(This will be a rant. Many apologies. You’ve been warned.)
I have to go to my in-laws for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and I’m dreading it like the dentist. I like my in-laws and I usually enjoy visiting them – they live in a beautiful part of the country in a lovely home, they have fabulous wine and I can sleep as late as I want. This time, I would rather have the flu (the really bad kind where you don’t know which end to point at the toilet).
I don’t want to talk about my miscarriage. I don’t want to talk about trying, or what we’re going to do next. And I swear to god that if my mother-in-law tells me one more time “just relax and it’ll happen, my friends daughter blahblahblah” I will either kill her or myself. Relaxing will not help. It’s a medical condition. That’s why I see a damn doctor every day. That’s why I jam needles in my belly and pay thousands of dollars for the privilege. That’s what this whole process is about. Trust me lady, if a massage, a movie and a cheap bottle of wine worked we’d be pregnant 10 times over by now. I’m really frickin happy that your friends daughter and her husband went on a damn cruise and got pregnant, but we can’t get pregnant that way and we’ve spent all our cruise money trying to do it the hard way.
And while I’m on my soap box rant I’d just like to add that no infertile person ever for any reason anywhere even once EVER needs to hear “Maybe you’re just not meant to have children.” Oh really? Maybe your dad should go off his high blood pressure medicine. Maybe he’s just not meant to live for very long. Am I destined to be such a bad parent that some divine force decided I can’t have children? Is that what happened? Well, thank you for clearing that up.
I know they mean well, and I try to respond politely (or I just walk away before I cry). But for just 5 minutes, here in the privacy of my own blog, I’m gonna be fucking pissed off about it. Because it sucks. Every day. It hurts. Every day. Have you suffered infertility (and not the “it took us sooooooooo long to get pregnant! 3 months!!” kind)? Then I welcome your opinion. Do you have a medical degree? Please, tell me what you have to say. If not, stick to some variation of “I’m sorry”, “What can I do to help you right now?”, “Are you doing ok?” or shut the hell up.
Rant over. (Except for the snarky lols below.)