I was worried about this person working for L. If I told her things would she tell L? I'm sure she felt the same. I mean L and I are close but there are still things I don't tell her,  there are things I don't share because she doesn't get "it, she couldn't possibly get "it".   I didn't want this to be a lunch filled with crying, emotions, telling inner most secrets to someone I just met.  What else could we have to talk about? I heard things that had made me feel like we were in 2 different places in our journey and I didn't want to be pulled into uncomfortable places. I mean I feel like I am sad, angry, heartbroken, and sometime hopeless but I don't like to wallow in it. I don't like to hide and not talk to any of my close friends or family just because they have babies. Don't get me wrong I am not running to baby showers and birthday parties but I am not hiding either. Like I said before Infertility is part of who I am but it is not all of who I am, and I had the impression that for her it was. Which I am not saying is wrong at all! I understand it, but I am trying hard not to get sucked in by the grief. Some days it works...other days not so much.

Instead what I got was a lesson in not assuming.  I met a person in real life who is like me. Who has the same worries, the same heartbreak, and the same desire to have a child. It was nice to talk to someone, face to face, who knows what you mean when you refer to the 2ww, Gonal F, and the pain of miscarriage. A person that can groan at the stupidity of the health care system that will pay for birth control and consider "headaches" as a FMLA reason for being off work but not "infertility", because you know, "having children is not a necessary 'life' activity". A person who I know now, doesn't just needs to cry on my shoulder but needs someone that will not be talking about how I was up all night because my baby wouldn't sleep, instead I will be talking about how I was up all night because I was nervous about my next cycle. I won't be talking about my child's first steps, I will be talking about the first steps in the IVF process or the adoption process. And I just have to say it was great. I was afraid that the beginning and end of the things we have in common would be infertility and I want a friendship that is more then that. It turns out we have a lot of things in common. In a lunch we developed a friendship, held together with a common bond. And it is so nice to know I have someone close by that would be here in a second to comfort just because she know what it feels like and I would do the same for her.  So I have to say thank you to L because I found someone to talk to, who knows me without really knowing me just yet. I found a friend I never expected.