Last month, I wrote a post called "You Are Not A Terrible Parent If You …" about the hilarious and exasperating journey of parenting small children. But for seven harrowing years of infertility, my wife Mary and I would have given anything to have children, no matter how hard it was.
Here are ten words I would use to describe how infertility feels:
1. Lonely. We saw couple after couple get pregnant before us, our best friends included. When they told us, we high-fived them, then we went home, and hardly knew what to say to each other. We felt lost, sad, and even lonelier than before. We were excited for them; we were just very sad for us.
It’s okay to go home and cry your eyes out when your friends get pregnant.
2. Exposed. Everybody wants to give you advice, and some people say incredibly stupid things. My favorite: “You just need to stop trying so hard!” Some people want to know every excruciating detail of what you’re doing to get pregnant. Suddenly, your most private details are the subject of casual conversation. Once people know you’re trying, people want to know how it’s going, if you’ve done artificial insemination, if you’d consider IVF, and how it felt in that small white room with the gross leather chair & the bad magazines.
It’s okay to avoid the question, smile, and change the subject. Keep as many things private as you can (except to a few trusted friends).
3. On Hold. We were always checking the calendar, wondering if we should plan that vacation, or that work trip, because what if we’re pregnant? Then we stopped doing that, because we would have never lived if we would have scheduled everything around a “what if.”