Can friendship last through pregnancy?

For most of my hectic summer, I hadn’t made an attempt to call my best friend, despite the… For most of my hectic summer, I hadn’t made an attempt to call my best friend, despite the nightly messages I got from her. Then, on a cool evening in early August, I made some time for her.

I gave her a call after a trying day, and I looked forward to hearing about her new and exciting life as a copy editor in Detroit. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to attend her graduation from college, so we had some catching up to do.

I was ready to tell her all about my trip to Brazil and vent about my job and boyfriend, but I decided to let her go first because I could tell something was on her mind.

“Are you sick?” I asked.

“Sort of,” my self-proclaimed sister since the age of 12 replied.

We became friends after I joined the youth choir at our church. We went to the same high school, and when she graduated and went to college in Florida, I flew down to surprise her and help her move in.

We’d seen each other through abusive relationships and neurotic mothers. We even have a song, and a tradition of immediately calling the other if the song is playing on the radio. She was my first skinny-dipping partner, for goodness sake. I know this woman, and I could tell she was upset about something.

“What is it? Are you pregnant or something?” I asked as a joke.

“Well…” she responded rather solemnly.

Well? Clearly, I was expecting the “or something” response, but alas, my best friend is a mother-to-be.

Life has changed. In eight months, her life’s focus is not going to be about having fun with the girls or being chic and sexy in the city, it’s going to be about diapers, formula and her baby.

Sure, I knew other young women my age — and some even younger — who were pregnant, or had children already. They were those other girls from high school. But none of them were my best friend.

She described the reaction from people she thought would be more warm and comforting — people we both thought were her friends. Several thought she would abort the baby. Others thought she was being careless with her body and her life. She was ashamed that those she thought knew her best would make such assumptions. She started crying, and I didn’t know what to say. In our nine years of friendship, I’d heard her cry only twice.

Of course I had to reassure her that I was not upset. I told her we’d still be friends, and I’d come home and visit more often. I didn’t want her to feel any worse than I imagined she did. I wanted her to stop crying.

When we hung up, hours later, I could hardly gather my thoughts. This just wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to travel in Europe and West Africa after I graduated. She was my first choice for a roommate if we ended up living in the same city. All that has changed now.

I called her a few times since then. But the calls have been getting harder to make, and the conversations haven’t gotten any easier to handle. She has morning sickness all day. She can’t eat without vomiting. She complains about almost everything. She’s cranky, and she’s miserable. There’s nothing I, or anyone, can say to comfort her. Talking to her just isn’t the same; it’s like hitting my head against a brick wall.

She says she feels as if she is doing this alone. Well, it’s not hard to see why. No one wants to be around her — including me, her former sidekick.

I didn’t want to abandon her in her time of need, but I haven’t called her in weeks. I guess this is just one of those times when there is no right thing to say. I just have to find some way to let her know that I am still her friend, and I love her — always and forever.

Maria Nicole Smith will send her friend a long letter because she’s too much of a punk to call. E-mail her at marianicoles@aol.com.