Every now and again something happens that completely takes your feet out from under you when you don't expect it, and it leaves you feeling empty and sad. I've been feeling a bit like that this week because of something that happened at the BBQ last weekend. I didn't want to post this earlier in the week though, because I needed a few days with my thoughts, and because when I talked to you about it, I really wanted to divorce it in my head from the happy occasion that was my brother's engagement.
One of the things that is hardest to cope with when you are dealing with infertility is that life goes on for everyone around you. It doesn't grind to a halt for them like it has for you. I guess that if you are someone who didn't have a problem falling pregnant, it makes sense that it wouldn't naturally cross your mind that other people might not be the same as you, and I think that awareness is something that comes from experience and understanding. You (hopefully) learn to tread a bit carefully. You (again, hopefully) stop and think twice before you make that pregnancy dig, or suggest that a couple are too busy having a good time to think about children.
Whilst I try to be understanding, to think of things from the other person's point of view, and make allowances ...be the bigger person and all that ...sometimes I just get tired of it. In fact, at the moment, it's not just sometimes.
Don't get me wrong though - I don't have pregnancy envy, and I don't have baby envy. I don't want your pregnancy, and I don't want your baby. I'm not bubbling over with cluckiness. I don't feel like I want to bundle random babies up and take them home, or wish that they were mine ...and I really don't do the whole 'gooing' and 'gaahing' over babies thing.
What I want is a particular child. The child that will be part of me, and part of my husband. I want that child which will be a part of both of us, to raise, to watch it grow and help it learn, and I want to watch my husband be the wonderful father that I know he will be. I want the family that we planned.
I get asked a lot, and hassled a bit about 'having babies' by friends, acquaintances, and even people I don't really know. It's one of those things. I'm in my late 20s, I've been married for 5 years and I have 2 dogs and a cat. It's the natural progression to add a baby to the mix, and most people aren't backwards about coming forwards and calling you on it. I also get raised eyebrows if I mention feeling tired or rundown, or my posture sucks, or I've had a huge lunch or whatever. Mostly I go with the "Yeah, yeah, whatever" variety of answer and that mostly does the trick.
I've said before that I have good days, and I have bad days. The last couple of weeks I've been having bad days. I'm at the end of my cycle, which is always hard, but this is the last one before I start fertility treatment, and so it's been especially difficult for me. I feel a bit like someone has been drumming 'this is it this is it this is it this is it this is the end' in my head since my Luteal Phase* started.
So, my reaction was a little bit inevitable when this happened ...
At the BBQ I came across someone who I knew by sight from high school. She is the sister of my brother's fiancee. And she's 5 months pregnant. She came up to me, wondering what I'd been doing since high school. I said I'd been to uni, been in legal as a secretary for about 8 years, then shifted to a straight admin job about 6 months ago and was just cruising with that. Just gave her basic stuff. As you do.
Then she gave me the look, and I knew it was coming before she patted her bump and said "Maybe this next?" Yeah. Maybe.
It's one of those things. Natural progression. I get that, so I just let it go. I gave her my politely-disinterested-I-don't-want-to-get-into-that smile and my standard "Yeah, yeah, whatever", before grabbing a cold sausage off the table, making my (rather feeble admittedly, but I was thinking on the hop) excuses, and heading inside to heat it up in the quiet safety of the kitchen.
Obviously I wasn't expecting her to follow me a couple of minutes later and start telling me that she is "sooooo lucky" because she doesn't have a single stretch mark ...and I really wasn't expecting her to pull up her top, and display her bump so that I could see for myself that there was indeed a lack of stretch marks!! Ye gads. I didn't even know this person.
I put it down to her being weirdly forward, and thankfully, my sausage exploded in the microwave at that point, rather symbolically I thought, and I had to go and get another one.
I managed to avoid/ignore her until dinner was well under way ...probably helped by the fact that I'd deliberately positioned myself with my back to her. But, you know, whatever works.
Somehow, the dinner conversation turned to my earliest childhood memory ...and I said that it was "Dad telling me that he flushed the Christmas tree down the chimney"** Yes, I said chimney. I meant toilet, obviously. Everyone thought it was hilarious, and I said something about having had a bad week with muddling my words up (which is because I had been having trouble sleeping, and was exhausted!!).
Obviously, I provided a great opening for the sister who interjected with "You must be pregnant!". Oh! Yes! That must be it! Why didn't I think of that? ...Oh. That's right. BECAUSE I'M INFERTILE.
But still, I left it. I knew, knew she was just trying to draw attention to herself, and her pregnancy which she has every right to be proud of, and what she wanted was to talk about it and be fussed over, to be able to say that that's what happened to her when she was pregnant ...just as clearly as I knew that she didn't know that I was struggling with infertility. But I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to, and I didn't see why I should. I was tired and raw, and had my own thing going on. I get tired of making allowances for people sometimes. So, I just said "No, I really don't think so" with a nice firm, 'leave this the eff alone' inflection to my voice.
Think that was the end of it? Uh, no.
There was a group of us standing around talking a little later on, as you do at BBQs, I think talking about the building industry since 4 of us were in it, one was on the periphery, and Al knows a bit about it. And then she appears again. Just walks on up, and says ...
"Well, if you're thinking about babies, I can recommend doing it in parks - that seemed to work for us!" while smiling and fondly rubbing her bump.
I am not joking. Who the hell does that? What did she want me to say ...?
At this point, and I honestly couldn't help it, I turned to her with a smile several hundred degrees chillier than the antarctic and said ...
"Actually, we're going to be mixing our babies up in a laboratory, but thanks all the same."
And she stayed away after that.
I guess where I'm going with this story is, please think twice. Please remember that we could be any woman you come across, any woman on the street, and we may not want to talk, or give you the attention you want. We might not be capable of it, even if we wanted to ...be it today, tomorrow, the next day, or every day. If you're someone we know, that may be hard for you, but remember, it's hard for us too. Very hard. We do our best, but we're going through a lot.
* The period from the day after ovulation to the start of your next cycle.
** I was probalby about 2 or 3, and I'd asked Dad where the Christmas tree was after it disappeared that year after Christmas.
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