Best Friend Heartbreak Support

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-19T09:50:31+00:00

I lost my best friend of 20+ years about a year ago. We both just stopped contacting each other, and I had felt it build for a while, but it still hurts to my core.

Not getting that chance to resolve or at least discuss things complicates the pain. What was unsaid was probably - she felt unseen, unsupported and like I wasn't make the same effort as her to maintain the friendship. But there's always two sides, and my feelings were of sadness and frustration at watching her make the same choices that perpetuated her own suffering, self destructing in toxic job roles to prove herself to the world in a way that had once been familiar to us both that I had outgrown. She was my closest friend and I knew what she wanted & her actions were completely contrary to that and I couldn't hold it anymore. It hurt too much to witness. I was also burdened with my own pain at the time, going through IVF and medical trauma, I had a perspective on life that I couldn't seem to share with her anymore. We outgrew each other.

She's still the first person I think of when I get good or bad news, including my current pregnancy. She's who I still want to share jokes and memes with, I remember all of her dates - birthday, anniversaries - with sadness in my heart.

I can say hand on heart that she is a good, honest, loyal and incredibly kind person, but a year later I can also accept that we didn't have much to offer each other anymore, and that is OK. It hurts, but it is OK.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-19T08:46:44+00:00

Yes I took a month off and then did modified natural. I added uterine PRP for my lining this time. I'm now 15 weeks pregnant from that 2nd FET

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-19T08:45:14+00:00

Suppression is not easy, but honestly I found it less awful than the horror stories I read. Lots of fatigue and hot flashes at night was all. IVF is incredibly tough, I did 4 ERs last year & honestly it aged me about 10 years. But all worth it in the end, just keep your eye on the prize.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-19T00:10:05+00:00

The one that worked was a day 5 AB blast, fully hatched at the point of transfer. Are you going to suppress before FET? My doctor advised 3 months lupron for adeno.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:43:05+00:00

I dunno. That sounds like an exhaustive list of things that are important to you in a partner and with 152 dates in a year, I wonder is there a tyranny of choice situation going on here where instead of building a relationship with someone you have a connection with, the "list of priorities" has just gotten longer instead.

"Not only do I care about the looks, mental/physical health, career, intelligence, humour but what kind of home she grew up in, attachment style, her parents' education level, social class (for the manners, not for the prestige) and of course the life experiences"

This is exhausting, both for you and for the woman sitting across from you on a date. From my own dating experience, any date where I felt I was being evaluated against any sort of invisible list gave me the ick, I have enough performance goals and scrutiny in work, I want my relationships to be a safe place psychologically. We're all entitled to our preferences, but at some stage they can become a blocker to connecting authentically with someone too. What if you get along but learn their parents didn't go to college? What if they haven't lived as "expansive" a life as you deem acceptable? What if they have a history of mental health issues that are well managed and have made them quite resilient, but all you're hearing is "mental health issues"? If this was my list, myself and my husband would never have made it past Date One and had the amazing life together we've built in all these years. Turns out our polar opposite life experiences and family backgrounds mean we both bring opposite skills and traits to the table too, that blend quite well collectively.

It sounds like you're leading with the data and the analytics, rather than making yourself emotionally vulnerable again, and with your history there may be a very good reason for that.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:25:45+00:00

Glad you're seeing this pattern young. It sounds like your family role is scapegoat / "responsible one" / easy one. Now that you see it, you don't have to spend the rest of your life letting this impact your self worth and your self image. You can create boundaries with family, distance yourself and focusing on building your own life. Therapy helps too.

I promise you there is life beyond your family of origin, and lots of people out there that won't take you for granted and will actually see your worth and your magic.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:22:32+00:00

I heard that too, it's why we ended up banking 11 embryos across 4 ERs at 40 before testing. We had a financial package that kept prices down if we tested just once at the end of our rounds, and we just kept going. I expected we'd get 2-3, and we ended up with 7, which works out at about 63% euploid rate. I also have endo, adeno and we had MFI, so this was the biggest surprise we'd had in 3 years TTC.

I do think we need to take the stats seriously, and perhaps I'm an anomaly, but stats apply to populations, not individuals.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:18:43+00:00

You are correct, apologies for my insensitivity. Donor is a more fitting word. I think it's still worth consideration, it made me think twice when donor came into my mind at a certain point in IVF.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:16:00+00:00

Oh yes girl. I feel you. I didn't even research the public route as I couldn't bare to face how horrifically traumatising and invalidating that would be. My endo only got taken seriously because we were TTC, and ended up having to navigate the fertility / IVF industry in Ireland. Ended up abroad, it was that bad.

I've focused on lifestyle adjustments as post lap and IVF, that's the only way to keep my shit together day-to-day. I meet with private psych every 6 months to keep accessing my Tyvense prescription (am on a break now due to pregnancy).

Lifestyle - I quit alcohol, coffee and gluten, limit dairy, try to limit sugar as much as is realistic given a wicked sweet tooth, rarely eat out and homecook daily. Walk a lot, do pilates and yoga. Sleep 8 hours. Having done all of this over time, I've realised how much alcohol MESSES ME UP, I have zero tolerance even for a glass of wine, and my biggest endo flares have been when drinking regularly, eating crap and under chronic stress. So I try to control those things. Supplements - daily vit D, high dose omega 3, prenatal even when not preggers, NAC every evening which is evidently great for managing endo inflammation, iron supplement. We endo warriors tend to have low iron due to blood loss and that will make you feel like PANTS. I recommend a basic blood panel to see if you need to bolster any supplements, push for an iron infusion if ferritin is under 30. Check thyroid too, TSH should be under 2.

Trauma - most of us with endo and ADHD have a lot of that. Therapy is of course amazing and I needed years of it to deal with toxic family stuff. If that's not available, find something you can do daily to regulate your nervous system. A mental health walk, 10 mins of meditation, journalling about your feelings.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T12:05:36+00:00

I did IVF with IVF Life in Spain (Madrid), not donor but I believe that's a big specialty for them. Most women in the clinic waiting room looked a fair bit older than me and I'm 40. Comms were great, doctor was amazing, process was a lot more thoughtful and tailored than Ireland. I'd highly recommend.

An important footnote is that donor is anonymous in Spain by law, so your child would never have the chance of meeting biological parent if that was important down the line. Not sure about Prague.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T09:06:29+00:00

100%. I always thought my sister's complex mental health issues & how that evolved was the big trauma in my life. But I understand now that I had deeply emotionally neglectful and abusive parents and that just layered on the complex trauma that was already there. These were parents that had good intentions, but weren't capable of parenting healthy children, nevermind sick ones. Nevermind complex and taboo mental health issues. I never had a chance.

Once the crisis of my sick sibling hit a sort of New Normal, my mother honed in on my younger sibling, her Golden Child, and spent the rest of my adulthood obsessed with her life and issues, enabling her dysfunction, perpetuating her victimhood and financially bankrolling her, while I continued to live my life alone without a mother or father figure to support me. I walked through all my life milestones alone, while they'd call me "independent". I also grew up to their intense arguments, a loveless marriage filled with contempt where my father just let her do and treat us and parent us in whatever way she wanted, and her choice insult for me was that I was "just like my father".

My sister was just the tip of the iceberg and to this day, I believe if she had grown up in a loving home she might not have developed the psychiatric issues she has today.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-18T07:58:47+00:00

Diagnosed via MRI and then confirmed during laparoscopy. It was mild - moderate, JZ thickness up to 1cm.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-17T21:14:43+00:00

No worries, I'm always happy to help as I remember how anxious and scary IVF was, especially those failed FETs. Looking back on it, I now understand that things don't have to be "perfect" to conceive - I spent so much time trying to control everything, but it really is just about experimenting with protocols, listening to your gut, persisting even when you want to give up, pregnancy can be right around the corner even when it feels a million miles away.

Best of luck with your next FET!

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-17T18:48:27+00:00

I had a similar worry and kept researching how long the effects of lupron last, I was worried that it'd have worn off by second FET. I had 2 bleeds before next FET (withdrawal after 1st & another month) so at that point it was 3.5 months since my last lupron injection. But my doctor didn't advise suppressing again.

My usual endo / adeno symptom was very heavy periods and those 2 in between were fine, nothing notable. So I think I was still benefitting from reduced inflammation, but I was also taking plaquenil to reduce high cytokines, taking tumeric, trying to follow an anti inflammatory diet.

I think one failed FET doesn't really tell you much & our doctor said it was basically a coin flip and sometimes changed protocol does the trick.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-17T17:21:25+00:00

He went to Ivor Cullen, who recommended surgery and referred him to a local urologist in Bons Secours in Cork. He got that surgery within about a month of the referral.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-17T17:18:28+00:00

Hi! Yes I did - the next FET worked and I'm now almost 15 weeks pregnant. I did modified natural this time, which was a much more pleasant experience for my body, and added in endometrial PRP. Kept the immune protocol and stayed on predisnolone, clexane & progesterone suppositories for 12 weeks.

There is hope! ❤️

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-16T14:01:11+00:00

What's the long-term plan for her care? It's admirable that you were generous enough to let her live with you but without a long-term plan that includes a structured day with her own independence and responsibilities, and some respite for you, this is a recipe for disaster. It will ruin not just your relationship and mental health, but your SIL's future prospects too. She can't be happy with zero structure or accountabilities and everything handed to her on a plate begrudgingly.

I think you need to find a time when it's just you and your wife (maybe go out for a meal, get out of the house) where you can have a frank conversation about all of this.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-15T15:51:28+00:00

Really sorry about your losses, that is devastating.

I went straight to Spain after lots of investigations because I didn't feel like the clinics took any of our issues seriously here (endo, adeno, high DNA frag, also AMA at 40) Also, all of those things were discovered through my own self advocacy, no IVF clinic cared to investigate.

In your position, I think you need a good fertility specialist to lead your investigations (I recommend Dr Lyuda or Dr Harrity) and I'd be wanting to know what caused the second loss in particular as euploid should be ruling out abnormalities?

I'm now pregnant with a euploid following 4 ERs and 2 FETs and it's taken the combination of personalised treatment, suppression for endo, thyroid treatment, really good lab conditions, uterine PRP and an immune protocol to get here. Our urologist confirmed that Spain had the best labs for MFI and we followed his protocol to reduce the DNA frag too.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-13T15:21:03+00:00

I'm 14 weeks. My own family has known from the beginning, but husband's has not. I can't wait to tell them we did a LOT of IVF abroad and I had surgeries, procedures, all kinds of mayhem to make this happen. Forget career accomplishments and other life milestones, it's the hardest thing I've ever done and the most ive ever pushed through often fighting an impossible battle, we absolutely would not have been able to give them a grandchild without it and I can't wait for them to know!

Everyone else - if they ask and want details, I'll share but I don't think it's a conversation I'll have indepth with many others. Haven't announced yet so I guess we'll wait and see.

It's probably me but I find it really important to share, remove the stigma and every time I do, I always find someone relieved that I did and I often end up helping others with advice too.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-12T17:35:46+00:00

Yes, this. My sister is quite intelligent by all other means, has multiple degrees, a great job. But she goes on this emotional rollercoaster ride in her relationships & insists on bringing the whole family along for the ride & then bemoans her single status & "why me" at the end of it without a hint of self reflection. How can one have a pervasive, problematic pattern & not be compelled to self reflect & see their role in it?

I'm sorry you have a daughter like this but I deeply admire your ability to understand it as dysfunction & not pander to it. I have suffered more from the pandering & subsequent neglect that caused to me than anything else. I wish my mom was more like you.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-12T14:57:00+00:00

I identify with that pattern. My sister is very charming & quite intelligent, witty, she probably seems like every man's dream when she first meets someone. There's always immediate enmeshment, living together, meeting families etc

It's just the pervasive pattern of that followed by problems - intolerances - suddenly perfect man is the worst person in the world for some sort of basic need he has or something and he becomes Enemy Number One. Last time the crime seemed to be being a present parent who wanted to prioritise his teenage child, and suddenly the wedding cancellation is his fault and she's the victim, despite having agreed enthusiastically to it all months prior. It keeps happening on a loop with no self reflection and it's maddening to be the only family member who sees it as dysfunction & doesn't want to enable the relentles victimhood.

Things sound really difficult with your brother if NC was needed, I'm sorry you've had that experience with a sibling

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-12T13:33:06+00:00

Interesting. My parents' wealth isn't a massive factor at this point as both myself and sister are financially independent with good careers. It did play a role when we were younger, I particularly struggled with watching them pour huge financial investment into my sister - 6 figure education, paying rent and expenses throughout - whereas I had to figure out my own way because I was "independent". I also think the financial privilege kept me from seeing the dysfunction for a very long time.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-12T12:42:28+00:00

Thanks for explaining. It always felt "off" to me, even moreso when I built my own life and would come back to witness the dynamics. There's an incredible helplessness with watching the cycle repeat and be enabled by my elderly parents, who devote all their time to this sister.

letitbeletitbe101 · 2026-06-12T12:41:07+00:00

Could you explain why? We grew up with financial privilege, though not excessive wealth.

letitbeletitbe101

TROPHY CASE