It is quite interesting how different my friends are
around me (how they act, what they say, etc) regarding infertility. It truly depends on the friend. I'll give you four recent examples.
Last night I had a long, long conversation with a good
friend who is also battling infertility.
She has now lost three pregnancies in trying for a second child. My heart aches for her as no one should have
to go through that. When she was
pregnant this last time she didn’t say anything until I asked because she didn’t
want to upset me (she ended up losing that pregnancy too). She rarely talks about her firstborn with me and
when she does, she makes sure to say that she knows that she is very lucky to
only have one (even though she and her husband want two). I keep telling her that she doesn’t need to
continually say those things- but she does it because she doesn’t want to seem
ungrateful when I am trying so hard to have to my first child. I appreciate her sensitivity to me because
even though we are in different circumstances and have different triggers, we both do our best to not upset the other
person and what they are going through.
My law school friend here in Chicago didn’t go through
infertility, but knows all about our struggle and asks what is going on. She is great about allowing me to vent and
doesn’t say stupid things like “maybe it wasn’t meant to be” or “just relax.” A good example of a fertile that is sensitive
to our infertility.
Oddly enough, my new next door neighbor is pretty good. I have not told her about our infertility,
yet she seems to be sensitive to the fact that we don’t have kids. (This is the neighbor that is friends with
the infertility doctor that I met at a BBQ at her house this fall.) She has never asked whether we want them or
whether we have had problems. I have
never hinted at the fact that we are having problems and when I’m around her I
say things like “if CP and I have kids.”
But yet at the happy hour before Christmas she apologized that much of the
conversation earlier in the day (another neighbor had all of the women over for
Christmas tea) had been about baby monitors and other baby-related stuff. I’m not sure if I somehow tipped her off to our infertility or
if she is just nice and knows that someone that doesn’t have kids wouldn’t necessarily
want to discuss baby monitors, but either way I appreciate it.
Meanwhile, I had a fantastic time with my CT friends over
New Years Eve/Day, but a few of them simply just don’t get it. My one friend is clueless as
to infertility (she had her two kids with no problems) and would often make
some of the comments that you shouldn’t make to infertiles. Another friend had no problems conceiving her
three kids but would at least ask how things were going and ask questions about
the various techniques/options because she truly knew nothing about infertility. The only person that seemed to be at all
sensitive to the fact that I wouldn’t want to hear every little detail about
her pregnancy, the baby’s room, preparations, etc. was my pregnant friend (she
had three miscarriages before her current pregnancy).
It just goes to show you that you can tell someone all about
your infertility journey or you can keep the details to yourself….but you never
know what they are going to say.
Have you found a large difference between your friends when it comes to your infertility (or anything other major thing going on in your life)?
8 comments:
I've found that friends who are fertile and tend to be loudmouths at the best of times are a handful. 99% of the time I can shrug it off, it's just who they are and if they haven't lived it, it's not "real" to them because that's how they experience life. That's cool, but, it would be nice if they could think before they speak...
The friends who tend to be sensitive and thoughtful, fertility issue or no, are the ones who keep track of where I'm at with my cycles in a rough sort of way, ask questions and seem to pick up on my desire to talk or not.
We have one friend who is a bit of a know-it-all and sure enough, he is a know-it-all when it comes to infertility. Even though he and his wife had their first child with no trouble. He just doesn't want to let us explain it to him, so we stopped bothering.
I've found people can surprise you and support can be found in unlikely places. My childhood best friend, who conceived on her first try, tries to be supportive, but says all the wrong things to say to an infertile. My friend H, who doesn't want kids, has been much more helpful.
There's definitely a big spectrum. Because quite a few of our other friends have had problems on the whole I would say people are pretty good but there's a lot of annoying minimising out of ignorance too. Like people sort of assuming Ivf is no big deal and always works because two of our friends have been successful on the first try etc.
Overall the people around me have been wonderful. I am super open about our infertility, and almost everyone in my office knows that when I go to Cancun it is for IVF and not a vacation (although let's be real, if you are on a beach, it's a vacation too) One thing I learned from talking about my IVF so much is that most people are genuinely interested in the process and WANT to be supportive (even if they say the wrong thing by mistake) and also that infertility is A LOT more common than I once thought.
You definitely have a lot to think about, regardless of whether you're traveling or not. =) Given that Sweets and I went into marriage being unsure whether we wanted children or not, when we decided to try and I got pregnant at 36, we certainly weren't sure whether we wanted more children after our first. Taking into consideration Gavin's premature birth and my age, Sweets and I now both agree we will not have any more biological children. If I knew that when I was trying to get pregnant (and let's pretend I had a choice to have multiples), I don't know that I would make a different decision. Having one child is a huge blessing and I can't imagine our life any other way. Both Sweets and I would be OK if Gavin is our only child (i.e., we're not dead set on him having to have siblings). On a more practical level, there's no way we could afford childcare for two children at the same time and I don't think we could squeeze a family of four (plus dog) into our condo (and we're certainly not in a position to sell it / move right now). So, for us, I don't think having multiples would be our first choice. But as I laid out in some of my very subjective reasons, every couple has to answer the same questions for themselves to determine what makes the most sense for their situation.
There are a couple exceptions but for the most part my friends just ignore the whole situation. Now I haven't told many people and maybe I give off a vibe that I don't want to talk but no one seems to check and see how I am doing or ask where we are. I don't want to talk about it all the time or anything but it would be nice if every once in awhile it was acknowledged. I guess it just make my friends uncomfortable. So that reaction has scared me away from telling more people.
So I don't have first hand experience with infertility, but I know the fact that Andrew and I don't (and probably won't) have kids is frequently a topic of concern for some of our friends. My friend M got pregnant ridiculously easily, stressed me out to no end because she told all of us she was pregnant the day she took her pregnancy test and she pesters us constantly about having kids, in a playful way, but still. But then I have friends who have kids but totally respect that Andrew and I might not choose that path. It's a spectrum, for sure, but it's still weird to me that people feel it's okay to talk and question so openly. I don't know if it's just that I've inadvertently ended up reading the blogs of a lot of women dealing with infertility or what, but I think I'm far to sensitive to the issue to ever question a couple I'm not super, super close with about their family choices.
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