The day before your expected period is a beautiful day filled with hope.

Although you’re quite sure there’s no way you’re pregnant, you actually have a tiny bit of hope left. This is the day where a pregnancy announcement can occur and you actually feel some happiness for them, instead of wanting to slit your wrists. After all, you might be pregnant too. You feel like your period will come any second and you are experiencing all the classic fake pregnancy symptoms. Your left breast seems heavier than usual, your right nipple seems darker, and that headache that you always get before your period hasn’t arrived yet. You may just “know” you’re not pregnant but you secretly have that bit of hope that you are. You may run to the toilet every few minutes to check for redness OR you may avoid the toilet altogether so you won’t see the inevitable. You can always believe that the wetness in your underwear is from leftover urine from a previous restroom trip. Yeah right.

The day of hope feels great and awful all in one. You just want to know but yet you don’t. You want to hold onto hope a few minutes longer.

You see (or glare) at a pregnant woman but did she get pregnant the natural way or is she an IVF mommy? Here are some ways to tell if she is ‘one of us.’

1. Her pregnant belly is shaped like a test tube.
2. At a restaurant, instead of a BLT sandwich, she orders a BBT.
3. At the dentist, she will automatically put her feet in stirrups.
4. She doesn’t announce her pregnancy until she’s 7 months pregnant.
5. She wears a t-shirt that says “Stop glaring at my belly. I’m one of you.”
6. She has sex with her husband minutes after giving birth so she can start trying for baby number 2.
7. She refers to her future children as her ‘freezer babies.’
8. She calls her 10th week of pregnant as ‘day 70.’
9. She can tell you the exact date, time and location she conceived her child.
10. She has NO money left.

SCREW THAT!

Many well-meaning relatives and friends will tell us that we will get pregnant when it’s meant to be or it will just happen when the time is right. Well the time is right, and it’s right now!

Guess what, Aunt Gertie, what’s meant to be is creating my child in a test tube!

You’re not waiting anymore, you’re taking matters into your own hands. You have tried for over a year naturally, and nothing happened. Now, it’s time to let the fertility doctor tell you when it’s meant to be. What’s meant to be is a beautiful IVF baby created in a petri dish, and then freezing their embryo brothers and sisters. What’s meant to be is having your partner’s semen washed and then artificially inseminated into you on multiple occasions. Sometimes what’s meant to be is using someone else’s eggs and sperm to get you knocked up. The “baby you’re meant to have” will come but sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. You would go inside your own uterus and pull that embryo out yourself, if you could and that’s what’s meant to be.

What you are doing and however you’re doing it, is what’s meant to be.

It’s the holiday season and the greeting cards keep coming in.

Wow. It’s cousin Jilly and her 3 kids! Look at cousin Mary’s card with the kids dressed all in red. How freakin’ cute! It’s your friend’s greeting card and oh look, she included the cutest picture of her ultrasound. How fu*%king adorable.

It’s time the infertile fought back! It’s time YOU sent the holiday card, infertile style. How about a picture of you, your hubby and a pink elephant in a room…”Seasons Greeting from the infertile couple.” An image of you both and your 4 fertilized embryos…”Merry Christmas from the Brady Bunch.” A picture of you jabbing yourself with a fertility needle… “Hope you have a painless holiday! From Jenny and Max.” A picture of you in stirrups….”Hope Santa brings you new socks for Christmas! From Ally, Jim and the follicles.” A picture of you both at your IVF cycle… “Hope you RETRIEVE everything you want this Christmas. Love Jill and Mill”

‘Tis the f&%#king season.

Did you know that your mother, your great aunt Connie and grandma Millie all became Infertility Specialists? When you weren’t looking, they each got their Masters Diploma at the School of Bad Advice as an Infertility Expert and are now qualified to give you advice on a daily basis.

Grandma Millie graduated top of her class and is now qualified to provide you excellent infertility advice such as “just relax and it will happen” or “drink this tea and you will get pregnant.” Mom also became an expert and has the right to question your decisions and fertility protocols. Her expert opinion including “My friend’s daughter got pregnant after surgery for her blocked tube. You should try that” is great advice but probably not for someone dealing with male factor infertility. Thanks mom. I’ll tell my doctor to book the surgery. And you’re positive, 80 year old great aunt Connie’s advice that “you only need one sperm” will be taken into consideration during your next fertility procedure. Maybe your RE can invite her into the procedure room for your next IVF/IUI treatment so she can handpick “just one” out. It’s great that your fertility expert cousin Martha thinks you should try Clomid because you specifically remember your RE telling you it won’t work for you. Maybe Martha can write you an imaginary prescription in her fake doctors notepad.

Congratulations to the infertility class of 2008! You are now qualified to give bad advice about infertility and also marriage, future children and careers.

photo: here