You met Dana through a friend, 1 time, 10 years ago, and now she is your Facebook friend. You barely know her but you are now obsessed with her. She is pregnant.
For the past few months, you have been obsessively checking her profile, and silently cursing at her while she complained about her pregnancy symptoms and posted belly photos. But today is her due date. The only people who should care is her family, close friends, and of course, you – the person who hasn’t actually spoken to her in TEN YEARS!
This week, you have checked out her profile daily, reading through her wall and watching for labor & delivery photos.
Alley: “Dana, you are getting so close. You must be so excited!”
Dana reply: Thanks. We are so excited!!!!
Bessy: Post some more belly shots. You look fantastic.
Dana reply: Here you go!!!
Carol: Update us through your delivery!
Dana reply: That’s a fun idea. LOL.
You: Just have the damn baby already so I can stop checking your profile and then I can hide you when you start posting daily baby photos.
LIKE
That used to be me. Then I just deleted off the pregnant ones (people I went to high school with or old friends I haven’t talked to in ages) and hide all the feeds of people who do have little ones..and my FB remains baby-free!
Until someone posts a damn surprise ultrasound pic the next time I log on..Grrr.
It seems we’re always waging a constant war with Fertile Book. Sometimes it would be much better to delete my account. The world functioned just fine before FB came along!
Oh, but I can stop checking her profile and I did….by deleting my account. And life has never been better!
that’s me
I thought I was the only one who did that. i heard someone from hs was preg and I wanted to friend her. I was so sad to find out that she isn’t on fb
I stalk people who are pregnant too, living vicariously through them! What DOES irritate me is when they complain about everything!!! From the moment they find out they are pregnant to well past kindergarten…seriously. Wish they knew morning sickness and sick kids home from school are waaaaay better than negative pregnancy tests and no one to read children’s stories to.
I’m one who usually does this too, but yesterday when a HS friend posted a picture of a positive pregnancy test after having been married a mere six months, I decided hiding her was by far the most humane way for me to deal with it.
This is why the “hide profile” button is a wonderful, wonderful thing. And why half of my friends are now hidden since being in my early 30s everyone is either TTC, pregnant, or has an infant. I think the only profiles I can actually see @ this point are of fellow infertiles & post-menopausal relatives.
Look what I read in a heated discussion on Facebook:
“If you’re reproductively challenged: tough. It just means God doesn’t think you’re a fit parent.”
Let’s just say I really wanted to sucker punch someone when I read it.
I swear that everyone on my facebook is pregnant. When I had my miscarriage, and needed a D&C, on that day two people announced that they were pregnant and another had gone into labor. I swear something out there was just laughing at me.
@Dolciem That’s horrible. I would have responded, “Yeah and he totally wanted that woman who killed her five children to be a mother.” I’m also an atheist so my response would have been very nasty. I will not post it here out of respect for those who do believe.
Just had a goshdarned pregnancy announcement today. Well, I didn’t mean to say “goshdarned” but you know what I mean. It’s my cousin, who’s been married eight EFFIN months!!! Coming to your blog makes me laugh when I feel like absolutely crying.
Just had another announcement today, as well…they’re expecting their 4th, and the oldest can’t be any more than 5. Must be nice!
Marta-my cousin was married one month…ONE!
I HATE those honeymoon babies.
Thanks so much for the laughs and the love, Jax and Only Need One. I know what you guys mean about honeymoon babies and Hurricane Irene babies, and the like.
Yep just heard of a honeymoon baby from close family friend. They have only been married 3 months–really really that short? I was so upset when I heard the announcment. I cried immediatley.
Happy for them b/c I would not wish infertlity on my worst enemy and glad another couple does not have to face this horrid issue however, I can guarantee I wont be attending that baby shower!
@jdfan14 you’re nicer than I am. I wish infertility on people. Of course, I’m not nice, I wish a lot of bad things on bad people. I mean, I don’t go around thinking, man that comment was rude, I hope she…. but people that really have no business being human, yeah. I would totally wish infertility on people (specifically those that shouldn’t be parents anyway)…. Mr and Mrs Hitler, for instance, could have used some parenting tips (or a blocked fallopian tube).
PS, i’ve come up with some of my own plans this weekend for how to get through this latest pregnancy announcement with DH. Maybe I’ll ask him to do my hair, or if we can go out to eat and pig out on all the food that’s bad for us, or go to a movie or go on a road trip just to get away for a little while from it all. He sometimes doesn’t get why I feel so down, being i guess that he’s a man and that he also has a daughter from another relationship. Still, these are the things he does to make me smile when I’m down (and they help). Or maybe I’ll just eat 2 heaping bowls of Blue Bunny Red Velvet Ice Cream. Any of these things…I think of them all like eating chicken soup when you’re sick with a cold…even though it can’t completely make you feel better, it’s comforting and it makes you feel damned good at least for awhile.
My response to my cousin’s one month of trying announcement was literally “Oh course she is.” Not the nicest, but it just popped out! I don’t think my 80-year-old gma heard me, though (she broke the news to me). I agree, ice cream always makes me feel better…until I realize how much I ate!!
@dolciem: yes, I’m pretty sure that God is punishing me with infertility, but I”m not sure what I’ve done. When I was 17, I got pregnant & gave my baby boy up for adoption, and now that I’m 34 and trying for 8 years, I ironically might need to adopt a baby myself. Maybe I’m being punished for getting pregnant at 17, although that event, back when it happened, was horrible enough.
My newlywed coworker is pregnant after 3 months and has spent most of her work day slacking off & checking baby websites while I slave away. I also have to cover her during her maternity leave, so the punishment keeps building up on itself.
Still, I don’t wish infertility on anyone–although my wishes clearly have no power anyway.
@Jax: The only thing worse than a honeymoon baby is two honeymoon babies! One of my coworkers went off bcp the month before her wedding and ended up getting pregnant on her honeymoon. With twins! Seriously….
I’m trying to steel myself for a family party this Sunday. I just have *that* feeling that my cousin will announce a pregnancy there. I don’t know…infertile intuition I guess. I, on the other hand, just had my re-consultation with my specialist :/ At least there are fertility specialists out there…silver lining….
I would wish secondary infertility on Casey Anthony and everyone making headlines for doing such horrid acts to their children (microwaving their baby).
I’m mean too. I don’t even bother congratulating those newly pregnant cows and you won’t dare catch me at a baby shower. What little positivity, happiness, and sanity I have left, needs to be conserved.
Got a pregnancy announcement yesterday. It was my friend’s sister. She is pregnant with her third. I smiled and acted happy but in reality I just wanted to cry.
@Kat–I wish I could wish infertlity on others and take mine away but does not happen like that. However, this has affected me in so many ways that while I am so sad/upset/crying when I hear new pregnancy announcements from couples who have been married like 1 day I do not wish any of this on anyone.
Infertilty is unlike any other problem I have been thru& is financially, mentally, emotionally draining that I think I do not wish on anyone. Sometimes I think God chose me to fight this issue to make me stonger and those who do not have this issue are not as strong and would not survive it. That helps also to try to keep thoughts like that to survive
Please help the people in your life struggling with infertility. Please go to this website, it talks about a proposed bill to help infertile couples get affordable infertility treatments. All you have to do is fill out the blanks and it sends an email, fax, or print out for you to mail to your representatives. Please this is so important to me, this is all I ask for this holiday season, thank you friends.
About the Family Act of 2011 Bill RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association
http://www.resolve.org
Just found out via FB my nephew and wife are pg. Been ttc for oh, 8 years. It’s over for me and I am dealing with it, but it still sucks so much to hear how easy it is for others. Every time someone announces their pregnancy, it makes me feel so alone. Hubby is away for the weekend so I am on my own. So glad I found this site.
Ugh I know. One of my husbands friends wives is 9 months pregnant and everytime we see them all they talk about is the baby. And the husband says at least once every time “when are you going to start working on your family? Best thing to happen to me…” The never ending updates, and belly shots, and ultrasounds and endless complaints about that symptom and this symptom…. Two of my high school friends just had kids, even one of my sister’s friends who isn’t even out of high school yet. Even the neighborhood slut is pregnant with the boyfriend she’s been sleeping with for oh, 6 months. Mind you, NONE of these people are married except the first, with any kind of reliable stable environment and NONE are in a committed relationship, all just got knocked up because they don’t know how birth control works or how to keep the pants on… And the first one has only been married a year-ish.
@Always an Aunt, Never a Mother: yup, those are the people who are most efficient at passing on their genes: irresponsible people who don’t know how birth control works. I have 2 coworkers who fit such descriptions. Yup, congrats to all of us because we all share this gene pool.
A woman in my office is due next week. All she can talk about it her swollen feet and how she can’t wait for her husband to start carrying around the baby. I understand this is a big deal for her, but it’s ALL she can talk about. My husband defended his dissertation and became a Ph.D. over the weekend. Kind of a big deal too. Could we talk about that for two minutes? No. She had to talk about how much of an ordeal it was to go out shopping with her mother this weekend, because “it had to get done before the baby arrives.” I need her to have her baby already and go on maternity leave so I can get my sanity back! I know this sounds bitter, but I just can’t take it anymore!
@jdfan14: I tell myself those same things about being strong and resiliant. However, it always makes me smirk a bit when someone tells me they “couldn’t do it” or “have no idea how I can still carry on,” etc. It’s no different than anything else: you learn to deal with/survive IF because there is really no other choice. You can be depressed and miserable, or learn to somehow live with it.
As far as FB goes, I too “Hide” a significant number of people with kids. You know the type: every single photo they post is of their child and every comment is of some “new” and “totally cute” thing they just did…over and over again. I choose to not look rather than let my hatred or bitterness take hold. Or, I think about how nice it is to have a flat stomach that doesn’t have stretch marks….whatever works, right?
My younger brother just told us that he and his girlfriend of six months are pregnant. What a pleasant surprise. Needless to say, I’m devastated because we’ve been working towards a family for the last five years. Finding out I have PCOS has only made things more difficult. I can’t get over the anger and hurt I feel. My husband and I have been planning for years: Getting married, starting careers, paying off debts, all kinds of tests to make sure we could get pregnant due to my epilepsy, buying a house, looking into child-friendly cars, reading all the trying to conceive books. I can’t understand why everyone else is getting pregnant without even trying, but we are not. The holidays are not easy to celebrate this year, and I’m Facebook stalking all the time.