It was from my oldest and formerly, dearest friend.

Why "formerly"?

Let me explain.

We both went to school and uni together, heck, she even met her husband at my wedding. Despite overseas moves and relocations, we sustained a friendship of sorts. We told each other our deepest, darkest secrets, and sought advice from each other when required. When I moved back home we spoke every week and saw each other when time allowed.

We both had a baby and I knew she was trying for a second. In respecting her privacy, I will only say they discovered they had multiple major fertility problems. When she finally told me what they were I had to google them to understand the terms. In a way, that's what led me to reading alot of blogs about infertility; because I was desperate to know and understand what she was going through.

Then she stopped talking to me altogether, dodged my calls, left emails unanswered and texts weren't responded to.

I took the hint.

And I understood why, because of all I had read and learned. If I had been her, I would have done the same.

However it got me reflecting on our friendship and I realised I had always been the one to make the weekly call. I had always been the one extending the invites. Always, always, me. And the secrets she told me. Always elicited from my questioning. Never volunteered.

And I grieved. I missed my friend. I missed our friendship. I mourned for what I thought our friendship had been and recognising the gaping hole to what it actually was.

But it made me appreciate the real friendships I do have. They aren't characters out of "SATC" or "Friends' but they are friends I can share with, and have them share back.

So my old friend. Well after some awful months and IVF her baby is due in a few weeks. I told her how thrilled I was when she finally phoned me to tell me the news, having already heard it through the grapevine weeks before.

Again, I totally understand why it happened this way. I do.

So this invite, this week, to her son's birthday party, which a few months ago I would have been pathetically grateful and happy to receive?

Greeted with indifference.

Infertility is a bitch.