Possibly the worst advice you can ever give an infertile – Just relax and it will happen. Are you KIDDING us? The only thing that’s relaxed right now is our sperms because they don’t seem to be swimming.
Please tell us, Great Aunt Gertie… When should I relax?
After I’ve just spent $10,000 for fertility treatments?
When I’m injecting fertility needles into my ass?
When I’m swallowing medications to make me more hormonal?
When I’m wondering if I’m going to live the rest of my life childless and with cats?
When I’m doing acupuncture and sticking tiny needles into my face and stomach?
When I’m having timed intercourse and then sticking pillows under my butt?
When I’m sticking a thermometer into my mouth each morning to chart my temperature?
When I have to wake up before 4am to drive to my early morning blood and ultrasound appointment?
When my RE is sticking an odd looking transvaginal wand into my lady parts?
When I’m inserting vaginal suppositories in a public bathroom?
When all of my friends are on their second child while we’re still waiting for our first?
When I’m having embryos surgically removed from my uterus by a doctor who looks younger than Doogie Howser?
Thanks so much for the advise, Great Aunt Milly, but I’ll pass.
well said!
When you are 10 weeks pregnant and waiting for your body to figure out you had a miscarriage….
oh carla, i’m so sorry….on another note, i have a friend at church, whose first son was conceived through IVF and is now pregnant with her second from a frozen embryo….she had the audacity to tell me “just relax, it will happen”. are you freaking kidding me?? someone who has been THROUGH this is saying it to another infertile? AURGH!
Try to relax when your periode is late after a Laparoscopic surgery, and your IF friend struggeligng with #2 burst out ” You might be preggers, after all you do not know your pregnent body : D ”
Oh Djezz.. Five points to you my friend :/
I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s so tiresome to hear this over and over and I just want to shout back at them with these exact same things. Thanks for the laugh
LOL!!
I really *really* enjoy saying, “I DIDN’T relax, and I FINALLY got pregnant”. Yep, I did fertility treatment, supplements, guided meditation, acupuncture, chiropractor, fertility medals, bargaining, and selling my soul… but the one thing I DIDN’T do is relax!
Let’s TP Aunt Gertie’s house.
Yes especially when you are tube-less and there is that 0.0000001% chance that I can actually get pregnant naturally…hmmm relax?
Brava! There are many times during my infertility journey that I wished I could tell Great Aunt Milly to “Suck it!”.
“when…”?
I couldn’t agree with you more.
we are trying for 5 years
. after 7 ivf tries and 1 miscarriage CARLA I know your feeling.
I couldn’t agree more.
I would add: when within 7 days you find out about 4 new pregnant friends.
and when every moment you cuddle your dog you see strange looks of your mother and hear :”u should be cuddling a baby” or ” all your maternal instinct went to that dog”.
My aunt just said this same thing to me today…I was way too good of a niece to bop her in the nose though.
I have freaked out on well-meaning family members for this. “NO, Nana, if we relax and stop treatment/look at adoption/annoint my stomach with St. Rita oil we STILL won’t get pregnant because MY HUSBAND HAS NO SPERM.” (DH threw a bit of a fit b/c he was embarrassed, but it shut up my family about the relaxing. The irony? Nana’s had 3 m/cs, one at 5mo.)
thank you for this post… this really makes me at ease.. where as the other “just relax” comments just gets me outraged angry and want to hit someone really really bad.
PS. I am so sorry Carla about your miscarriage.
I had a phone conversation with my mother. I was venting about infertility and an insensitive comment a friend had made. During the phone conversation, I was thinking to myself “Wow, my mom is awesome. She totally gets me. I’m so lucky.” And then at the very end of the conversation my mom says, “I just want to say one thing before we hang up. I just want to tell you to relax.” Oh, dear.