Open Letter to a Friend Who is Facing This Too

Dear Friend,

I have been desperate to call you, and desperate not to. I want us to talk before I start this coming round of IVF. I want us to confer and commiserate before I get into the shots and the office visits. That way, you won't be tempted to track along with me, to hope it works out but know you'll cry if you hear it did. I don't want to call you after I get the results. Either way it will hurt; if I am pregnant I know from experience what it feels like to hear someone else's good news while you are left waiting and hoping for your own. If the IVF fails, I will be glad for the support, but I so much do not want to need that. To be talking about another failed cycle.

The more I go through this, the more I want to be open about it. I am considering telling my bosses. It is self-protective. I have so much work coming over the next couple of months and I want them to know why I may crumble. Or I want them to be impressed that I hold it together. I want them to know. I want you to know, and I think my experience can help you. But there is always some piece of this each person can not get help working through, and that is the part I fear, for both of us.

Best of luck to us, I love you a lot.