You never buy extra tampons because you think that you wont need them the next month because you WILL be pregnant…. So when your period arrives the next month you are left in a bind..and your police officer husband has to make an emergency trip to Wal-Mart on his lunch break in uniform..
1. “Maybe that baby would have been the new Hitler” and other things you tell yourself to cope with miscarriages.
2. Deciding that Parent & Child parking spots discriminate so you park in them anyway. When the parking lot security moron chases after you to point out that you HAVE NO CHILDREN. In your hormonal rage you pull up your shirt to show him the needle marks on your belly, tell him about your miscarriages and start crying as you tell him how hard you’re trying to HAVE CHILDREN. He lets you keep the parking spot.
3. You know the meaning of every single name, as you have read the baby name book cover to cover 3,215 times. Every time you meet anyone new, the conversation sounds like this,
“Hi it’s nice to meet you Zoe, did you know that your name means ‘life’?’
You start cleaning like mad one day, thinking it’s some sort of advanced nesting instinct, so you MUST be pregnant! A few days later when your period starts, you realize that you forgot that your mother/mother-in-law/the Pope was coming over next week so it’s a good thing the house is clean, because you feel too miserable to clean now anyway.
You walk out of the bathroom at the department store in the mall, look straight ahead, and proceed to flip off the maternity clothing section… Then pause and think, did I really just do that?
After hearing day after day, story after story, of these single women getting knocked up on “accident” you actually ponder if it would help your chances if you got a divorce from your husband. Horrible thought, but you’ve had it.
Here’s a reason for you… You’ve been trying so long that you are old enough that all of your friends have already had their 2 or 3 kids. You’ve attended all the baby showers, and 1st birthdays and are now off the hook. Older kids who are mouthing off to their parents are a lot easier accept than those cute little babies.
When you tell your kind hippie friend that you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year, she suggests that you see her spiritual healer. Um, thanks, but even though I just had a condom-covered sonogram wand up my hoo-ha to measure my follicles, the thought of seeing your witch doctor is *still* a little outside my comfort zone.
Because you’ve gotta laugh at a situation that has you praying for your period to turn up so you can start treatment, then as soon as it does you start praying that it’ll eff off for the next 9 months. Is it any wonder the Secret doesn’t work in this situation, apparently the universe can’t cope with the mixed messages…. FFS!
Because my gynie really does believe that it’s possible to relax with legs spread east to west, a dildocam shoved up my hoo-hah and a bladder so full it feels like my teeth are floating…
Our REs should be required to get our approval before going on vacation. After all, we’re paying for it. We should have some input as to timing and location.
We’re immune to “cute kid” adds imploring us to buy things for the good of the family. I was just listening to this “girl” begging her “father” to give up smoking, “because I want you to be around at my wedding. I don’t want you to go away.” Even if I smoked and if I wanted to stop smoking, this commercial with this high pitched annoying child voice makes me never want to give these people money.
Your “I-Got-Pregnant-After-Two-Months-Naturally” friend is 24 weeks and 2 days along, so says her auto ticker on facebook… Yet she is still smoking regularly. Oh, and she drinks occasionally, just wine though… on the weekends… or whenever she wants a drink.
Um, newsflash! Just because it is wine doesn’t make it safer!
Infertility is great because it is the only time it is really acceptable to leave work at any given time of the day so that you can go try to make a baby then come back like nothing ever happened. It is especially fun when trying to schedule business appointments and business travel – “I’m sorry Mr. Comany owner I would love to come to your beautiful city and have you wine & dine me, but I’m afraid thats the week I’ll be visting with the dildocam, injecting myself with Ovidrel to induce ovulation and having my husbands sperm injected into my uterus. Maybe next time?”
A great thing about infertility is that you have plenty of time to plan your pregnancy wardrobe! While shopping I always try to see if I can get tops or dresses that can easily double as maternity clothes!
I think the funniest thing about infertility is the closet full of maternity clothes my sister-in-law gave me when I first started trying. She had just had her second and didn’t need them anymore. Her youngest is 4 and I still have the clothes, even though fertility treatments made me so fat I can’t fit into them anymore!
BTW- just read your entire blog in two days and loved it!
Quoting our RE: “This is only good news, your results are normal.”
“Aren’t these border-line values?”
“Well, both of you can probably have children with a more fertile partner”.
(Composing… trying to ignore the stupid, very stupid statement)
“So what is the issue we are treating?”
“ All couples want to know exactly what it is. With unexplained fertility you can explore any of our treatments.”
=) =) =)
Oh, this is useful and constructive info. Thank you!
Because the long wait has given you time to establish your position on every controversial issue to parenthood – immunization, circumcision, baby ear piercing… only, when these topics come up with all your mommy friends you keep your mouth shut. Even though you’ve probably read just as much as they have. You just don’t want to look too crazy.
Also, ever since you’ve seen the show, “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant,” you’ve fantasized that maybe you ARE pregnant, right now, and you’re just one of the women who “got their period throughout the whole nine months” and just MAYBE you will have a baby of your own by Mother’s Day! Only you’re so in tune with every twinge and ache and pain that this is virtually impossible.
Because my friends who spend $10k on ONE vacation are totally missing out. Why not spend $10k on IVF instead?! It is way more fun to take an IVFcation!! I mean, I’m pretty sure you can’t get every other day estrogen bloodwork in Tahiti. And why go all the way to Ireland when you can inject yourself every day with FSH at home? And I’ve heard Paris is nice, but I think it’d be easier to speak English before the egg retrieval… At least when you take an IVFcation, you come home with pictures of your 48-hour-old babies, and not just a bunch of brag stories to tell your (infertile) friends…
Because I’ve realized that having four-legged children (pets) is actually cheaper and easier than having the two-legged kind. In fact, when we leave for work, the dog can stay home without a baby sitter or need to pay for daycare. And, when we go on vacation, the dog can go to a kennel for as little as $15 a day! So, we’re being economical in this bad economy by NOT having children, right?
Realizing that more people have seen your vagina than you could even begin to count. You didn’t even get their names. You did however get some awesome pictures of your mangled insides.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I said this to the doctor the other week.
Doctor: I notice you have hair growth [it's true, I do have a slight problem with it, among other things]. Do you shave it, or wax it?
Me: No. My husband used to be a barber in [home country]. He gives ME a shave. It’s how we bond! Isn’t that romantic?
Boss: “So, im not too impressed with the fertility rates this year but better than last, out of 250/odd cows, 225 cows are now pregnant and due in June”
Expectant Mothers parking spots! We’re all expectant mothers, we just don’t know when to expect our babies. We’ve been expecting our babies for much longer than Mrs. Duein3weeks or Ms. OopsI’mPregnantAt16. I’ve been an expectant mother for two years now!
When we took a vacation to a beautiful resort to make babies, and my family came along. The lead singer of the resort’s band attempted to sell us his cd by promising that if we played it in our room, we were guaranteed to ‘oomph’ (pelvic thrust) go home having made a baby. At which point, my sister said to him ‘uh stop pointing at me, I have a 12 year old already, it’s her that needs a baby’. So my husband and I purchased the cd and enjoyed the cuban music cd and trying in our suite… and my sister went home pregnant and they weren’t even trying…no joke but darkly funny and still rewarding as I got another beautiful nephew to spoil and hold..
Infertility has accomplished what my stats prof couldn’t – I am now a statistics wizard! I can give you the statistical probabilities for pregancy rates of every fertility treatment available today. White female, damaged left tube, no live births, recurrant miscarriage, age 32 attempting IVF for the 4 time – why your chances of pregancy are…. If only my stats prof could have figured out that actually relating standard deviations to something tangible would have helped his stats…. Come on, give me a stats problem relating to infertility and my GPA would be 4.0!!!
When the accidentally pregnant teenager cries to you about her pregnancy a small part of you really wants to ask her “are you planning on *keeping* that baby once it’s born?”
1. Friends/family with children think they are doing you a favor by asking you to babysit, because you want kids so much taking care of theirs for a few hours will ease that ache. (while they’re at a cool concert or at an expensive restaurant).
2. Realizing that your parents visit your siblings more because they have the grandbabies; bargaining with the parents (in your mind) to buy you nice things as they aren’t spending money on grandkids you haven’t been able to give them.
I love the articles on celebrities that use IVF because they don’t have TIME to try normally so they schedule it in?? I am trying and trying and trying but currently cannot afford IVF. Hey Angie how about spreading some of you charity in my direction?
While standing in line at Walmart with a pregnancy test in hand (knowing full well what it is going to tell you). Lady behind you makes the mistake of openig her mouth “OH that is a really good brand! I used it with all my kids and it was accurate each time.” and you reply “it must be accurate because it keeps telling me NO.”
I agree with Megan on the “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant.” When watching that show I simultaneously wonder how people could be so stupid – And wish I was one of them.
This is a true story…I don’t know whether to laugh or to scream! My husband and I just started fertility treatments. We chose to look into fertility treatments right away b/c my history of irregular periods and 2 m/c from a prior relationship. However, when we are “celebrating,” my rocket scientist of a husband pulls out! You’ll love his reasoning: “I want to get my money’s worth for these treatments!” Meaning that, if we by chance conceived naturally, then it would feel like we had blown our money on appointments and fertility drugs and who knows what other procedures we might or might not need. So basically he thinks he is “saving up” his sperm. Ayayay. i keep telling him that it doesn’t matter how we conceive, as long as it happens! And meanwhile our future children are all over the bedsheets!
You start a daily (or, in reality, hourly) reminder mantra every month the day after ovulation: “There are no early pregnancy symptoms. There are no early pregnancy symptoms. There are no early pregnancy symptoms.” And somehow this morphs into the song from the cartoon movie An American Tail: “There are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese!” (as sung by some very misinformed mice). And somehow, it’s still appropriate.
The Pregancy Uncertainty Principle: People often use the phrase that something is “like being pregnant: you either are or you aren’t.” But we infertiles know the truth. There is an in-between stage: the two-week wait–a veritable Schroedinger’s cat of maybe/maybe-not pregnant. Oh yeah, and by definition, you spend half your month in this state waiting to learn whether there’s actually a cat in that box, er, baby in that womb. Thanks, Heisenburg.
Hmm… What about how infertility is the best birth control? It’s not something taught during sex ed, but it’s definitely one way to not get pregnant. About as effective as abstinence. :/
How about the comforting statement from the fertility specialist..”Miracles can Happen” So me getting pregnant is going to take a miracle, I feel ever so much better and hopeful for the future. What is that patient is an atheist? Or already having a minor crisis of faith due to the reason they are there in the first place. Thanks for confirming that I’m aiming my anger in the right direction. Miracles are an everyday occurrence right?
Checking the toilet paper every 5 seconds! I need to buy TP in bulk already!
You never buy extra tampons because you think that you wont need them the next month because you WILL be pregnant…. So when your period arrives the next month you are left in a bind..and your police officer husband has to make an emergency trip to Wal-Mart on his lunch break in uniform..
1. “Maybe that baby would have been the new Hitler” and other things you tell yourself to cope with miscarriages.
2. Deciding that Parent & Child parking spots discriminate so you park in them anyway. When the parking lot security moron chases after you to point out that you HAVE NO CHILDREN. In your hormonal rage you pull up your shirt to show him the needle marks on your belly, tell him about your miscarriages and start crying as you tell him how hard you’re trying to HAVE CHILDREN. He lets you keep the parking spot.
3. You know the meaning of every single name, as you have read the baby name book cover to cover 3,215 times. Every time you meet anyone new, the conversation sounds like this,
“Hi it’s nice to meet you Zoe, did you know that your name means ‘life’?’
You start cleaning like mad one day, thinking it’s some sort of advanced nesting instinct, so you MUST be pregnant! A few days later when your period starts, you realize that you forgot that your mother/mother-in-law/the Pope was coming over next week so it’s a good thing the house is clean, because you feel too miserable to clean now anyway.
You walk out of the bathroom at the department store in the mall, look straight ahead, and proceed to flip off the maternity clothing section… Then pause and think, did I really just do that?
No! You telling me how much your kids daycare costs DOES NOT make me feel better about not being able to get pregnant.
After hearing day after day, story after story, of these single women getting knocked up on “accident” you actually ponder if it would help your chances if you got a divorce from your husband. Horrible thought, but you’ve had it.
Here’s a reason for you… You’ve been trying so long that you are old enough that all of your friends have already had their 2 or 3 kids. You’ve attended all the baby showers, and 1st birthdays and are now off the hook. Older kids who are mouthing off to their parents are a lot easier accept than those cute little babies.
The couple who got married the weekend before you “already” have 2 kids, and are probably working on the third.
Even when booking a hotel it reminds me I’m infertile… “2 adults, NO children.” Or at a restaurant, “Is it just you two?” “Sadly, yes.”
When you tell your kind hippie friend that you’ve been trying to conceive for over a year, she suggests that you see her spiritual healer. Um, thanks, but even though I just had a condom-covered sonogram wand up my hoo-ha to measure my follicles, the thought of seeing your witch doctor is *still* a little outside my comfort zone.
Because you’ve gotta laugh at a situation that has you praying for your period to turn up so you can start treatment, then as soon as it does you start praying that it’ll eff off for the next 9 months. Is it any wonder the Secret doesn’t work in this situation, apparently the universe can’t cope with the mixed messages…. FFS!
Because my gynie really does believe that it’s possible to relax with legs spread east to west, a dildocam shoved up my hoo-hah and a bladder so full it feels like my teeth are floating…
Because the progesterone pessaries have made my boobs huge! YAAAY!
Our REs should be required to get our approval before going on vacation. After all, we’re paying for it. We should have some input as to timing and location.
We’re immune to “cute kid” adds imploring us to buy things for the good of the family. I was just listening to this “girl” begging her “father” to give up smoking, “because I want you to be around at my wedding. I don’t want you to go away.” Even if I smoked and if I wanted to stop smoking, this commercial with this high pitched annoying child voice makes me never want to give these people money.
Your “I-Got-Pregnant-After-Two-Months-Naturally” friend is 24 weeks and 2 days along, so says her auto ticker on facebook… Yet she is still smoking regularly. Oh, and she drinks occasionally, just wine though… on the weekends… or whenever she wants a drink.
Um, newsflash! Just because it is wine doesn’t make it safer!
Infertility is great because it is the only time it is really acceptable to leave work at any given time of the day so that you can go try to make a baby then come back like nothing ever happened. It is especially fun when trying to schedule business appointments and business travel – “I’m sorry Mr. Comany owner I would love to come to your beautiful city and have you wine & dine me, but I’m afraid thats the week I’ll be visting with the dildocam, injecting myself with Ovidrel to induce ovulation and having my husbands sperm injected into my uterus. Maybe next time?”
A great thing about infertility is that you have plenty of time to plan your pregnancy wardrobe! While shopping I always try to see if I can get tops or dresses that can easily double as maternity clothes!
I think the funniest thing about infertility is the closet full of maternity clothes my sister-in-law gave me when I first started trying. She had just had her second and didn’t need them anymore. Her youngest is 4 and I still have the clothes, even though fertility treatments made me so fat I can’t fit into them anymore!
BTW- just read your entire blog in two days and loved it!
Quoting our RE: “This is only good news, your results are normal.”
“Aren’t these border-line values?”
“Well, both of you can probably have children with a more fertile partner”.
(Composing… trying to ignore the stupid, very stupid statement)
“So what is the issue we are treating?”
“ All couples want to know exactly what it is. With unexplained fertility you can explore any of our treatments.”
=) =) =)
Oh, this is useful and constructive info. Thank you!
Because the long wait has given you time to establish your position on every controversial issue to parenthood – immunization, circumcision, baby ear piercing… only, when these topics come up with all your mommy friends you keep your mouth shut. Even though you’ve probably read just as much as they have. You just don’t want to look too crazy.
Also, ever since you’ve seen the show, “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant,” you’ve fantasized that maybe you ARE pregnant, right now, and you’re just one of the women who “got their period throughout the whole nine months” and just MAYBE you will have a baby of your own by Mother’s Day! Only you’re so in tune with every twinge and ache and pain that this is virtually impossible.
Because the financial coordinator who calmly tells you that it’s going to cost you upwards of $10,000 a pop sure isn’t laughing….
Because my friends who spend $10k on ONE vacation are totally missing out. Why not spend $10k on IVF instead?! It is way more fun to take an IVFcation!! I mean, I’m pretty sure you can’t get every other day estrogen bloodwork in Tahiti. And why go all the way to Ireland when you can inject yourself every day with FSH at home? And I’ve heard Paris is nice, but I think it’d be easier to speak English before the egg retrieval… At least when you take an IVFcation, you come home with pictures of your 48-hour-old babies, and not just a bunch of brag stories to tell your (infertile) friends…
Because, after just doing our taxes, I’ve realized that 2010 will be yet another year without a dependent to claim.
Because I’ve realized that having four-legged children (pets) is actually cheaper and easier than having the two-legged kind. In fact, when we leave for work, the dog can stay home without a baby sitter or need to pay for daycare. And, when we go on vacation, the dog can go to a kennel for as little as $15 a day! So, we’re being economical in this bad economy by NOT having children, right?
Because with one bathroom trip you can go from no drinking, all healthy food, and no coffee to wine, french fries, and half a pot of Joe.
because today is mother’s day in the UK and if I didn’t laugh I’d have to punch everyone I meet in the face.
Realizing that more people have seen your vagina than you could even begin to count. You didn’t even get their names. You did however get some awesome pictures of your mangled insides.
I’m sorry Mom, I can’t come to visit you for the week. See, this is the week that I’m “supposed” to be ovulating, and I need to bone my husband.
Because words that you once used in casual conversation to describe stupid idiots now are accurate descriptions for your ill-functioning lady parts.
Example:
Doctor: “Well, our tests have concluded that you have an incompetent cervix.”
Me: “So, you’re saying that my cervix is stupid and grossly unqualified for the job?”
I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I said this to the doctor the other week.
Doctor: I notice you have hair growth [it's true, I do have a slight problem with it, among other things]. Do you shave it, or wax it?
Me: No. My husband used to be a barber in [home country]. He gives ME a shave. It’s how we bond! Isn’t that romantic?
Boss: “So, im not too impressed with the fertility rates this year but better than last, out of 250/odd cows, 225 cows are now pregnant and due in June”
Me: “Yep…strangely enough, still kinda jelouse”
Expectant Mothers parking spots! We’re all expectant mothers, we just don’t know when to expect our babies. We’ve been expecting our babies for much longer than Mrs. Duein3weeks or Ms. OopsI’mPregnantAt16. I’ve been an expectant mother for two years now!
When we took a vacation to a beautiful resort to make babies, and my family came along. The lead singer of the resort’s band attempted to sell us his cd by promising that if we played it in our room, we were guaranteed to ‘oomph’ (pelvic thrust) go home having made a baby. At which point, my sister said to him ‘uh stop pointing at me, I have a 12 year old already, it’s her that needs a baby’. So my husband and I purchased the cd and enjoyed the cuban music cd and trying in our suite… and my sister went home pregnant and they weren’t even trying…no joke but darkly funny and still rewarding as I got another beautiful nephew to spoil and hold..
Infertility has accomplished what my stats prof couldn’t – I am now a statistics wizard! I can give you the statistical probabilities for pregancy rates of every fertility treatment available today. White female, damaged left tube, no live births, recurrant miscarriage, age 32 attempting IVF for the 4 time – why your chances of pregancy are…. If only my stats prof could have figured out that actually relating standard deviations to something tangible would have helped his stats…. Come on, give me a stats problem relating to infertility and my GPA would be 4.0!!!
When the accidentally pregnant teenager cries to you about her pregnancy a small part of you really wants to ask her “are you planning on *keeping* that baby once it’s born?”
1. Friends/family with children think they are doing you a favor by asking you to babysit, because you want kids so much taking care of theirs for a few hours will ease that ache. (while they’re at a cool concert or at an expensive restaurant).
2. Realizing that your parents visit your siblings more because they have the grandbabies; bargaining with the parents (in your mind) to buy you nice things as they aren’t spending money on grandkids you haven’t been able to give them.
I’m with Rebecca on the “are you planning to keep that baby once it’s born?”
I love the articles on celebrities that use IVF because they don’t have TIME to try normally so they schedule it in?? I am trying and trying and trying but currently cannot afford IVF. Hey Angie how about spreading some of you charity in my direction?
Because while on vacation in Costa Rica you get jealous of a family of monkeys swinging by and think how lucky that mama monkey is.
Clomid has made you so bloated that you can’t get the song “Baby Baluga” out of your head: “Just a little white whale on the go.” That’s me!
While standing in line at Walmart with a pregnancy test in hand (knowing full well what it is going to tell you). Lady behind you makes the mistake of openig her mouth “OH that is a really good brand! I used it with all my kids and it was accurate each time.” and you reply “it must be accurate because it keeps telling me NO.”
I agree with Megan on the “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant.” When watching that show I simultaneously wonder how people could be so stupid – And wish I was one of them.
This is a true story…I don’t know whether to laugh or to scream! My husband and I just started fertility treatments. We chose to look into fertility treatments right away b/c my history of irregular periods and 2 m/c from a prior relationship. However, when we are “celebrating,” my rocket scientist of a husband pulls out! You’ll love his reasoning: “I want to get my money’s worth for these treatments!” Meaning that, if we by chance conceived naturally, then it would feel like we had blown our money on appointments and fertility drugs and who knows what other procedures we might or might not need. So basically he thinks he is “saving up” his sperm. Ayayay. i keep telling him that it doesn’t matter how we conceive, as long as it happens! And meanwhile our future children are all over the bedsheets!
You start a daily (or, in reality, hourly) reminder mantra every month the day after ovulation: “There are no early pregnancy symptoms. There are no early pregnancy symptoms. There are no early pregnancy symptoms.” And somehow this morphs into the song from the cartoon movie An American Tail: “There are no cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese!” (as sung by some very misinformed mice). And somehow, it’s still appropriate.
The Pregancy Uncertainty Principle: People often use the phrase that something is “like being pregnant: you either are or you aren’t.” But we infertiles know the truth. There is an in-between stage: the two-week wait–a veritable Schroedinger’s cat of maybe/maybe-not pregnant. Oh yeah, and by definition, you spend half your month in this state waiting to learn whether there’s actually a cat in that box, er, baby in that womb. Thanks, Heisenburg.
Hmm… What about how infertility is the best birth control? It’s not something taught during sex ed, but it’s definitely one way to not get pregnant. About as effective as abstinence. :/
How about the comforting statement from the fertility specialist..”Miracles can Happen” So me getting pregnant is going to take a miracle, I feel ever so much better and hopeful for the future. What is that patient is an atheist? Or already having a minor crisis of faith due to the reason they are there in the first place. Thanks for confirming that I’m aiming my anger in the right direction. Miracles are an everyday occurrence right?