One of the techniques used to highlight what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes to “role play.” Well, I’d like to take that a step further. I’d like to invite my fertility challenged readers as well as the moms who drop by to participate. Cue the music (you know the tune) and now, let’s enter the Twilight Zone…
Everyone who is fighting with infertility, you are now able to conceive — the NATURAL way.
Those of you with children, those who conceived without a thought as to ovulation cycles, FSH or sperm counts, you are now mysteriously unable to bear children. The little ones you once nursed, cuddled and bragged on at social gatherings, they no longer exist. The realization of childlessness is frightening, devastating because the once fertile now find themselves in an empty nursery, the house is suddenly silent — no more giggles or playful chatter or background noise courtesy of Dora the Explorer or Sesame Street.
Those who were once infertile are equally in disbelief. They’ve just had a loving and spontaneous romp. Two weeks later two pink lines magically appear on an at home pregnancy kit. The newly pregnant can’t quite wrap their heads around the idea that no external intervention was required…not a pill, not a shot, not even a visit to a doctor’s office.
Now, mysteriously pregnant, the once infertile are wondering if they can muster the confidence to hold a baby shower or whether it might jinx the prospects for a successful delivery.
Meanwhile, those who have come to the realization that their plumbing doesn’t work are desperate. It’s slowly dawning on them that the spare bedrooms in their house might, at best, only serve as guest rooms…
With the scene set, some newly fertile women — NFWs– (remember we’re living in opposite land) meet their now infertile women friends — NIWs — for lunch. What’s their conversation? How does the dialogue develop? How do their relationships change? The story is now in your hands…yes, audience participation is required.
Now’s your chance to call the shots. Please spread the word. I’m very curious to see what comes of this. Everyone gets to have their say in the comments…who’s first?
March 28, 2007 7:30 am
Oh, I love this Twilight Zone. The realisation of what it would be like slowly dawned on me as I read your post. To conceive naturally, to have a normal pregnancy and a healthy baby at the end? Wow. I am basking in the glow, just basking. My own baby? Really? Really? Really?
And unfortunately, the little mean part of me is also glad that the fertile community would get to experience what it means when your body fails you inexplicabley. I hope I would be gentle with the previously infertile. I hope I would be able to sit down over a cup of coffee and say, “How are you doing? Are you ok?” I hope I would be able to encourage a friend without telling her about this woman I know who tried and tried and eventually went on holiday and drank bergamote tea and fell pregnant and now has four children. I hope I would be able to be there with her, to share the experience without diminishing it or increasing her guilt. I think I would limit my children’s entry into our friendship, I wouldn’t talk about Alexander’s cute smiles or how difficult I am finding it to lose weight. I hope I would be a friend who remains me and who doesn’t metamorphise into a Mother. (Oh, so much bitterness I bear against mothers. Would I be able to control it in the Twilight Zone. I hope so.)
March 28, 2007 12:35 pm
I think this post should be printed and posted in the breakroom in every office and read at the neighborhood brunch. It MIGHT give the fertiles a teeny clue about the desperation and feelings of emptiness and possibly prevent them from saying some of the stupid things they say. I personally have been on both sides of the fence and trust me, infertility is not the better of the two sides.
March 28, 2007 6:35 pm
Totally love this idea. I have to say I don’t feel very creative, and I’d love to believe that I’d take the moral high ground, too, and just say, how are you? is there anything I can do? Because I think if you’ve been through this you really genuinely don’t want anyone else to suffer. Maybe I’d have an inward moment of schadenfreude, but I’d limit myself to that, I hope.
What would they say? Or what do I wish they’d say? I wish they’d say: “I had no idea it was like this, I am sorry.” And “I don’t know how you managed to keep going such a long time while dealing with this.” And, perhaps, “I’m sorry. I didn’t get it. Now I do.”
March 28, 2007 7:05 pm
I think I would be too stunned to do anything. Of course, I’m still so raw from finding out I have to do IVF. I always worried about multiples due to family history – and hemorrhaging – and miscarriage – but not even being able to get pregnant?
I was always taught that if you asked someone if they had children and they didn’t you apologized for the question. Of course, I have relatives who never had children for a variety of reasons. There are so many ways I just cannot relate to others experiences outside of the intense pain of this experience.
My hope would be that I would remember to just say “I’m sorry,” and leave it at that. But, we are all so human, so flawed, would I actually gloat? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
Pax,
MLO
March 28, 2007 7:19 pm
It’s such an interesting idea because I have a feeling I’d be going on and on about how amazed I am that I’ve conceived–with little thought to how the other person is taking it (now newly non-parenting and infertile themselves). On the other hand, I would like to think that the experience has affected me enough that I remain circumspect even in my surprise.
I don’t know if I’d ever be able to have the baby shower. I think I’d still be freaked out.
March 29, 2007 12:28 am
I’m sure I would not behave nicely. I’d be a blithering fool, yipping on with joy.
But I also couldn’t make it through a pregnancy calmly, because it’s not just about IF for me, it’s about high risk pregnancy.
March 29, 2007 7:00 pm
Frankly, I don’t think I’d wish infertility on anybody… well, almost. With some people, you just have to wonder….
“I know, it’s amazing how this happened. I had given up on having a baby, but here I am. If only I could just relax and enjoy this pregnancy-“, I start to say reaching for the breadsticks.
“Everything will be fine, you’ll see. You can’t change anything by worrying about it. You just have to stay positive, ” she replied smiling weakly.
“Yes, I know,but after years of having a whole team of people try to get me pregnant, the money, the stress, the crazy wive’s tales I listened to, it seems to unreal…”
“Yeah, I never thought I’d be in the same position myself. I had no idea how horrible that whole experience was for you. I find it hard to concentrate on anything anymore. I find it hard to believe that this is my life now.”
“You could always adopt….”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s not quite the same though. Anyways, we’re so broke now and I don’t know if I can suck it up and present myself and wait for some stranger to pick me. It’s like another long, huge journey, full of complications and intrusions in our life. I’m so sorry, we should be talking about what a wonderful occasion this is for you and your husband!”
“My friend will be calling people soon about the shower – ”
“Yeah, great. Can’t wait.”
“You don’t have to go if you’re not up to it. I’ll understand.”
Okay, it might go something like that.
March 29, 2007 9:28 pm
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and then I realized why I was having a hard time figuring out what the conversation would be like. I would be so shocked that I conceived with my eggs that I would be speechless. Then I would remain speechless for fear that it wasn’t true and that I have finally gone insane.
March 29, 2007 11:11 pm
Since it looks like I’m one of the only ones to be on the fertile/now infertile side, I can only say what I have been saying as this is happening in my real world now.
I get told that if I have faith it will happen.
I tell her that she doesn’t have to enjoy being pregnant.
I say I’m sorry for the 100th time for telling her if they just had sex everyday they would finally get pregnant.
She tells me that I at least have the one to be grateful for.
We both then stare silently at our half-empty plates and take a drink from our glasses. I’m drinking wine. She’s drinking water with a wedge of lemon.
At the shower, I pretend to have to tie my shoe so I don’t have to touch the miniature clothing being passed around.
She tries to steer her mother away from me for fear that she will ask me when will I have another baby.
We both cry. For each other. For ourselves.
March 30, 2007 5:14 pm
Love this post. Wow what a world that would be if that happened. I almost can’t even imagine it and what that would feel like if I could all of sudden be like everyone else. It would feel to good to be true and I’m not sure if I could believe it. And what would those who were fertile once say to us? Maybe they would finally see a glimpse of what we have been through for years and learn to be more compassionate, more sensitive and more understanding. Maybe they would finally see how ignorant they have been and see how hard this road really is. People in the fertile world really have no idea until you’ve walked in our shoes.
April 1, 2007 1:52 am
I started to type my answer, but then I saw a problem in the question. I have kids now, via IVF, but I still consider myself infertile. Even if I mysteriously conceived through ordinary, everyday sex, having been through the shots and the heartbreak, and everything that comes with infertility, I would still be infertile. I’m not sure that my response to my friend would change that much from what it would be now, or two years ago.
April 1, 2007 4:45 am
I added it to BlogHer here: http://blogher.org/node/17544 and cross posted it to Mommybloggers here:
http://www.mommybloggers.com/2007/03/what_once_was_in_no_longer_wal.html
At Mommybloggers, we want to be as sensitive as we can be to infertility. Anyone who wants to speak up there, please contact us. We want to be able to be informed and have our readers informed as well.
Thank you for letting me participate in this. It means a lot!
April 2, 2007 2:01 am
I’ve been trying to think about how to reply to this. I think I’d have to actively quash a smug sense of having got my revenge. But I think that would be fairly fleeting.
Would I feel guilty about achieving pregnancy so easily whilst watching other women suffer? I think again those feelings would be tempered by a sense of things have “evened themselves out”. I think I would feel bad for the newly-infertile, but in a “well, honey, that’s life, now you know” kind of way.
I’d like to think I would move on to a state of mind where I could offer genuine support for the newly infertile. Go out there by day and be sensitive and sympathetic, then come home at night and be just overjoyed by my new-found good fortune.
Bea
April 2, 2007 5:43 pm
I’m one of those fertiles. I can attempt to walk in your shoes, but I can’t ever really know the pain you feel. I can only imagine how resentful and angry you feel – how *I* would feel.
I do remember asking my husband, before we started trying, how he would feel if we *couldn’t* have a baby. His blind confidence bothered me; I knew it wasn’t necessarily going to be easy, and I wondered if he would remain committed to me if his family plans didn’t work out the way he expected they would.
So in my worst-case scenario imagination, I’m both childless and divorced. It’s devastating to consider.
I wish all of my sisters who are struggling with fertility peace and comfort, love and support. I wish things were different for you.
April 2, 2007 9:03 pm
I get a glimpse of what it would be like to be fertile whenever my like-clockwork cycle is late. Then I hate the cruelness of letting me imagine that I could be pregnant. I’m running out of cycles though and with them the hope of one of those miracle pregnancies.
Maybe reading this would make people more sensitive to asking the “have any kids” question. I have struggled with how to answer it and not casually expose my most personal pain to discussion. My latest response tries a little humor: “Apparently high stress lives can be an effective contraceptive because so far we just have cats.”
April 3, 2007 6:48 pm
Did my tours of duty through infertility dx and tx for years. I still think of myself as infertile. I’m not magically fixed. I have the same problems. I just had success. And now we’re finished.
I know your challenge expanded to say “imagine the treatment didn’t work.” I can’t/won’t do that. But I will answer: what if I had suddenly found myself fertile? And was sitting with someone newly infertile.
That’s an easy conversation. It’s one-sided. I simply listen to my friend. We talk about what she wants to talk about.
See, I can’t seem to unring that bell.
No matter what happened, I’ve gone through it. And I’d still know infertility and feel infertile.
April 3, 2007 7:45 pm
Not suffering with IF myself, I don’t really know how to respond. I try not to be insensitive. I’ve never told anyone to relax or to adopt or that their children weren’t “natural.” I’ve held friends’ hands when IVF cycles resulted in nothing more than dashed hope.
So I can’t lie and say it isn’t a little disheartening to hear women say they would be glad to see the previously-fertile suffer. I think I have a sense of where the feelings are coming from and I imagine I would feel much the same thing were we to swap places.
I do think the analogy is a little off. I have a child. In this story, I don’t simply find myself to be infertile, but I lose my flesh-and-blood child. I’ve had miscarriages and I know how painful that can be, but the thought of losing Alliclaus seems to me more than that.
I’m trying not to be insensitive here. Clearly, IF often means losing the possibility of a biological child. But is potentiality different than actuality?
The post gave me a lot to think about, though. Thanks for that.
April 3, 2007 8:59 pm
I would ask how my friend and her significant other are doing. If she wants to talk, I would listen and not offer advice. I would not tell her stories about other couples who finally just relaxed and got pregnant, as if she and her significant other are simply to uptight too conceive, victims of their own self-imposed infertility. Most of all, I would listen, because every woman’s infertility experience is different.
*My husband and I struggled with infertility for 2 1/2 years before becoming pregnant and having twin girls. The comments I found most frustrating were those from people who those who told us to “just relax” and it would happen. Infertility is a physical, not psychological, problem. Offering such advice is like telling someone that if they would “just relax” that tumor would stop growing.
Also frustrating were comments from people who obviously assumed that any problem must be with the woman’s body and not the man’s.
April 4, 2007 2:02 pm
I’m one of the fertiles, and, truthfully, I can’t even imagine what it would be like not to have my boys. My husband and I did discuss ‘what ifs’, as in ‘what would we do if it doesn’t happen for us’ when we decided we wanted children (because we were ‘older’ and understood the potential), but I’m not sure we really, really grasped what it would mean if we landed on the other side of the divide. As a fair number of friends have. And I’m not sure what it would have done to our relationship.
April 4, 2007 10:47 pm
I am coming at this from a completely different perspective. My husband and I didn’t want to have children. I was using Depo for birth control. It failed and I became pregnant. I don’t believe in abortion and once I told my husband he said he wanted to keep the baby, that he could never let someone else raise his child. I spent my whole pregnancy depressed about this. I felt my life was over. Due to some complications I had to quit school and was on bedrest for 3 months. This was not what I had planned. All I could think was “why is this happening to me”. Once Katie was born of course I loved her but I still catch myself wondering why someone who had wanted a child couldn’t have been “blessed” instead of me. I wasn’t able to go back to school because I couldn’t afford it anymore. My daughter is healthy and happy and yes I do go on and about her. I haven’t seen anyone who has kids that don’t.
On the other side of things I have a best friend that I have know since we were 10. She finished college and as she had planned since high school tried to start a family. She has tried for 6 years to get pregnant all the while watching me raise a child she knew I never planned to have and I know it was torture. I did ask all the wrong questions but I love her and it wasn’t because I couldn’t see her pain it was because I wished there was some way I could help her and I was grasping at straws to do so. I offered to carry her baby, to give her my eggs and yes I know that what she really wanted was to carry her own child that she and her husband had created. If I could I would trade places with her so fast. I am sure most of you are judging me and thinking that I must not love my child but that is not the case at all. I do love her more than I ever thought possible. I think that this has less to do with wanting what others have and being “normal” than it has to do with not being able to fulfill our own dreams and what we picture for ourselves. Oh and just so you know I also look at my friend and am envious but just not for the same reasons. I only wanted to live out my dreams.
April 5, 2007 6:58 am
Molly: Thanks for your honest and heartfelt response. Have no fear. You’re not being judged in the least. In fact, we have more in common than not. We both share a sense bewilderment over the hands we’ve been dealt. It’s only natural and human to want to exercise control over our lives and pursue our dreams…that’s made all the more difficult when choices are taken away from us. Neither I nor your friend asked for nor wanted to have faulty plumbing nor did you ask for or want your plumbing to trump your dreams. It certainly makes for a set of conflicted emotions, doesn’t it? I feel for you as you felt for your friend. Wishing you all the best — and I hope that your dreams can still be realized in some way.
April 6, 2007 3:01 pm
This is a wonderful and important topic, and in fact it’s one I have personally lived.
I conceived my first two children naturally and quite easily. When my husband and I were considering a third, I was sure everything would be just as easy. Not so much. We tried for a month. No big deal, we thought, it’ll happen next month. We’ve never had a problem before. A handful more months, the nervousness set in. Meanwhile, a couple of women I knew who hadn’t even been trying fell pregnant, due in the month we had planned to have our third. One of them had never had trouble getting pregnant and went on and on and on about it. Was I that awful?, I wondered. The few people I told gave me “helpful” advice: just relax and it will happen; maybe you need time away from the kids. Thanks so much.
A handful more months and then we had despondence. What did I do to deserve this? Was it the IUD I had placed after my second son’s birth? My pregnant “friends” whined to me continuously about how they were soooooo miserable. I narrowly avoided ripping out their throats on more than one occasion. I called my OB and asked if there was any testing I could have done. I had an HSG, which showed that everything was clear and looking good. Several people told me anecdotes about being sure the HSG is what got them pregnant. Small surge of hope that didn’t last long as I saw negative result after negative result.
A handful more, resignation that we’d never have that third child. Realization that, while I know that others have gone through much worse than I, I now identified as infertile. My two “friends” approached their due dates, still complaining nonstop about this was sooooo hard. I boggled at the rampant insensitivity of people, from those in my own family asking me when and if we were going to have another child (I hadn’t told them about the IF) to those few who knew who were still telling me that all we needed was time and relaxation.
Never mind that I’d have preferred to jam red hot pokers under my fingernails than have sex ever again by that point. I marvel that my marriage survived.
I called the fertility specialist on a moment’s whim and started weeks of testing. We did (transvaginal!) ultrasound after ultrasound. A post-coital test that rated #1 in my Least Favorite Things To Do Ever list. Bloodwork to the point where I wondered if I had any blood left. I was in the middle of my cycle by then and had one good follicle — the RE had no idea what was wrong, but he suggested we try IUI just in case. Cue a day of juggling kids as DH first went to the RE to “leave a sample” (‘why can’t you help?’ he whined at me and then I threatened his life) and then I went to have the procedure — because by then I could not bear the idea of bringing my children into that office if there was anything I could do about it. I thought terrible, terrible things about the people who brought their children in there. Smug assholes.
April 6, 2007 3:02 pm
(Continued… sorry!)
I nearly fainted when I realized I was pregnant after that one IUI. I was sure, SURE that I would lose the baby. But here I am, at 17 weeks and irrevocably changed from this experience. I will never again ask someone why they don’t have kids. I will never again offer that “helpful advice” just because I am too uncomfortable to have the decency to look embarrassed by my riches and apologize for their suffering. I shudder to see how awful people can be when they don’t even realize they are being awful.
I hope this experiment helps to heal the hearts of many, just a little bit.
April 6, 2007 5:53 pm
I wish you all the best with your pregnancy. I take special joy in pregnancy success when there’s been such incredible effort arriving there. Not that many fertile people visit here, but your post will help those who only understand how difficult infertility has been when they hear from someone who “looks” more like them. As we all know infertility is not something one ever “gets over” or leaves behind. It does change us and leave scars that aren’t visible to others. On a somewhat lighter note, since you echoed the theme, you will appreciate in a big way all the helpful advice that the fertile myrtle’s typically offer. Check out Mel’s video in the Int’l Infertility Film Festival: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIH5ayG1qho
April 6, 2007 7:39 pm
I’m not infertile, though I did have an endoscopy for endometriosis at 18, and spent ten years worrying that I would be.
At the same time, as someone not exposed much to infertility as a child growing up, I think I went into a lot of conversations in my early years uninformed. There’s a difference between making comments that hurt people’s feelings on purpose and on accident. I had an eating disorder as a teenager, but I realize when people say they are so full they want to throw up that they are saying it not realizing I had a problem with that. While we fertiles need to be more aware of what comes out of our mouths, I also think those who are working at pregnancy should realize that not everyone makes a comment or talks about their baby or pregnancy to hurt someone. You think about what’s going on in your life. If you want to be shielded from that conversation, you need to say something. Just as I have to say something when I hear a mother tell her daughter she looks fat. It’s a process of education. We all have our hot buttons.
I don’t mean for this to sound insensitive, but I don’t think the dialogue will change unless we are honest with each other when a comment or conversation stings.
April 7, 2007 4:34 am
With the scene set, some newly fertile women — NFWs– (remember we’re living in opposite land) meet their now infertile women friends — NIWs — for lunch.
While I am very happy to be pregnant (at my advanced age of 50) I somehow feel something is missing. It’s not as exciting as I thought it would be. It’s like that I feel,no I KNOW that somewhere, out there,in another dimension or parallel world, some people are missing me. I dreamed about these people last night, my friends. I dreamed that I had struggled and cried and undergone medical torture to have children. In my dream I was sad, devastated like you. But then one day I was sitting in a wedding and somehow I knew all the horror was about to end, that what I had wanted all along, was very, very near to me. It turns out he had already been conceived (in another woman’s womb) and would be handed to me three months later. After years of disappointment it was over. Then in my dream I traveled to a far away land to have the most beautiful blonde little baby placed in my arms. He fell asleep there and I cried when I thought he might never have fallen asleep in someone’s arms in the 12 months he’d been living in the highly scheduled orphanage where everything was done efficiently but not very lovingly. In this dream, 12 years after the first baby was handed to me, as they both lay asleep in their beds I got down on my knees and thanked God that I hadn’t gotten pregnant. That I had endured every medical dissapointment possible and that I hadn’t gotten pregnant, sending these two beautiful little souls who love me so much off to live somewhere else with someone else. That’s the most scary thing about what I dreamed….thinking that if everything hadn’t happned exactly the way it did MY children, the ones that were supposed to be MINE, would be somewhere else.
So now I’m pregnant, but I cannot stop thinking about this dream that I had, and something just seems all wrong.
April 8, 2007 6:32 pm
Well, this happened to me, so I can tell you. We always knew that we would have children, even if we ended up adopting them, but we wanted to try hard to do it our way. So we did. For 4 years, with a surrogate mom. When she finally got pg and the fetus died, we all cried and I took good care of her.
The entire time I was trying, I never resented other women getting pg. I didn’t want their kids; I wanted MINE.
Three weeks after my surrogate’s D and E, I got pg. It took 5 pg tests to believe it.
It has been wonderful, awesome, etc. etc.
I focused on raising my son and being very happy.
6.5 years later, there is a huge hole in my heart, a regret that will never leave that I haven’t been able to have a second child. My son isn’t very good at socializing (we inadvertently moved to a neighborhood with no kids and then watched real estate values plummet, so we stayed), and has some “issues.” He adores other children. He runs to play with babies. He is lonely and wants a sibling every single day of his life.
But my tries at post-baby “make another one!” haven’t worked. And I haven’t had the energy to throw myself into the infertility thing again. It was so painful, and took so long… I have just embraced my child and we’ve had fun instead of dealing with sleazy surrogacy agencies ($25K finder’s fee, anyone?) and so forth.
My husband’s partner had a terrible experience with adoption. We were close to it and have never decided to adopt ourselves. And now, after all of the years raising him and doing other things, my husband told me two months ago that he’s too old and doesn’t want another child.
For the first time this last year, I felt jealousy. It’s not a nice feeling and I quashed it as soon as I could, but I’m here to tell you ladies that, even if circumstances change — once — regardless of your “rational instincts” and so forth, it’s highly possible that 10 years after that initial diagnosis, you’ll still be waking up at 4:30 in the morning and crying. I know that I still am, even though when I was infertile I never understood how someone with one child could still complain!
But at this point, I wish that my SON had a sibling more than I wish that I had another child. At 46 I’m really NOT crazy about another kid, but oh! The pain doesn’t go away.
Fertility is one thing. Fertility and aging is another. You realize that you really DO have a door closed, and it’s a big step towards the ultimate regrets of mortality.
Good luck to all. Please remember to take your joy where you can.
April 9, 2007 1:27 am
Pamela Jeanne, I stopped by your blog to say hi and thanks for visiting mine. And oh, wow. This discussion has brought tears to my eyes.
What you have suggested is for all of us to exercise some empathy. And that’s never a bad thing. I’d like to think that if I were suddenly fertile, I would be so very sensitive to those who are not. But I don’t know. How sensitive am I to those who are disabled, or poor, or abused? How many feelings do I crush each day, blithely enjoying my job, my husband, my good health and prosperity?
That’s food for thought right there. An entire meal, in fact.
Thank you.
June 11, 2008 8:17 am
what a beautiful concept..to walk a mile in anothers life… You see what they’ve seen, experience what they’ve experienced…but, it is impossible to know what someone dealing with infertility feels. You can find empathy for them, but to live it is an indescribable experience. I suffered through infertility for 13 excruciatingly long years. There were times I wanted to die rather than to endure another day knowing that I could not have the one thing that I felt I was put on this earth to have…a beautiful child created out of the love my husband and I felt for each other . After 6 years of worthless gyne. visits…being told I was young, and had plenty of time…just relax, it will happen… I turned 30 and was still barren, I demanded to see a specialist. (due to my insurance restrictions I practically had to beg just to get the referral. )In one visit with a Reproductive Endocrinologist I was easily diagnosed with PolyCystic Ovary Disease. Apparently I’d had it for many years considering the damage done to my body. No Gyne. ever took the time to try to figure out WHY I wasn’t getting pregnant, and this disease raged on sabotaging my efforts. for the next 7 years and more than $25k We tried everything that modern science could offer, to no avail. I fell deeper and deeper into the black hole of depression. To the best of my ability I avoided children, people with children, talk of children…My advancing age brought on more and more insensitive remarks and questions. I developed a fear of going anywhere, yet still went on with my life and work. As a result, I spent many days biting my lip as people told me stories over and over again about this person’s -cousin’s-sister who adopted a baby and then got pregnant. you should just relax. I wanted to carry my 6 inch thick medical file around with me and beat these people over the head with it! More than once I even had people I hardly knew tell me that I wasn’t pregnant because I wasn’t trusting god enough! My husband endured silently…dealing with insensitive “jabs”, from other men with children, about his manhood, and inability to impregnate his wife. some even going so far as telling him they’d show him how its done, since he must be’ confused. Why is this very personal and emotional subject something that people you don;t even know feel that they have the right to comment on?!
Amazingly we kept finding the strength to go on. After finally getting pregnant (for the 1st time in 13 years) with IVF, I suffered a miscarriage. That almost ended me. …flash forward to three months later after much grieving…a miracle happened. I was pregnant! (naturally-no med. intervention) We now have a beautiful 18 month old daughter that we can’t imagine ever living without. The strange thing is…I still feel, I still am an infertile woman. That experience changed me, and it will always be with me.I had a happy ending…many don’t. BE KIND TO THEM & choose your words carefully. “I’m sorry” is powerful.
December 12, 2008 2:10 pm
It’s very hard to put on another’s shoes…
I have a friend who get pg in the 1st month of ttc, exactly one year I start ttc. I’ve known from her pg one week after my first RE appointment, so it was very hard. The only thing I can think about is that should happened to me a year ago, why not???? Now the baby is already born, and they are so proud of his lovely baby girl… All that they have to said to me is ‘You will have your baby to, did you think IUI already?’ Yes, I did, in my first IUI I had a biochemical pg, and found hydrosalpinx, and got one of my tubes removed… ‘I see…’ And that’s all…
But I think I would do the same…