Apr 17
Honey, we love you but sometimes we need a little support from you. Here are some suggestions of what NOT to say:
- Can we take a break this month?
- My mother wants to give you some fertility advice so I told her you’d call her.
- It’s a buddy’s fishing weekend so I might have to miss your ovulation period this month.
- Both my ex-girlfriends are pregnant.
- They had a sale on red-colored toilet paper so I bought a year’s supply.
- Your basal thermometer accidentally fell into the toilet.
- The fertility clinic called with your test results but I accidentally deleted the message.
- My sister and her boyfriend of three months are pregnant.
- Can I use a condom this month?
- You look bloated. Are you getting your period?
- Do we have to? I’m not in the mood tonight.
- I don’t know what’s the rush. We’re still young.
- I told my sister you would be happy to plan her baby shower.
- Why are you crying? It’s only a period.
- Do I really have to do another semen test? It’s so much work!
- I’d come with you to your fertility appointment but it’s so early in the morning and I like to sleep in.
- Did you gain weight this cycle?
- I forgot to put your fertility medication in the refrigerator.
- I heard if we just relax, it might happen.
- I know we’re saving for IVF but I bought this really awesome video game.
- Sorry hun but I accidentally put the needle in the wrong spot.
- I know I was suppose to remind you to take your HCG shot at exactly 10pm but there was this really funny movie on TV.
- You have a lot of zits on your forehead.
- Sorry about missing the cup during our IUI.
- My co-worker got pregnant after adopting.
- I told my sister you’d take her shopping at the maternity store.
- Check out my ex-girlfriend’s cute belly photos on Facebook!
- I don’t think your breasts look any bigger.
- My friend’s girlfriend needed some pregnancy sticks so I gave her your supply.
- I accidentally switched your Folic Acid vitamins with your old birth control pills.
- Are you crying AGAIN?
- Angelina and Brad are pregnant again with twins. Isn’t that great?
- I think you’re too obsessed about getting pregnant.
- I think we should wait a little longer before seeing a fertility specialist.
- I know you’re upset about getting your period today but I invited my friend and his kids over for dinner.
- Don’t worry hun, we’ll get pregnant next month.
- Why do we always have to talk about getting pregnant?
- I want to switch back to wearing briefs instead of boxer shorts.
- I invited your mother to our fertility counseling session.
- What’s a two week wait?
- I got us two free tickets to the Baby Show Expo! Want to go?
- I invited my mother to your embryo retrieval procedure.
- I know you bought that pineapple for yourself but I ate it all.
- No. I definitely don’t see two lines.
- There, there dear. It’s only a period.
- You wouldn’t look good as a pregnant woman anyways.
- Can you postpone our IUI until Saturday? Thursday isn’t good for me.
- Why are you crying? It’s only a baby shower.
- I told my pregnant sister all our potential baby names and she might use one.
- Let’s go on vacation and maybe it will just happen!
(Don’t forget to enter our contest and win a copy of the book, )!
You’re too impatient.
You’re not giving it a chance.
You don’t know how stressful it is to “do it” in a cup for the SFA! And, the urologist did a prostate exam! You don’t know how embarrassed I was!
(my response, no honey, I have no idea. I had a pap smear done in which 2 people rooted around in there for learning, had a hsg test done with 7 people in there at the foot of the bed, a miscarriage in which 5 people put their hands up there to remove “product” and a lap surgery where a room full of people got to see all my lady parts under bright lights and in stirrups while I was up side down! I have NO idea how embarrassed you might have been….)
I died laughing at the red toilet paper!!!!
And the pineapple made me totally ROTFL. Thankfully my husband HATES pineapple!! (I know, he is SOOO weird! I love the stuff!)
“My mother wants to give you some fertility advice so I told her you’d call her.”
KILL.
Hubby: “I have to do it in a cup AGAIN?!?”
Me: “I’ll gladly trade places with you. I’m sure you’ll do just fine with nightly hormone injections & having an ultrasound wand stuck up your privates every morning.”
**pause**
Hubby: “OK I’ll stick with the cup.”
Seriously, the last time we were @ the RE I had 10 vials of blood drawn & he had 2. Guess which one of us almost passed out? 3 years of TTC & I still have to hold his hand for a draw!
“My mom thinks maybe my sperm have been affected because I carry my phone in my pocket sometimes. She read an article about it. She thinks maybe we should wait to do IVF to see if me taking the phone out of my pocket will make a difference.” I think the mother in law should be excluded from making ANY comments on a couple’s causes for infertility. And I have made it VERY clear to my hubby that he is not allowed to make any negative comments about the sperm collection after all I’ll be going through for IVF.
My hubby is very sweet and sensitive, but he already has 3 “unplanned” kids from his previous marriage, so sometimes he doesn’t understand quite how much IF affects me. The worst thing to bear is when he drops a comment into the conversation about his ex-wife’s labour, or what his kids said as toddlers. I mean come on! I’m standing RIGHT HERE!!
Had to laugh about the mother in law one, couldn’t imagine that ever working out! Lol
OMG # 11 is sooo my husband..I’m struggling with this ” I’m not in the mood ” thing a lot lately..I mean c’mon at first they were begging us to get some and now we have to make extra effort to let them be in the “mood”..WTF?..
Love love love your blog..I visit it daily coz I really could use some laughs these days..
If you have Secondary Infertility like I do, then your husband tells you to “just be happy with what you have and stop complaining.” I realize that I am already incredibly blessed and lucky to be a mom, but Secondary Infertility hurts, too. People like to pretend that it doesn’t.
LOL…great list! My husband is actually a pretty sensitive guy-thank God-because I was irrational enough during that time for both of us!
As for #11…I never had to worry about this with him-it was usually me. It’s HARD to get in the mood when you’re tired and just want to sleep!!!
My MIL, who is a great lady, kind of annoyed me the other day. She asked if I was going to eat certain foods to help get pregnant with a boy next time! Um…NO?!? We’ll take what we are blessed with (hopefully) and not worry about gender! That’s the least of our worries….
Great list.
My hubby has been pretty good and very sensitive. he did suggest a break every now and then. But even when he wasn’t in the mood, he’d grab a little porn and get in the mood for me.
Of course there was that one night once we started IVF where he stuck me with the wrong needle (one we’d already used that was empty). All I heard was “oh crap!”. But all I can do is laugh about it. It’s different, but it’s just as hard on him as it is on me. Just the whole obsession thing, he never got.
Ahhhhh boys….they can be quite charming when they want to be. Like “Being upset and crying isn’t going to help anything.” Yes but bottling it all up and pummeling the first pregnant woman I see only leads to jail and public shame. So I’m going to go with the crying.
Kris, I am TOTALLY right there with you. I’m having issues with secondary infertility, and the comments are always that I should be “grateful I have one”.
Well, I am, I am very, very grateful for my son. I’m not grateful for recurrent tumors and cysts, abdominal adhesions, and losing all of my left ovary and half of my right over multiple surgeries.
Also, I love my son (for whom I am SO grateful), and I know he would be an amazing big brother.
I certainly feel terrible for women who aren’t able to have any kids at all, and I can only imagine their pain. But it doesn’t make secondary infertility suck any less.
Me: If this round of Clomid doesn’t work, we might have to go with “Hormone Shots.” (to explain it simply to him)
My Hubby: BUT I DON’T WANNA GET SHOTS!!!!
Me: I’D be the one getting them.
My Hubby: Oh, Okay. Yeah, we’ll do shots then.
: D Gotta love our husbands.
My hubby told me a version of # 25. That his coworker’s sister got pregnant as soon as she adopted. I walked away, and didn’t argue, because I was ovulating and needed him that night!
My mom recently told me “People have been getting pregnant for years without charting their ovulation!” Really, mom? I’m just a freak.
I hear ya on secondary infertility. I get the “Oh well, at least you have one” comment all the time. Doesn’t take away from the pain of all the lost dreams we had for our family, and the fact that my little guy desperately wants a sibling….
OMG!! I’ve actually heard a few of those before. I know that a lot of people just don’t know better but when you’re in this position it’s hard to believe the words that come out of people mouth. Thanks for sharing that little jolting post.
Elle, your comment made me laugh! My husband would do the exact same thing.
Toni, you crack me up! I’m saving your comment for my next cd1 meltdown. I have a feeling it will come in handy…
I have been following your site a while. I just love reading all these things i live. After my one and only pregnancy ended in miscarriage over 2.5 years ago.. and more and more trying… i have stopped trying… (and am now seperated…)
and now my YOUNGER sister is pregnant, and has just found out she is having a boy (everyone is making a HUGE deal over it, and i am trying so hard to be supportive). After several people at our church asked her about names, due dates, etc etc., a lady taps my arm and says “when will YOU decide to have one!” I totally broke down and started crying. (Not an emotional person.. i was as shoked as everyone around me, oh and the lady felt horrible.. and i do now.)..
Anyway, your posts help me smile about this. And i want to thank you.
It’s so great to read all the postings & comments. It’s comforting to know Im not alone, even tho most people I know (dh included) have no idea how frustrating this process is. We have a little circle of friends (10 couples), and most of us r married. Dh and I were 1 of the 1st couples to get married 5 years ago, and needless to say everyone that’s been married over 1.5 years has a baby (or 2!)… Only 3 babyless couples r left now: the 1 couple that isn’t married yet, the most recently married couple and of course, yours truly. The newest baby in the group was born 2 weeks ago, and when I went to see the new Mom, several of the ladies were there too. During a lull in the conversation, one of the moms turned to the new bride who was standing right next to me and said: “So Wendy, you’ll b the next one to have a baby!”
Seriously??! I’m standing right HERE!! To borrow a phrase from Naomi “What the infertile”??!!!
This is beyond hilarious. I hope our DH’s don’t get these ideas.
If DH and I are having really rough days and I’m on the verge of feeling like things are not going to work out (I”m always about worse-case scenarios) I’d secretly start planning my plan B: retrieve my eggs and get them artificially inseminated from another donor sperm later. If I can’t live with DH at least I can try to have my child. LOL. Plan C is to marry an RE.
I usede to think I was horrible for thinking those thoughts about my husband. Now I see I am not alone. So nice to read comments and smile for a change. Tmmrw morning is IUI #2. Wish me luck!!
I have another one.. for those of us with hubby’s with kids from previous relationships… (my DH has 4 surviving kids from his first marriage. they were married young and apparently she got pregnant very easy. So easy she made him get a vasectomy after the 5th child. So I now have step kids ranging from 12 to 24. We’ve been married for 8 years.)
“Oh, guess what, my 19 year old is going to make us grandparents!” that one about killed me.. I’m 37 and have a 3.5 year old grand child, meanwhile things keep popping up to prevent us from adopting, and, until just a few months ago, infertility treatments were completely out of the question because of my health issues (now they are a very loose maybe) they’ve talked about having a second child, but so far, no luck.. part of me is a wee bit happy about that. I’d have had to kill someone if they got pregnant again right away
Husband:” I see a second line!”
me: “really?!”
Husband: “no I never do. Your seeing things”
Worst thing he has ever said to me
During a very heated argument after he did something stupid, my husband once said, “you’re only mad because you’re all hopped up on hormones”
This is another thing you should NEVER say to your fertile-challenged wife/significant other. It happened to me and I wanted to smack my dear hubby.
Me: (in tears)
DH: what’s wrong?
Me: I just found out that Katie at work is pregnant.
DH: Good for her.
Me: (stunned silence)….
It didn’t come from my husband, but from a friend who I thought would be understanding about my recent miscarriage given her own history of infertility.
“Well, enjoy the time alone with your husband while you have it; when you have children” – let’s all assume there will be such a when – “you’ll look back on these days with longing.”
Thanks to all of you for the laughs (through the tears, of course) above!
My favorite:
Mom: Guess who’s pregnant? she says very excitedly
Me: Who? I say reluctantly
Mom: your 14 year old cousin!
Thanks, love ya mom!
My husband accidentally said this (while watching a nature program about animals mating on television): “There is a reason why in nature, males will take as many females as they can… in case there is something wrong with a female and she cannot produce an offspring… And that’s why in the old days, kings would have a harem of females, in case his one queen could not give him a child… ” (and here I am, sitting next to him, struggling with infertility).
I WANTED TO KILL HIM WHEN HE SAID THAT! (to his credit, I don’t think he said this deliberately to hurt me… he was a bit clueless when he said that).
HAhaha some regular people really need to see this!
Check out my sister and my blog about infertility!
theinfertilesisters.blogspot.com
“do I have to do another semen test? Its so much work!”
ROFL!!!
My husband complained about how ‘uncomfortable and embarrassed’ he was to give a sperm sample in a private room where no one could see.
This was the day after I had my HSG test, where there were FIVE people in the room looking up my gown (student day apparently… I thought heck.. I’m here now, this can’t get more embarrassing. Gather round and look!).
Men are so weak!