Infertility Sucks

For those of you who have dealt with infertility and those that haven’t, I think we can both agree that infertility sucks. I’m often asked about our infertility and I have no problems discussing it. Tim and I tried to conceive for almost 3 years. They were the hardest 3 years of my entire life. Infertility consumed my thoughts every second of everyday. Everyday it seemed to get harder and harder. Everyday was a struggle. I woke up in the morning and went to sleep at night with the same thoughts everyday…”I’m not pregnant”. The 5 million pills a day surely didn’t help either. I had anxiety, insomnia, emotions up the wazoo, hot flashes, you name the symptom…I had it. Towards the end I was literally choking the pills down everyday. One of the hardest things was hearing that both of my sister in-laws were pregnant. You have no idea how hard it is to love someone so much, but find it so hard to be happy for them. It’s horrible…I hated it. I wanted nothing more than to share in their happiness with them, but couldn’t. I couldn’t find it within me. I felt so selfish, but didn’t know what to do. I do not miss those days at all. When Tim and I made the decision to adopt – all of that depression went away. We could not be happier with the decision that we made. If it took 3 years of super hard times to get to this point…then it was worth it. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. So, for those of you who know someone dealing with infertility – here are a few pointers. I had amazing support from family & friends, but let’s face it, they don’t always know the right things to say. I know that everyone had the right intentions, but when you are SO sensitive when you are dealing with infertility. Here’s my advice.

DON’T ask someone constantly “when are you going to have a baby?”
I got this question ALL the time. I admit I too would ask others the same question in the past. But, don’t do that anymore. We did not share our struggles with everyone for quite sometime, so when people didn’t know we were trying they would ask all the time. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs “I’M TRYING – LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!”

DON’T expect them to attend a baby shower
There is nothing worse than going to a baby shower. I avoided them. Not because I wanted to be selfish, but I knew that was not a healthy situation for me. The point of a baby shower was to celebrate with the mother and that’s not something I could do.

DON’T think you have to tell them in person that you are pregnant
When I would hear of someone close to me being pregnant – it was a hard time. The initial reaction is not a pretty one. I needed my time to be upset and cry and deal with it. I didn’t want someone to call me or tell me to my face because that would not allow me to react. I preferred to hear it from my husband or get it in an email. It gave me space and time.

DON’T tell them to relax and stop trying or “it will happen”
That’s just nonsense. There is nothing more in the entire world that I wanted than to be pregnant and when someone would say this to me – it just irked me. And the worst one for me personally was “oh – don’t worry – it will happen”. No, it might NOT happen. Please don’t tell me it’s going to happen when you don’t know that. As you can tell – it clearly didn’t. Again, let me say I know people mean well, but whatever you do – don’t say that to someone.

DON’T say “As soon as my friend ‘so and so’ adopted, they got pregnant”
There are many adoptive parents that have not gotten pregnant on their own. There is no guarantee that anything will help someone get pregnant. And it also sends the wrong message for the adopted child as well.

DO let them know that you are thinking of them and are available if they ever want to talk
I didn’t want to talk about my situation all the time. So if they bring it up – then that’s the ok to talk about it. If they don’t – just leave it alone.

Do acknowledge the man in the relationship
I think often times people would show sympathy to me, but forget about Tim. Tim was grieving and struggling as well. So, when someone would send him a note to tell him that they were thinking of HIM and if there was anything he needed. That was nice.

So, ok I’m really not trying to preach here. But, hopefully if you haven’t dealt with infertility – you will find this helpful. And if you are dealing with it, then please know that everyone is different and deals with things in their own way. You are allowed to have the feelings you do and you are not selfish. You have to protect yourself. Again…I had great support from everyone and still do while we are in this process. And I must say that I have the best husband in the entire world. Tim was awesome through the whole process. I was an emotional mess for a long time and he put up with me and loved me through it all. It wasn’t “my” problem, it was “our” problem. I was very surprised to hear the divorce rates for couples dealing with infertility. I found that it did the exact opposite for us. It brought us so close and strengthened our relationship so much. Ok, I’m done now – I promise. Yikes, sorry this was so long! And let me say again, we are VERY happy with where we are at right now. We feel that this was the plan all along, we just had to go through that mess to get to this point.

Good Night.