Thanks for all of your great comments on my previous post. It really did give me some "food for thought".
You helped me rephrase how I can refer to my struggle with infertility.
Here are some phrases you helped me come up with.
I struggle with infertility.
I have been diagnosed with infertility.
I have a unicornuate uterus, don't ovulate, and have required the assistance of a RE to try to get pregnant. That sentence should raise some more questions. But that explanation might also forgo the "oh, just relax" solutions that seem to fly out of people's mouths.
Now that I have a child I wonder if I will get as many people asking me when I am going to have more kids. It seemed that since I didn't have any kids I was fair game for people constantly nosing around and being so concerned about my small family size.
I guess I will just have to wait and see. I hope so, I could use a little relief from that. But I'm sure eventually well meaning people will get tired of seeing my family of 3 and want to see 4 of us, until eventually I am on the other side of the coin where people all of a sudden feel as though I have too many children and probably would make it their business to tell me so. I don't think I will run into that problem, but you never know. At any rate, I already know that there is just no pleasing some people, so I'm not worried about that.
Oh, and I hadn't realized, out of some of the infertility is... sentences, she made an infertility manifesto. Go check it out. It's great.
I recently visited my sister-in-law who has 9 month old twins thanks to IVF. She said people are ALREADY asking them when they're going to have more? WHAT?!! Sorry to say that the stupid comments don't ever seem to stop! Better have some witty answers ready for when it happens!
ReplyDeleteSuch good points. I'm always concerned during ICWL that I'm going to say something wrong like that stuff up there and not realize it. I know people with regular kids worry about doing the same thing to me. When we haven't lived someone else's experience it isn't always clear what those things are BUT some things should be obvious....like Annie said above me...you don't ask someone who did IVF when they are going to have their next one!!!duh. I just assume if their is some kind of plan towards that in the works they'd say something about it. People always ask me if we are going to have more and don't I want Alex to have a sibbling and I'm all.....ugh....don't you think I might have my hands a little full here?
ReplyDeleteMy sister actually gets asked more often than I do about when I will have kids. She has the best response - She just says "I think that Foxy would really love to be pregnant." She usually has to repeat that statement, but then people 'get it' and quit asking questions.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to find the right words, but now when I am asked about starting a family I say things like, "We'll see", or "We have a team of doctors helping us with that," "I've cried more tears in the last year than in my entire lifetime working on that." I've never actually called us infertile, or said that we have infertility. I always felt like that statement invites more questions, rather than simply ending the conversation. I've also become really good at saying that "I don't want to talk about it" and people really do respect that.
I'll have to check out Keiko's manifesto - I love her blog!
xoxo - Foxy