Aibu to ask people to share unhelpful things said and done by "friends" when hung through infertility hell

[Hestheoneandonly]

That really. Been suffering secondary infertility for quite some time. Sister suffered primary infertility for many years although happily had a DC this year (yay). But during that time I've been gobsmacked at people's thoughtlessness and insensitivity. Neither of us kept quiet about our struggles so it wasn't ignorance but some of the things I've heard people say or seen them do inc

DS really needs a little brother or sister

At least you can go out without worrying about a babysitter

Having two is so hard (I can guarantee it's not as hard as infertility)

You can always adopt

It's probably for the best at your age (piss off DM)

Just relax and it will happen (do you have a death wish)

Just be grateful and be thankful you have DS (yes it appears you actually do have a death wish)

I just wanted to tell you about the next easily achieved/we weren't really trying pregnancy to your face (just text me, even the most cursory glance at google would tell you this, yes I'm happy for you but would have appreciated time to sob uncontrollably in the privacy of my own home first)

Rocking up to my 40th birthday clearly pregnant having not bothered to prewarn me (thanks -yes you did wreck my night).

At least you have a lovely dog (yes really)

Are we the only ones with insensitive friends?

Lots of good advice given here. I just wanted to add something my counsellor told me about infertility grief- she said it was different and often worse than bereavement as it tends to escalate and worsen over time (repeated failure, time running out, invasive ness of tests and treatments). She said it is also not socially sanctioned either so people can often be blase in offering advice and underestimate the impact on a person. I've read articles which have said that it is as stressful as a cancer diagnosis and has significant impacts on your mental health.
I'm a pretty resilient person and have had some other difficult life challenges but our infertility has brought me to my knees at points. Also add the whacking great doses of hormones I've had to take which haven't helped- anyone who has injected progesterone on this thread will understand the mega unending feelings of PMT that exist when you're on it. It also takes weeks to wash completely out of your system too so it's pretty tough.
Just some thoughts...

Pregnancy announcements and visibly pregnant friends are far worse for me than babies - as pregnancy is something that I am a complete failure at, and it reminds me that I feel utterly defective as a woman

In the last 12 months I have had 4 rounds of IVF, 3 cancelled cycles, 2 embryo transfers, 2 pregnancies, 2 losses of genetically normal embryos, 1 ERPC and 2 hysteroscopies.

The losses weren't because 'it wasn't meant to be'. They were meant to be. They were genetically perfect embryos that had the potential to become people, it was my job to keep them safe for 9 months and look after them, but my body let them down.

Well meaning friends who say 'don't give up' and 'keep fighting' don't understand that we have nearly exhausted all our options and it's looking increasingly likely that we will have to accept that I can't carry. And that if my uterus isn't up to the job, our only chance of having a baby will be to transfer one of our frozen embryos into someone else's

It's not just the crippling financial cost of going to America for surrogacy (all in you're looking at somewhere in the region of $100,000. On top of the £30,000 we've already spent on fertility treatment)

It's the thought that someone on the other side of the world would get to feel the first kicks, and I'll never experience that. That I'll never be able to join in NCT. That my body is defective because I can't do what seems so simple to everyone else. Apparently it's possible to have some sex and get a baby 9 months later?!!!

Oh and the fact that although any crackhead can get knocked up and social services will bend over backwards to keep the baby with its birth mother, UK law doesn't recognise genetic parents of babies born to a surrogate (even if their name are on the birth certificate), and it's the couple who have literally gone to the ends of the earth (or at least, the other side of the world) to try and have a family, that have to apply to the high Court for a parental order, and get judged ad to whether they should be allowed to be the legal parents of their own child

I lost my mum 4 years ago tomorrow, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that infertility is the hardest thing I have ever experienced. There's no accepting it and moving on because you can't give up on hope that maybe you'll be one of those couples who beat the odds. Because everyone keeps telling you 'you'll get there'. Because how can you give up on everything you've ever wanted, and the very reason are on this planet in the first place?

Banana i feel shit moaning when i see the hell youve been through x

Personally I find it far worse being round pregnant women than babies

Me too. I want to be that pregnant woman. But when I see babies I'm ok. I don't want that baby, I want my baby. mine would be far cuter so that's ok.

For those of you kind enough to ask how to deal with infertile friends - just listen, don't offer any helpful advice or assume you know how it feels. Don't regale them with stories of a friend of a friend who 'just relaxed'.

But also, don't avoid them. Don't hide your own pregnancy from them or make them feel like you're avoiding them if you're pregnant. Don't make your friend feel like the plagued barren lady to be avoided at all costs.

I have been lucky in a way - all my friends had already had their babies before I found out I'm infertile (yes, I'm THAT old), so I didn't have to be around them. One long distance friend did get pregnant with her 4th, but I never saw her while she was pregnant, and then she made me his godmother, which is wonderful and a huge honour . But throughout, my 2 best friends (who each have multiple children each) have just been wonderful listeners.

As for the lovely lady above who hid her scan photos when walking back through the waiting room - thank you. I had to sit in the waiting room to get my massive ovarian cyst scanned, alongside excited pregnant couples, and had to deal with a shitty rude receptionist who told me off when I was sent there for an emergency scan from A&E. She said "Do you think you can just walk in here and demand a scan?".

No, I just fancied sitting here with all the pregnant ladies while my insides self destruct and blow my fallopian tubes apart. Bitch Bag.

Oh and anyone who asks me 'have you tried' gets my blood boiling

I've tried in no particular order : IVF, PGS, FET, oestrogen pills and patches, progesterone injections and pessaries, vaginal viagra pessaries, clexane injections, intravenous intralipids, G-CSF uterine wash, hysteroscopies, pentoxifylline, thyroxine, metformin, doxycyline, prednisolone, aspirin, a copper IUD (yes I'm on contraception to try and fix my broken uterus - go figure), every vitamin and supplement under the sun, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, mayan abdominal massage, positive visualisation, lucky socks, getting drunk and 'relaxing', no drinking / caffeine / sugar, pomegranate juice, Brazil nuts, high protein, wheatgrass shots, praying even though I am a total atheist and probably more that I can't think of

Never have I tried so hard to get precisely nowhere

banana to you lovely.

Another thing I struggle with is the expectation. I'm infertile, IVF is our next step. I'm terrified of it and I'm really not sure if I want to go through with it. So I'm mentally preparing myself for a time when I might decide to give up. I have a foot in both worlds at the moment, and it's not easy.

So when I say things like "Ooh I can just travel loads for the rest of my life" it doesn't give people the excuse to say "Oh you're CLEARLY not ready for children then". Oh fuck off, I'm just trying to console myself and resign myself to what might be my fate, don't jump on it and decide that makes me unfit to be a parent.

The same goes for people's judgement of DH. If he dares to do anything selfish, my mother judges him as clearly not ready to be a father. You don't get anywhere near that kind of scrutiny if you just happen to fall pregnant with someone - do people list all of the selfish things you might do, or hobbies you enjoy as evidence that you're clearly not fit to be a parent? Course not.

I'll end my rant with one of the most useful bits of advice I've read here on MN.

Babies aren't rationed. Someone else getting pregnant doesn't in any way take away your chances of doing so too

"At least you can get pregnant" (after 1st MC)

"Have you thought about adopting?"

"It's because you're an angry person. If you're not careful, you'll lose this one too." (My mother)

"So annoying that I'll be heavily pregnant at X's wedding" (friend who knew I had MC-ed and I was due around same time as her)

This pretty much sums up the never ending grief of infertility for me

To those of you asking how to help friends through this, thank you for your kindness, I'm trying to think what to suggest.

Looking back at my experience, (6 losses in 3 years), one friend was an enormous support, she became my 'safe' person. Despite the fact that while I was experiencing losses she conceived and carried her second. What did she do? After saying 'i'm sorry for your loss', she was always available to listen. She never made me feel like I was wallowing or tried to minimise anything I was feeling. At my lowest, I'd drive to her house first thing in the morning, because I couldn't cope on my own, I distinctly remember her giving me a hug while she was 8 months pregnant. She told me about her second pregnancy in private and with tact.

I can see that lots of my friends wanted to be supportive, and I don't think anyone intended to cause pain. One poster mentioned that this kind of grief is not socially sanctioned. That's a big part of it. I can think of times when I had to put on a brave face at enormous cost to my own well-being. That's why giving text warning of pregnancy announcements is a supportive thing, it gives the person a chance to prepare to be brave and manage their own grief, and prepare themselves to be happy for a friend.

Yes yes, to the poster who mentioned that with infertility grief tends to escalate as opposed to other losses. This was my experience. In the course if a couple of years my mental health deteriorated badly.

Sending good wishes and loving kindness to all those of you who are currently experiencing this.

Wow everyone. Someone at the beginning of this thread said it was very negative. It really is anything but. it is so good to see so much support. It's really helped me to see so many people feeling the same way and validate my feelings when sometimes they seem so unreasonable in RL. Big hugs to everyone currently in infertility hell

OP there are quite a few supportive threads in the Infertility area of MN if you'd like to join us over there (out of the general MN headlights)

Banana, I can add Faith Healer, Psychic and Homeopathy to your list of things that would help my infertility. Oh and the sure-fire one? A Novena.

For me, a great friend was someone who:
Never suggested any treatment/therapy/ woo /religious shit and acknowledged that as I was the one googling the fuck out of everything, that I'd know what was best what course of treatment to try.

Listened. Just listened and didn't offer platitudes or success stories. Just understood I was grieving, and that it was shit. Followed my lead - if I wanted to talk about my latest appointment, they'd listen. But if I never mentioned it, they didn't ask me. If I'd mentioned a due date, the awesome friend sent a text on the morning offering a hand-hold.

Like others, babies never bothered me. I love all babies, and always looked forward to a snuggle and sniff of a friend's newborn. I'm even ok with a mum or dad having an occasional moan about how hard parenting is, if they manage to avoid telling me I'm "lucky" in the same sentence. It was the getting pregnant, the staying pregnant that I was a bit envious of. But even then, once I got over the initial news, I was happy and interested in their pregnancy - though I know another woman might find that bit difficult.

If you can't handle the fact that im pregnant and you're not, then tough.
To which I replied. Those words'll come back to bite you. I don't know when or where or how, but they will.
And they sure did. What went around came around.

Awwlook that is fucking shit, I can't believe how insensitive they were!

for all of you ladies experiencing all of the crap that infertility brings out.

As many PP have said, it's really not hard to imagine how you would feel and think about what you would want. The best people have been the ones to simply say "I'm so sorry you have to go through this" or even saying "I don't know what to say" is fine - because it's true!

I've been told that at least IVF is easier than having sex because you know when to have sex...I have no idea what she thought IVF entailed! This same person said to me - after our appointment with the consultant following the failure of our first ICSI cycle (and we were told that we had a 15-20% chance of it ever working) had we thought about adopting...?! Then tells me how she's always wanted to but that her husband wouldn't let her I told her that it was easy for her to say this when she had one child already.

Most recently her comments have included telling me how donor sperm is fine (we will never be able to conceive our own child as we have MFI) when I said it wouldn't be Mr Meh's, I was reminded, rather emphatically that it would be MINE...(!) then tells me how she thinks donor sperm is fine because she has friends who have used it and it is normal - these friends are lesbian couples! Again I pointed out that they HAVE to use donor sperm. Someone described it very well to me - that it is in a lesbian couple's narrative to have donor sperm...

My best friend (well ex best friend now) told me how she is envious of me and my free time and how I should really 'enjoy' my free time whilst I can...I told her off for that, to which she responded with she meant if we had kids naturally or through adoption I did point out that this assumption is hurtful in either case.

I do not understand why people seem to think that it is appropriate to trot out the whole adoption option - as if no one knows this?! This isn't a case of I want a child and any child will do?! How is that hard to understand?! In any case, as I have seen with friends, adoption isn't that fucking easy either.

Last week my colleague asked me how the IVF was going, I told her we couldn't have kids...it will never work for us. She replies with "well you never know, you could have a child when you least expect it" erm, no we won't because my husband's sperm is not good...and then the adoption line comes out.

If you aren't in infertility hell, you just don't understand it or what it is we go through and it is unbelievably isolating and when you hear "helpful" advice given, it makes you not want to talk to these people because you end up anxious over what they will say. HOWEVER, just because someone is going through infertility does not mean you forget basic empathy or manners! Like the others have said - you would never say to someone who had lost a parent "at least you have the other" or "relax, you'll get over it", you would say you are sorry for their loss.

God forbid it happened to anyone else, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but I am sure most people are able to imagine how they would feel and be able to respond accordingly...

Threads like this make me feel so much less alone, although I wish none of us had to go through this stuff.

I've been through two years of TTC knowing I have problems, desperately wanting a baby. When we told people we were finally staring down the barrel of fertility treatment we were told:

'oh just relax, you never know lots of people have babies just before they start treatment.'

'oh that is great news, you'll be pregnant in no time!'

'how exciting!'

No, no and no again. I did get pregnant shortly after seeing our fertility consultant and then miscarried painfully and messily at six weeks. I was then told:

'well at least you know you can get pregnant now.'

'there was obviously something wrong with the baby'

'it just wasn't meant to be this time.'

No, no and no again.

We've stopped TTC now because it was just too much heartache. We're giving ourselves 6-12 months off to recover our sanity a bit.

The other day my dad asked me when he was 'getting his grandchildren'. I tried to joke and laugh it off but he wouldn't let it go and asked again and again while I sat and tried not to cry. DH and I have been TTC for almost 3 years. I can't really put it into words

bananna and jiggl - i do believe you have both missed out ......... cough mixture!

Yep - thanks to google i did a good few bottles of that for a few weeks. The ones with guaifenesin in. Stood for ages in Boots reading all the damn labels. Cant even remember the technicalities of it now!

Oh laiste I forgot to include all the ones related to actually having sex - I'd basically left behind anything related to making a baby with a shag as that's such a remote and quaint concept I had basically all but forgotten that is even possible!!!

All the cough mixture, Chinese herbs, pre seed, grapefruit juice, OPKs, temping, all that stuff - yeah that's not gonna make me ovulate or grow or improve my endometrial lining unfortunately!!

I have a ''friend'' who is completely ignorant of loosing my babies.
I haven't struggled with infertility so I do apologise if I'm out of order posting but after an ectopic and loosing my son at 21 weeks and then a missed miscarriage I distanced myself slightly from a few friends, who didn't bother to withhold the relationship.

I reached out a fair few months later and was greeted with...(and I quote) ' I know you had all that baby stuff going on but I just wanted you to ask me how I was for once'

Baby stuff?!?! You mean my son dying? And me nearly loosing my life? And then getting excited about another baby just to loose that one too.
Yeah that baby stuff!!

Bugslife It's even harder when it happens after you've made the effort to reach out and build some bridges. Similar happened to me. Friend of 25+ years (for whom i had in the past given up not only countless evenings and phone calls listening to all her problems but also a room in my house for a year) cut me dead when i went through the worst of times. Then when i was feeling stronger and reached out to build bridges she had the front to tell me how very sidelined she'd felt by me having my problems! You couldn't make it up!

And i'd forgotten about pre-seed bananas. My prevailing memory of that stuff is firing a ton of it up the bedroom curtains while fiddling with the bloody applicator thing. sigh. So romantic.

Ah pressed recommended to me by a woman in the park no less. Whilst I was trying to stop my son going head first down the firemans pole out she came with "just the one?" Yes I replied we probably can't have any more. Have you tried .... (suspicious glance round the park) preseed she whispered, we had been trying 6 months and it worked for us. Half expected her to backhand me some like a dodgy drug deal by the climbing frame. Obviously I went home and ordered some straight away along with my green tea b6, insotitol, pineapple cores opks, fertility monitor, latest getting pregnant for dummies.....,,

I had no idea mentioning adoption was so hurtful. I'll keep that in mind the next time I come across someone struggling with fertility. Both my SIL's had years of fertility treatment - they both have 3 kids now.

Mishi I think it's a difficult question whichever way it's posed - this is why I personally find this very hard and upsetting, others may feel differently

"have you thought about adoption?" - of COURSE any couple who's struggling to have a baby will have thought about adoption

"would you consider adoption?" - it's a horrible question because it's an incredibly difficult issue. It doesn't capture the fact that adoption isn't a substitute for having a baby, and that it is a completely different beast. Most (not all) people who ask this question don't realise just how difficult it is. Most parents wouldn't get approved to adopt their own children. Many many children who are up for adoption are older and have significant attachment or behavioural issues. Many children are up for adoption with a sibling. It's an entirely different challenge and many couples don't feel prepared to take this on. Many adoptions break down in the teenage years and the support available for adoptive parents is woeful. If one doesn't feel prepared to take that on, to be put on the spot can make one feel like you'll be judged as not wanting to be a parent enough to overlook all the associated issues with adoption

"why don't you 'just' adopt?'. See above. But much more offensive. I would counter to anyone who asks this whether they have their own birth children, and if so, why didn't they 'just' adopt, if it's so straightforward and an easy 'substitution' for having a birth family

*mimi

If there's three things I wish EVERYONE in the whole bloody world could get into their heads it's:

a) if you ask someone if they have children and they say 'no', change the subject and don't ask any more questions. It's NEVER ok to ask why someone doesn't have kids (or only one kid) or if they want them (or more).

b) if you know someone is having trouble conceiving then don't offer advice or suggestions, just support and sympathy (and they probably know about 1000 times more about fertility than you will ever know anyhow)

c) if someone has a miscarriage don't, for the love of god, say 'at least you know you can get pregnant' firstly because it makes the other person feel like you don't really care about the miscarriage itself and secondly (and most importantly if you know they have trouble conceiving), as lots of people will tell you (primary and secondary infertiles alike) is that just because you can get pregnant once doesn't mean you will ever be able to get pregnant again. It really pisses me off that people still trot out that line.