A Follow-up

Thanks for all the support ladies. I was worried about saying something that might offend the folks that read this blog but I think you all sorta understand where I am coming from.

Meghan, I completely understand your point. I do know what it's like to hear someone complain that it took them "so long" to conceive when it really only took them a few tries. One of Ray's cousin was like that- I just had to learn to ignore it. It's hard but I couldn't let myself be angry about her inconsiderateness (is that a word??). And what she was saying was inconsiderate. But I had to chalk it up to her not completely understand "our world"- the world of infertility, the frustration that we feel daily etc etc. I just had to "let go" of it in a way. I am not saying it was easy to just ignore it (it wasn't) but I had to so that I stayed SANE.

I am not perfect about it by any stretch. I still have my moments. I'll give you an example. This past weekend we saw many of Ray's cousins at his Aunt and Uncle's home in Pittsburgh. Three of the cousins have babies, all under a year old. Not a single one of them had issues getting pregnant. The cousin who got pregnant on accident last year who is unmarried and still lives at home where her parents take care of the kid 80% of the time was there. At one point Ray's aunt picked the baby up and moved her over to the highchair and Ray's cousin (the baby's mom) said "where are you taking her?" and Ray's aunt said "to her highchair it's time for you to feed her"- She had to REMIND her to feed her own daughter. I was throughly disgusted. Here we were having tried for a year, waiting to get the chance to do what she was totally taking for granted. I had to leave the room. But the best was the complaints about L&D. At that point I told them flat out "I'm ignoring whatever it is your are saying so feel free to talk about it but I'm not listening to you." As if a little pain and discomfort of birth is anything compared to the pain and discomfort we suffered through trying to get pregnant in the first place...(I do have to say this though- the wife of the cousin we are close to and who really knew how much crap we'd been through did not participate in the L&D conversation nor did she really complain about pregnancy, child rearing or anything. Both her and her DH are extremely considerate of us).

So you see- just because I can be enlightened most of the time doesn't mean I am all the time. It's still difficult. I still feel like I want to punch some of Ray's cousins who complain but for the most part I just think of them as ignorant to fertility issues and so I can't really blame them.

It takes time, it takes lots of understanding, and for me lots of prayers. We had a great support system with our immediate families and with our close friends and that made this whole last year of trying and coming to terms with infertility easier because there were people out there who did know and who did understand (or try to understand) what was going on.

In a lot of ways my reason for the post was not to try and get IF women to see and feel the way I do but rather to consider the kind of person/people they have become through this journey...

Anyway I appreciate all the comments. I'll be back with "how is Clumpy doing" posts this week. :)