Friends...Minus the Rachel 'Do

Third time for this post...is a charm? We will see...

I have a friend that I haven't communicated with for several months. We live only a few hours apart from each other, but I think the growing separation between us is related more to emotional distance and not the physical. At one time we worked for the same employer and we even shared an apartment during a few months when Mr. DD and I were "on a break" (which actually led to our engagement). X and her first child were born within a few weeks of each other and a couple of years later she had her second.

It was after the birth of this 2nd child that things seem to have changed. I don't know if it's related to my discovered infertility or if we truly have just grown apart. In fact, we have not seen each other since right before my miscarriage over a year ago. We've talked only a couple of times in the past year and the last email I received from her that wasn't a FW:,FW:,FW: was late October. Actually it was a reply to an email we had sent about the progress of our house. In that email reply, she asked how the baby thing was coming. In response, I sent her my blog link. Based on my sitemeter, I know that she went to my blog once since then.

Let me be clear that this is not about me whining about a friend who doesn't read my blog. I already have a couple of other friends who do read this, and sometimes it's a little awkward having a conversation live about something they've already read on my blog. I feel like the elderly grandma who tells a story over and over because I can't remember that I told the same story the day before.

No, this is about someone who was once a close friend who read through a few posts back in November, and has not acknowledged me since. I received no Christmas card; no thank-you for the gifts I sent her children for Christmas; not a word - written or spoken.I can't help but wonder why. I mentioned to Mr. DD that I have a sneaking suspicion that in the time I haven't seen her, that she either has had another baby or is at the very least expecting her third and somehow, our own reproductive problems have created some type of rift in within our friendship.

My friends I see every day and who know about our problems are empathetic, and I try to not let it take over our conversations, even though I admit, it does. However, I have not felt as if our relationships have changed significantly from a year ago when the shit hit the proverbial fan.

Have any of you had friends who you felt in some ways, abandoned you when you went through some personal set-backs; or am I just experiencing the natural degeneration of a friendship not nurtured by frequent visits and phone calls? Should I make another attempt to contact her even though there was no reciprocation/acknowledgement of holiday cards and gifts; or is that petty? Maybe I sent her the wrong signal about where our friendship was by sending her my blog link instead of answering her personally. I just don't know anymore.