Friends. Friends are great. I love my friends. I hate to brag,
but I have absolutely amazing friends. They are supportive,
understanding, generous; all of the qualities that you would want in
your friends. I have never hesitated to share my struggles with them
and I have never regretted doing so... Until I started trying to have
a baby. Now, let me preface this by saying that I do not mean to
offend anyone with what I'm about to say. Please, if you recognize
your own advice in the following paragraphs do not A.) think that I
am in any way angry or upset with you, or B.) feel the need to
apologize to me. It is completely unnecessary. I adore you. Always
have, always will. Every piece of advice discussed in the following
post was given to me by multiple people, so please do not feel
singled out. I know that all of my friend's hearts were in the right
place; their advice however, was not. It is important to me that
everyone who is still out there, struggling everyday with the pain of
infertility knows that they are not withstanding the unintentionally
hurtful advice of friends and family alone. For the most part, this
advice is doled out by people who tried for like, a minute to get
pregnant, or got pregnant while actively trying not to do so. They
have no clue what it's like to want a baby more than anything on
Earth or the devastation of failing at this goal month after month
after month.
I'll start with the crown jewel of crappy advice. “You're
thinking about it too much, just relax and stop thinking about it and
it will happen.” “Stop trying so hard.” Feel free to insert
any variation of this garbage advice that you like. I believe this
is the absolute most irritating and misguided thing that people say
to someone trying to have a baby. Not only is it a total blow off
answer, but it is also annoyingly inaccurate and places the blame on
the poor woman trying to conceive. It's my fault now because I'm
thinking about it and wanting it too much. As soon as someone spouts
this piece of wisdom at me I immediately know two things. One, they
have never struggled to have a baby and have no clue how impossible
it is to turn off the thoughts and emotions that accompany this wish.
And two, that they know very little about how reproduction actually
works.
Getting pregnant, even when attempted between two healthy adults
whose reproductive systems are working perfectly is still a timing
game. An egg only lives twelve to twenty four hours following
ovulation. Sperm can live from two to five or five to seven days in
a female's body after intercourse (depending on who you ask. Over
two and a half years, I've asked everyone.) These little swimmers
need time to swim up to where the egg is, however so sex at the time
of ovulation is often too late to result in a pregnancy. (I know
more about sperm than I ever dreamed or wanted to.) I learned that
male sperm swim faster but die sooner and female sperm swim slower
but live longer so if you ovulate right after intercourse your
chances are higher of having a boy. If you ovulate a few days after
intercourse your chances are higher of having a girl. But I
digress...
The point is, relaxing and not paying attention to timing is
horrible advice. If there is an issue, relaxing will rarely fix it.
Women who deal with miscarriages and a lack of ovulation will not
find that relaxing solves these problems. Relaxing will not fix a
luteal phase defect, an issue with implantation, a low sperm count or
a lack of cervical fluid. It could, however give a little problem
the time it needs to grow and become a big problem. This is the
worst advice ever and should never be given to anyone at any time,
ever.
“Have sex every day all month long.” (This gem almost led to me
getting divorced, not knocked up.) What's less sexy than baby making
sex after 2 years? Feeling pressured to have it every freaking day
sex. Even if you are successful at doing this, you are wasting your
time anyway because a man can't even make sperm that fast so really,
after the first time you were just having fun sex and who the hell
wants that?! Save that crap for after you're pregnant. These are
working sperm not leisure sperm. Not to mention, as I stated before,
conception is a timing game. You can have sex ten million times a
day and if it's not at the right time of your cycle you have exactly
zero percent chance that it will result in a big fat positive on a
pregnancy test.
I had multiple friend's tell me after two and a half years of trying
that I “really haven't been trying all that long.” Ummmm. Okay.
Taking your temperature every single day and feeling completely
crushed every single month for 30 consecutive months in a row seemed
long to me, but I guess it just flew by for them. Not to mention,
that for a woman my age the medical community recommends testing
after 6 months of trying without success. So yes, I actually was
trying for a very long time even by medical standards.
I've been told by more than one friend immediately after opening up
about my struggle, that they just had or were currently having a
pregnancy scare of their own and how much they hoped they were not
pregnant. During my time trying to conceive, I frequently found
myself just looking at people, wondering why I ever opened my stupid
mouth. And more so, why they ever opened theirs. I rarely felt
better after telling anyone about what I was going through.
Fortunately, there were a few exceptions to this statement and I credit
these people with allowing me to retain the small portion of sanity
that I did. One was my mother, who has an uncanny knack for always
making me feel better. I guess it's just a mom thing. The other is
the one friend who got it. Her's is a story for another day
however. The short version is that she didn't offer me any advice.
She encouraged me, she validated my pain and she gave me hope.
Friends who were currently also trying to get pregnant and friends
who had suffered with infertility themselves always knew what I
needed. They never tried to fix my feelings. They just validated
them and that is what I needed.
Often, I think people just wanted to make me feel better. They
didn't like seeing me sad and the knee-jerk reaction is to try to fix
it. But there is no fixing this. My feelings were valid and while I
know that everything happens at the time that it is meant to, that is
not comforting at all to hear in the midst of a breakdown. Nor is
hearing that God will give me children when he feels it is time. Why
was it time for the drug addict I saw that morning to have her fourth
baby in God's eyes? Regardless of your beliefs, this conversation is
not the time for that logic.
Bad, unwanted advice is one of the parts of trying to conceive that
is the most frustrating and difficult to navigate. God love them,
your family and friends love you and that is what is important to
remember. My advice to you if a friend of yours confides in you that
she is having trouble trying to conceive is to just keep your
freaking mouth shut. Especially if you didn't have any trouble
starting your own family. Just listen. Struggling with infertility
is an incredibly isolating experience. You find yourself not wanting
to share your situation with anyone around you.
I found that when I did share what I was going through with friends,
they would either offer advice that was irritating to me or
misguided, or they would just blow me off. “It will happen when
it's supposed to,” and move on to their own latest crisis. I also
found that after telling friends, they would treat me with pity when
they talked to me about other women in our circle getting pregnant.
This had a tendency to make it much more difficult for me to be
excited for my friends when they announced their subsequent
pregnancies.
I also found that I didn't want to tell the people who were the
absolute closest to me, my family. I had, well have a nephew who I
absolutely adore. I loved him (and still do) to the moon and back
and I was afraid that if my family knew just how hard I was
struggling they would feel weird about telling me when they became
pregnant and I just couldn't bear that. At that time in my life my
nephew was one of the brightest spots in my world. I couldn't stand
thinking that if my sister became pregnant again (which she
eventually did) that it could be “an issue” of some kind for her
to tell me. That would have broken my heart into tiny little pieces.
Anyone who is even a little bit close to me knows how I feel about
my nephew. That little boy has had his aunt Sissy wrapped tightly
around his little finger since day one, and I adore it.
Unfortunately, the relationship that I have with him also became the
topic of another stupid thing that people would frequently say to me
during this time. “When are you guys having kids?” they would
ask. “Well, we are trying. Have been for a while it just isn't
happening as quickly as we would like” I would reply, heart in my
throat and tears just behind my eyes. “Well, at least you have
your nephew.” And off they would go. Leaving me standing there,
dumfounded. Let me assure you, that I would absolutely take a bullet
for my nephew. To say that I adore him cheapens how I actually feel
about him. But a nephew is in absolutely no way like having a child
of your own. It is unequivocally not the same thing, and
should not ever be compared. A nephew does not a son make, even
when he is as cute as a button and the light of your life, as mine
is.
I am tackling this uncomfortable topic for two purposes, neither of
which is to make anyone feel badly. First, I hope to remind the
people currently dealing with infertility that they are not alone and
to hopefully give them a chuckle. I want to explain why so many
people suffer in silence with infertility and don't feel comfortable
opening up to even their closest friends. And secondly, I want to
let anyone in the position of giving advice to just stop. No advice
is wanted, warranted or necessary. I promise you, your friend has
been fixating on this subject for much longer than you realize and
you are not going to give them any new information. Instead, just
listen. Validate their pain and how difficult this time in their
lives must be for them. Tell them what a wonderful parent they will
be when it does happen for them and wish them all of the luck in the
world. That way you can be the person who really gave them comfort
at a time when little else does.
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