How Did I End Up In This Crazy Place?

I sit here at the computer with a clean house and a fully packed suitcase. Tomorrow morning I leave for the airport.

I'm off to the good old US of A where I am set to pick up frosty and bring him/her home with me. Not in a suitcase or an additional seat, but inside me.

It's such a strange thing to think that frosty has been waiting for me since he/she was fertilized in August. Sitting in a straw in a lab, just waiting to be defrosted and placed into my womb. I can't even describe the feelings I have about flying halfway across the world to have an embryo transfer. It seems so strange and very "jet-set."

I suppose it's not unusual these days, but if anyone had told me 10 years ago that someday I would be flying from one country to another to try for a baby I would have told them they were crazy. Because everyone knows that sex gets you pregnant. Unprotected sex without a care in the world results in an accidental pregnancy and a cute bouncy baby at the end.

At least that's the story they tell us. That's the story we see on TV programs and read about on the news. It happens to everyone around us, our neighbours, our friends, and even a few of our fellow classmates from the 11th grade.

It happens so often that we don't even think about it not happening.

We assume.

But for some of us things do not go quite as smoothly. We are responsible and use protection. We focus on our careers and being the best we can be. We get married and still we wait.

• Until we have enough money. 
• Until things at work are settled. 
• Until we can buy a house. 

And then when we are ready, we go off the pill and wait for our "accidental pregnancy." And we wait, and we wait, and we wait.

At some point we realize it's just not going to happen that way for us. So we start researching and asking questions. We make doctors appointments and are subjected to test after test. Some of us get answers, but many of us do not.

Unexplained infertility,,,,, will someone explain what the hell that is supposed to mean?

The rest of the journey takes us through uncharted territory. We meet with doctors we didn't know existed. We learn tons of medical terminology and jargon. We take hormones like they are candy, or like they are recreational drugs, or both. We hope and we pray and some of us get good news. Others of us hope and pray and get bad news.

In my case I got almost all the way to the finish line only to have my hopes shattered at 36 weeks by those 6 terrible words. "I'm so sorry, there's no heartbeat."

But somehow, despite all the bad news and setbacks we manage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and throw ourselves right back out there. To a place where we are so vulnerable and so desperate for a good outcome that we will try almost anything.

For me, this means flying across the Atlantic because the don't have a good donor egg program in the country where I live. It means expensive, long, last minute flights for transfers. It means adjusting my injection times to match whatever timezone I'm in. It means working with 2 fertility clinics, one here and one there. It means communicating with my RE and Nurse via email and long distance phone calls.

Some days I wonder how I ended up in this crazy place. Most days I'm just hoping it's all worth it in the end. The day when I not only get pregnant, but I stay pregnant, and I get to bring home a living baby at the end of it all.

So my bag is packed, my boarding pass is printed, and I'm ready to go. Because this is my life now, and all I want is a healthy, living baby.

Pop Goes My Bubble

I think sometimes I float around in a bubble of denial. I convince myself that I'm happy and I'm doing better.

• I'm functioning at a pretty high level. 
• I'm getting out and doing things. 
• I'm making new friends. 
• I'm not crying every day. Well maybe that one is a lie but I'm not crying as much. 
• I'm injecting myself with needles every third day with ease. 
• I'm somehow managing to juggle regular life with my ongoing frozen embryo cycle. 
• I'm somehow managing to control my grief and not let the fear of a potential new pregnancy paralyze me. 

It's all going swimmingly until something comes into contact with my bubble. It's very fragile to start with so it doesn't take much.

POP!

That's the sound of my bubble bursting. 

That's what happened to me last night.

I went out to an event with my women's club. It was a fun, social event. Everyone was busy chatting about being back in town and getting back into the swing of things. Soon the conversation turned to children. 

I sat listening to people talking about their new play dates and all the new friends they are making through their children. Someone was talking about the holidays and having a lunch and just letting all the kids run around and play. Talking about all the fun things there are to do in London with kids. 

As I sat listening I suddenly felt like they are living on a different planet than I am. Or maybe just a different dimension. Like in those science fiction shows where there are multiple time lines and everyone is existing in a different one. 

I live in the same town as they do. I attend many of the same social gatherings as they do. But somehow I am still left out of a massive part of life. There is a whole part of the world where I have no place. It's the place where parents and their living children are. It's a place where I am completely left out. 

I'm never invited to play dates or children's birthday parties where I can sit and drink wine and gossip while my son plays with the other children. I don't do the school run and chat with the other Moms at the school gates. I am unable to make new friends at my child's school. I don't have big parties where all the kids run around in the back garden. 

Why? Because I don't have a living child. Because I don't fit. Because I have yet to be granted membership into the Mommy and Daddy Club. Sure, I'm a member of the Baby Loss Mom's Club but who wants to join me there?? No one!

All this happy chatter made me realize just how much of life I am missing out on. How much of life I'm excluded from. So in addition to my grief and anxiety for this upcoming cycle, I am now feeling very alone. 

Alone in a crowd. Which is not a very nice place to be.

*Pouring my heart out with Shell over at Things I Can't Say.

Delays

I think one of the things I hate most about infertility (besides the obvious) is that everything takes so much longer than you think it will. Pauses, and delays, and waiting,,,, it's enough to drive a girl crazy.

When we were first informed about our negative pregnancy test the nurse said there was no medical reason to have to wait. She said we could start our frozen cycle with our frosty as soon as my period arrived.

Awesome!! Some semi-good news for once.

Not so fast there missy! It seems that there may be a delay.

I get an email from the nurse a couple of days ago saying the clinic is busy and they may not be able to fit me in until mid-October but she is still trying for an earlier date. Needless to say I am not at all pleased by this news. The hubby and I have a pretty packed schedule and cycling in September would be so much more convenient.

We have already pushed back our trip home to see the family twice and if we cycle in mid-October then I will have to do my beta test somewhere in California,,, where I don't currently have a fertility clinic. Ugh! Plus I really don't want to be getting the news while we're traipsing around the state visiting various family members.

I can't imagine I will take a second negative nearly as well as I took the first and don't think the family really wants to be around a moping crying me. Not to mention that the hubby could potentially find himself trapped in a car with a moping crying me for hours on end as we drive ourselves like ping pong balls from one family members house to the next.

I know I'm being very glass half empty here and it's possible that the cycle will work and I will get a positive test. But even then I'd rather not be staying with various family members when I get the news. I want to get the news at home, where I am comfortable, where I will have time to process the outcome before being bombarded with all that family time.

So I fired back an email saying that I really need to cycle in September. I have not yet heard back which I'm hoping means she is still out there fighting my corner and trying to get me a better date. I assume that if there was no flexibility then I would have already gotten a no in response.

So I cross my fingers and hope for the best. I just hate all this waiting!

Beta = Not Pregnant

My 2 week wait is officially over and my beta came out negative. I can't say was surprised because I finally cracked and peed on a stick a few hours before the call came in. I figured I could live with the "false negative" the nurse scared me with for a few hours.

Alas, the phone call only confirmed what the lovely digital stick had already mocked me with. I am not pregnant.

I'm disappointed for sure. But I'm not devastated. It took us more than one IUI to get pregnant with my son and it took many years to even get that far. The hubby and I never do things the easy way. Why get something done quick and easy when there is a longer, more painful, and more costly way,,,, right?

Denial you ask? How can you possibly not be crushed at the negative result? I have to say that I don't think I'm in denial. I gave the tears a pretty good chance to come but they never arrived. The old me would have buried myself in bed for a good old cry for sure.

But the old me had never been pregnant before. The old me didn't realize that getting pregnant is only the beginning of the struggle. The beginning of the worrying. And the beginning of all the things that can go wrong.

I suppose losing a full term baby gives you a different perspective on things.

Yes, I'm disappointed. I wanted to be one of those success stories. Someone who tried egg donation and got pregnant on the first try. I'm not happy that we have to go through this all over again. I'm not happy that I've been injecting myself with hormones for nothing. Or that I spent a week in Spain and didn't get to drink any wine or eat any jamon iberico (and I really love that stuff). Going through a full IVF cycle and coming up with a negative beta is definitely a knock back.

But the knock back of a failed cycle is nowhere near the crushing blow of losing your baby at 36 weeks. I'm not negating it or brushing it off saying it's nothing. But it's nowhere near the worst thing that's happened to me this year. I've been through much worse.

Plus we have a plan already for cycle #2. The nurse told me to stop my injections and wait for my period. She said to expect it to be heavier and more uncomfortable since they worked hard to get me such a good thick lining. Ugh, I am not looking forward to that. So to prepare for this I went out to the store and bought myself a PMS kit. What is a PMS kit you ask??? Well here it is.

Everything a girl needs. Notice the Spanish wine to help make up for last week.

If I'm honest I'm sure I'll need more wine and more chocolate, but I didn't want you all to think I'm a total alcoholic! Oh, and even though the Rolo bag says love to share, I'm definitely not sharing them!

Once I get my monthly friend I can go back on the birth control pill and get ready for my frozen cycle. Don't forget, I've got a frosty waiting for me at the clinic. According to the nurse, it is another grade AA blastocyst. And the frozen cycle goes faster than a fresh one because I don't have to sync up with anyone else and we already know we've got a good embryo.

So while I'm not happy that things didn't work out the first time around, I am happy that we've already got a plan for cycle #2.

Pouring my heart out

Too Many Balls in The Air

Seriously! Could I just get one thing settled please???

I have too much going on right now and it's driving me absolutely nuts.

Here are the balls I'm juggling at the moment.

1. Grieving my son (this one is a biggie).
2. Having to move to a new flat.
3. Our upcoming Egg Donor IVF cycle.
4. Planning a trip home to see the family.
5. My hubby's potential new job role.
6. All the rest of normal life stuff.

Here's where I sit with all of them.

1. Grief- well that's an ongoing one which I don't expect to be settled anytime soon.
2. Moving- I swear this one is going to be the death of me. I thought we had it all sorted and now it appears it may all fall through. There are some terms on the lease that we are having trouble agreeing to. I thought this one was all settled,,,,,, but it's not. I have tons to do to prepare for this move. But I can't do any of it until we are sure where we're going and when. We have to be out of this place in early July so I'm starting to panic slightly. 
3. The cycle- this one is moving forward well. We have been checking the database and hope to find our perfect donor soon. Thanks for all the advice I got on this one. The big thing up in the air with this one is the dates. You see, we can't make other plans until we know exactly when this will all happen. So  we're in this crazy limbo where we want to make plans but we can't. I hate limbo. 
4. Trip home- was planned for late July, but may have to be pushed back if we are in the middle of our donor egg cycle. Or not if we're not. I need to book tickets in advance in order to avoid paying a fortune, but I can't. And it's driving me crazy.
5. Hubby's job- no he's not changing companies or anything. But he may be given a slightly bigger role than he currently has. If he gets it then it will involve more travel, but to some pretty cool places that I can tag along to. This is good news, but it adds stress. It hasn't officially happened yet,,,, but it might,,, or it might not. So for now it's just another ball to juggle. 
6. Normal life- well let's see, there is no food in the house. I haven't worked out in weeks. My house is a complete mess. I have a million things on my to do list. So pretty  much I've dropped this ball already.

So pretty much my whole life is in limbo right now. I am not a very good juggler and at times I feel like throwing all the balls on the floor and screaming until someone else picks them up.

Ugh!

Can we just get one thing settled???

Please???

Easter

Easter snuck up on me this year. I didn't realize that it would hit me so hard. It's never really been a big holiday for the hubby and I.

I usually do a ham and buy us some chocolate, but that's about it. We don't even go to church anymore because we don't go the rest of the year and it feels slightly hypocritical to go on Easter and Christmas but not the rest of the year. So it's normally just a nice Sunday with a special dinner and phone and skype calls to the family back home.

In retrospect I should have expected the tears.

Easter is so much more of a kids holiday than I realized. Getting the outfit, the Easter basket, the Easter egg hunts, dying eggs the day before; all of these things are done when you have kids.

As I saw my real life friends happily posting photos of egg dying sessions and videos of egg hunts it hit me.

I am missing out on all of this.

Not that an 8 month old can dye eggs, but he would definitely have been old enough to dress in a cute outfit. Perhaps he would  have been crawling around the floor grabbing Easter eggs (well the plastic ones, not the real ones). There would have been the photos of him with the Easter bunny in his cute outfit. I would have sent them via email and facebook to all my friends and family back home.

Except that he isn't here.

That's what really set me off I guess. The things I was missing out on. That I will always miss out on.

The boy that will never be.

Why Couldn't I Have Held Him?

I share a lot in this space. The good, the bad, and the ugly. No holds barred. It's the main reason I don't reveal myself here, so that I can be totally honest.

But this is something that I am not sure I should share. In fact, I may type the whole thing and then not publish it (if I do publish it then I apologize in advance because I'm sure my thoughts will be all over the place).

Why? Because I'm not sure you will ever think of me the same way after reading it. Not that any of you know me in real life (well except for 2 of you, 1 being my husband). But I fear that those of you who have gotten to know the "virtual me" will never see me in the same light.

You see, I am not like the rest of you.

I know this because I have read many of your stories on your blogs. I know what is "normal" for a grieving mother. I know what most other Baby Loss Mom's have done when their babies were born still. I have read how you held them, and kissed them, and told them you loved them. I have seen the photos of you holding your babies even after they were gone. I see the love and sadness in your eyes as you treasured this final embrace.

I know exactly how you were all feeling in those moments. I felt that way too. But there is one huge difference between your birth stories and mine.

I was unable to hold my son after he died. And for that I am ashamed.

Not because the doctors wouldn't let me, but because I just couldn't. Mentally, I was not in a place where I could even comprehend holding a dead baby. No matter that he was my dead baby. No matter that he was my firstborn son who I loved more than anything. I just couldn't do it.

They tried to talk me into it at the hospital. But each time the brought it up I went into a panic. I kept screaming, "No, No, No!" There were no other words that came out of my mouth. Just those words and a flood of tears. Each time they would back off as they could clearly see that I was on the verge of a total breakdown.

After several days, I was mentally able to see him. The midwives set everything up in a special room. They dressed him in the outfit my husband had picked out. I wasn't even able to pick out his own outfit at that point. When I finally saw him I almost collapsed with sadness. If it weren't for the wall that I propped myself up against I would have ended up in a heap on the floor. He was absolutely beautiful. But still I couldn't bring myself to hold him. I did touch his face, but it was cold from the refrigeration. That one touch would be the only contact I would ever have with my beloved son.

Tonight I was hit with a tsumani of regret.

Why couldn't I hold my son after he was born? Why was I so hysterical right before his birth that I had to be sedated? Why couldn't I just hold it together? I am normally such a strong person, why couldn't I handle this better? Why did I continue to act with such hysteria after his birth that I was unable to hold him and tell him how much I loved him?

Why?

Logically I know that we do the best we can in times like these. That we do what we are capable of. But in my heart I regret not having the strength to see past my fears of what a dead baby would look like. He was my only son after all. And now I am starting to feel like I have somehow rejected him. Even though I know that he had already left his earthly body before he was born, I still somehow feel like I have failed as a Mother.

Why couldn't I have held him???

Anger and Shame- You Are Not Welcome Here

I've been angry lately. I'm not good a dealing with anger or even recognizing it in myself. I don't like to be angry and have irrational angry thoughts. I am ashamed of my angry irrational thoughts. They make me feel like I'm out of control, and I hate being out of control.

My natural coping mechanism for anger is to ignore it. But I am learning how to recognize it. The first sign is usually that I want to eat everything in sight. Being hungry or not being hungry doesn't matter, I get this voice telling me I need to eat, to graze, to snack. Logically I know that stuffing my face will not help stuff down the anger that is brewing, but most of the time I am unable to stop myself.

This is especially disturbing to me because I am trying desperately to get healthy and lose weight before trying to get pregnant again. I am paying a trainer to work with me once a week to help me get in shape. I have stuck to my exercise plan and am working out 5 days a week. But I just can't control my eating.

I am 15 pounds lighter than when I got pregnant last time but I'm still pretty far from and ideal BMI. I want to get as fit and healthy as I can before any new pregnancy. I know my weight isn't what caused my son to die, but a healthier me is a better me.

So I'm mad at myself for not losing weight, and when I get mad at myself, I eat. It's a vicious cycle. It's the reason I'm not a a slender size 6. I don't know how to fix it.

Once I get angry, any little thing can set me off. Here's what is currently driving me crazy.

• Our house is a total mess. It looks like a bomb went off in here. It was spotless last week on Tuesday and now it looks like a tip. We are total slobs, and I am ashamed of that.
•  I have not been able to control my eating as well as I would like. I haven't gained any weight, but I'm not losing either. I am ashamed of that. How is it possible that the one thing I know will help me get pregnant is the one thing I appear to be incapable of doing? Am I sabotaging myself? Or is there something seriously wrong with me?
• My husband got sick on Saturday so we couldn't have our date night. I was angry and disappointed. Not angry at him for not feeling well. But angry that we couldn't have our fun night out. I sulked silently as I ate my beans on toast for dinner. So not what I had in mind for the night. My husband noticed and felt bad about it. That made me ashamed of myself for sulking over something so silly and making him feel guilty.
• The laundry has piled up over the week. Nothing new but today I woke up angry that my day will be filled with nothing but laundry and cleaning our pig-sty of a house. 
• I'm angry that I didn't shower yesterday, or get out of my pj's for that matter. So I look terrible, my hair is greasy, and I am all kinds of "fragrant." I am ashamed and embarrassed about that.
• I feel like a total slob, kind of like the state of my house right now. We match perfectly. Dirty, smelly, and neglected. So much potential underneath all the mess.

If I were still seeing my therapist I'm sure she would tell me that I'm not really angry about being fat or having a messy house. I'm sure deep down I'm just hitting the anger phase of grief.

I don't really believe in the phases of grief as a rule because I think we each follow our own path. But I'm feeling a lot of anger right now. And none of the things I'm currently angry about are new things. So I have to deduce that it's part of my grieving process.

But the timing sucks! We are just getting to the point where we are ready to try again. We fly to the US this week to meet with the egg donation clinic. I am so excited about this. I really am. So why the anger now??? At the worst possible time? Anger and shame, you are not welcome here!

Please go away!

Like a Dog With a Stick

Today I was walking at a lovely park near my house. I saw a woman walking her dog. This cute brown and white dog had found a stick in the tall grass and was happily running back and forth with it. He would run up to his owner, drop the stick and wait happily for her to throw it into the distance. Then he would rush off to find it once she had. I was taken by the sheer look of joy in this dog's eyes. He was blissful, happy, not a care in the world. So happy to have this stick to play with on this lovely day.

I recall feeling exactly like this dog after my 20 week scan. We were having a healthy baby boy. No chromosomal abnormalities, no structural abnormalities, our baby was growing perfectly. I felt just like that dog. Not a care in the world. My husband would describe me as "giddy." Like the dog, I ran happily through life so excited to have my baby growing inside me. Anxiously awaiting my chance to play with him.

Oh how I wish I could have that feeling back again.

The Room

Our son's room. The room where he was going to sleep and play. The room where I was going to change him and feed him and rock him to sleep. The room where he was going to grow up. The room that had a future. The room that was going to be filled with joy and hope. What do we do with this room now? Now that there is no baby, no crib, and no rocking chair? This room is still empty and so is my heart.

Well sort of empty. The mattress from the old guest bed is still there leaning up against the wall. The paintings and mirror that once hung on the walls are on the floor. There is a blow up bed from when my Mom came to visit us after my c-section back in August. You see, this room was still in transition when we got the horrible news that our son had passed away. It was being converted from a guest room into a nursery.

So it sits there very much as it had been on that day. Frozen in time, a time where there was still going to be a baby and the old stuff needed to go. Unfinished, like my dreams of a successful pregnancy and happy family. A chaotic mess, the way I feel about myself a lot of the time.

But you can't freeze time, it goes on even when you don't want it to.

So what to do with the room? Do we buy a new guest bed? Do we empty it out? Do we leave it the crazy mess it is now? We did a lot of thinking and have decided to turn it into an exercise room. A fresh start for the room and a fresh start for us as well. One of the things we decided after our tragedy is that if it's just going to be the two of us then we need to get healthy for each other. If it's just going to be the two of us then we owe it to each other to live for a long time. So we're buying a treadmill and installing a TV in there. We'll keep the blow up bed for when guests come over from the US of course.

It's heartbreaking. This isn't what I had planned. I wasn't supposed to have to re-do this room until he was old enough to decide that the sports theme I chose was "too babyish." When he was too big for his crib and we were getting ready to move him into his "big boy" bed. I wanted my baby boy, not a treadmill. I wanted to be playing with him on the floor in that room, not doing sit ups on a yoga ball. I wanted a lot of things that I'm never going to have, but at least we're doing something healthy and positive.

Hopefully, some day I can write another post about how I'm having to convert our exercise room into a nursery.

Hopefully.

Hopefully

Please??

What a Difference a Year Makes

A year ago today I found out I was pregnant. I peed on two sticks just to make sure it was really true. We were so excited! It had taken so many years to get pregnant and now it was finally happening. We excitedly told our family members and I happily passed on the wine with dinner that night. Presents were opened with joy and there was love in the air. It was our best Christmas ever.

This Christmas we are without our son. He is in heaven. We miss him terribly. This is our worst Christmas ever, but we're determined to make the best of it.

What a difference a year makes.

When people you love let you down- part two

Maybe I need to trade my family in for a new one. Or maybe I just need to accept the fact that some members of my family are amazingly self centered. Two weeks ago I posted this story about how someone dear to me had let me down. A couple of days later I retold the story to my sister and explained to her about how upset this incident had made me. She was very supportive and had some very kind words to offer. So what happened last week was doubly surprising because I thought she would have known better.

To start with, I should explain that my sister has always been self centered. Not in a conceited, "I'm better than everyone" way, but more in a "the whole world revolves around me" way. No matter what the situation is or who it should be about, she finds a way to make it about her. So really, this conversation isn't out of character for her, but it upset me nonetheless.

Anyway, after Thanksgiving dinner I went upstairs where my sister was getting her things ready for bed. We had not had any alone time this visit so this was our first time to chat and catch up. Since we were finally away from all the holiday craziness I was expecting (and hoping for) her to ask how I was doing. But instead she decided to take this opportunity to complain to me about unhappy she is and how bad her life is. She was telling me all about her financial troubles and how her husband doesn't help out enough at home. She cried about how she wishes she had more friends and a better job. She spent almost an hour crying about herself and not once did she even think to see how I was doing. I just sat there thinking, "Are you serious?? You think your life is bad?? My baby just died and you're crying because you can't afford to have people for dinner parties??" Of course I sat there and said nothing because that's what I do.

I'm back home now and she has just sent me an email asking me if I'm mad at her. I guess at some point she figured out that I wasn't myself after our very one sided conversation. I don't usually tell her when she upsets me because then she overreacts and somehow finds a way to twist around what I say in a way that makes her the victim. So usually it's easier for me to just ignore it. But something in her email struck me. Two things she said make me think I should reply. One is that she asked me to please reply. The other thing is that she feels like we're drifting apart,, which in a way we are because I am pulling away from her because it can be so exhausting trying to deal with her sometimes.

So I think I will let her know how I feel. Yikes, I may be stepping into a hurricane without a raincoat. Wish me luck.

When people you love let you down.

I've had a few really good days so I should have been expecting a crash. What I didn't expect was who would trigger it. I stayed a few days with my grandmother who struggled with infertility and multiple miscarriages when she was young. She was also there to support my mother when she gave birth to my brother who was stillborn. So one would think that she would be the perfect person to turn to when dealing with the loss of a child. Wrong!

We had a big family dinner to start with which was nice because it's hard to try and get to see everyone in the short time we are in town. Once everyone left I was expecting (and really hoping for) some time to chat just her and I.

To say I was upset at our conversation is a huge understatement. It was bad enough that she didn't ever ask how I was doing. It was even worse that she spent the entire night talking to me about how upset she is about her relationship with her son (my uncle). **A bit of background,,, basically they have had a falling out and are not speaking. He is married and has a 1 and a half year old daughter. As a result of the estrangement she has only seen her grandchild once.  It is a very sad situation and I am hopeful that one day they will work things out. But there is nothing I can do to fix things**

During our conversation, she cried about how much she wants to be able to spend time with him and his baby girl. She then went on to cry on and on about how special babies are and how terrible it is that she can't see this baby. On and on and on and on!!! She spent the entire evening talking about herself and how sad she is. Are you kidding me??? Does she not realize that I am sitting here dying inside because I have lost my baby. Does it not occur to her that perhaps she shouldn't be going on and on about how special babies are when she knows that I would like nothing more than to be able to be with my baby?? Does she not understand that I am grieving and really need my grandmother to be there for me??

At one point when she was talking about how badly she wants to be able to hold her baby grand-daughter I almost snapped. I was so tempted to tell her that if she really wanted to hold a baby, I had my son's ashes in an urn in the other room and she could hold him if she wanted. I just couldn't believe she could be so insensitive to my feelings. Not to mention the fact that I feel like I'm being manipulated. I know full well that she is hoping that I will share this conversation with my uncle to make him feel bad for not talking to her.

I am so angry that what should have been a wonderful few days spent with her have ended with me feeling hurt and angry. My husband thinks I should say something to her about it, but I know that I probably won't.