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?

From the nurses in recovery when I woke up from anaesthetic after my ERPC after having miscarried a much longed for pregnancy from our second round of IVF

"Everything happens for a reason "

What reason is that? Turned out the baby was genetically normal so it wasn't that it 'wasn't meant to be' actually. Not that that's appropriate in any circumstances FFS)

"you have an angel now"

I know they don't know what to say, but how about just an 'I'm so sorry'

Other comments were 'it was just a ball of cells'

Er, I have photos and video of our two early scans where it had limb stumps and looked baby shaped and had a beautiful strong heartbeat at 9w. That wasn't a ball of cells. That was my baby

"at least you know you can get pregnant'

It's not a fucking relay race where I can pick up where I left off. I've had 2 more IVF cycles and 2 cancelled IVF cycles and one more miscarriage of a genetically normal embryo and that was likely as pregnant as I'm ever going to get because my body can't support a pregnancy

Just say 'I'm so sorry' or 'I'm here for you'

Acknowledge the situation. Don't feel the need to comment on it.

Donna re:At least you don't have to worry about contraception anymore, I have to be so careful, DP just looks at me and I get pregnant!

When a friend of a friend said this to SIL, her response was, 'yeah? can your DH look at XXXX too?" .

I've cared for my dying mother and infertility is by far the hardest thing I've ever been through

When I lost my beautiful amazing mum, it was devastating but there was a certainty about it. I knew she was gone and wasn't coming back. I could grieve for a loss and try and move through those stages of grief.

Infertility is a bereavement where you can never move on, because you're in permanent uncertainty. You're grieving for the loss of hope. Of what might have been. Of what should have been. Actually the worst thing about infertility isn't just the aching sadness about whether we will ever become parents

It's the toxic nature of what it does to every aspect of your life. Your job. Your relationships. Your sense of self worth

It's a never ending grief because you can't move on because you're living in perpetual hope that you'll be one of those miracle stories everyone is so keen to tell you about

Banana

Mine isn't an infertility thing but miscarriage related.
My brother phoned to tell me he was expecting his first baby the day I booked in for a D&C. I started to cry and had to tell him and he was understandably upset, said all the right things etc. He spoke to my mum (who lived abroad at the time and she always phoned him at 5pm then me at 5.15pm, every Friday) and told her both sets of news. She phoned me in a bit of a mess TBH having had great and terrible news all in one go. She commiserated, I cried some more and she tried to cheer me up by saying "but you are going to be an auntie, isn't that great?" more than once.
Well it was (and still is) great but just not then and not for a few weeks.
It took me a long time to forgive her even though I knew she was just thoughtless and well-meaning rather than cruel. I eventually told her about it and she was so embarrassed. She didn't remember saying it but said she had felt useless being so far away and just wanted to cheer me up. Gee thanks mum.

OP, do your friends know that you are experiencing secondary infertility?

I ask because even though infertility is often silently painful, most people with a shred of empathy (ie NOT the ones cited on this thread) grasp that if a couple are child-free in their thirties onwards, they might not be happily so and therefore try to be a little more sensitive in what they say.

Secondary fertility is tricky, though. Many people don't realise that it's a 'thing' (because if you've had one kid, you can have another, right?) and there are plenty of deliberately one-child families. I'm afraid I can see why people might be a little less careful in what they say if they don't realise what you are going through.

Meanwhile, you are not infertile 'enough' to find support with other infertile women, who would give anything to have one child; you feel guilty that the healthy child you do have isn't 'enough', although you love them no less. You are grieving for the family that you thought you might have.

Us they are well aware of our struggles (got fed up of the wwhen are you having another questions) but people really don't seem to think secondary infertility matters

Meanwhile, you are not infertile 'enough' to find support with other infertile women, who would give anything to have one child; you feel guilty that the healthy child you do have isn't 'enough', although you love them no less. You are grieving for the family that you thought you might have.

I don't agree with that at all. I have no children and can see how not being able to have another child when you want one (even if you have one) is a horribly sad situation. If anything I'd have thought infertile women would be more likely to be sympathetic as they know what it's like to not be able to complete your family in the way you'd hoped.

BIL's wife told me (knowing about our infertility issues and that we've had treatment) that she considers IVF the same as killing newborn babies. I think her reasoning was something to do with assuming that embryos get destroyed in every IVF attempt, which equals abortion, which equals baby murder. I don't really talk to her these days.

The amount of people who've told me to relax, or that it will happen "when its time comes" is quite large. I think I've got desensitised to it, and just smile and nod.

"Oh but you can always adopt!" feels quite hurtful to me, because we both have longterm health issues, and it's absolutely not a given we'd be able to adopt. It's a strange assumption that they're just handing out kids to anyone who wants them.

Meanwhile, you are not infertile 'enough' to find support with other infertile women, who would give anything to have one child; you feel guilty that the healthy child you do have isn't 'enough', although you love them no less. You are grieving for the family that you thought you might have.

I don't agree with that at all. I have no children and can see how not being able to have another child when you want one (even if you have one) is a horribly sad situation. If anything I'd have thought infertile women would be more likely to be sympathetic as they know what it's like to not be able to complete your family in the way you'd hoped.

I couldn't agree more, which is why I was so horrified when I first joined Mumsnet (about 3-4 yrs ago) to see threads where OPs were flamed for looking for support for secondary infertility. I haven't seen any recently, thankfully, but I couldn't believe how nasty they were.

Three weeks after losing my baby at 20 weeks, my 4th miscarriage of 9, I cried in front of my mum and dad. My dad just said "havent you got over that yet?"

14 years later i tell my mum and dad that i was pregnant with my third child.
Mum said is it for insurance purposes incase the other two die?
Dad said you wont gave a job to come back to (i have worked for him for nearly 20 years)

Other unhelpful comments included

There will be other babies ( i wanted that one!)
Try not to think about it!

When i found out i was pregnant with my oldest son I was four months, by now i was so used to miscarriages that i didnt expect him to be born. My mother was disgusted that i opted out of any screening so that i could get rid of anything nasty (not her actual words but she was too offensive!) i would not have aborted whatever as i thought he was my only chance of motherhood

Fucking hell. Went to my best friend's daughter's birthday party today and she blindsided me with it in front of her parents.

I managed to grin and cheer long enough to get to the loo and have a little sob.

My mother told me that all the tests I was doing was just a way for doctors to introduce demons into my body. She also said that a relative was dying of leukemia and managed to stay positive and I could learn a thing or two from her.

Told my only friend about DH's shit sperm count and how close we came to divorcing over not being able to conceive. Her response and I kid you not was "do you know a good link for streaming videos?".

Same friend when I told her we were thinking about giving up ttc said 'my mum got pregnant so easily. She has seven. What's wrong with you?'.

I pray every day that God will take away my desire to have children. It is a pain unlike any I have ever felt before. I can't eat, sleep, think properly or smile. I keep imagining my babies holed up somewhere refusing to be born because our house is tiny, I'm fat and we have no money. I wonder if today is the day I'll get hit by a bus so I don't have to try to have a baby anymore because I am not strong enough to just give up.

I am bitter and miserable. My manager announced her pregnancy recently and I congratulated her, walked to the loos and punched myself. I am losing my mind and it's all infertility's fault.

A genuine question for those with secondary infertility- how would you feel if a friend who was suffering from primary infertility said you you 'well at least you have one'?
Are they lacking in empathy?

*to you

Feather, personally I am never offended by that comment from anyone as it is very true. I am grateful that I have one and as I mentioned earlier, I refuse to let my secondary infertility make me bitter and angry. Poole are generally nice and don't mean to cause offence.

Wow, some of these are vile. for everyone who has experienced that shit. There is a huge difference between not knowing what to say and falling foul of the natural urge to comfort with positivity - and being a cock.

I do think secondary infertility is harder for people to understand. I've always tried to be sympathetic but it was only when I read on here someone saying that in some ways it's worse because you know what having children is like and the desire is just as strong, whereas if you don't have any, you can still do lots of other different and exciting things with your life. Not saying that's totally right of course, but it really made me think.

I do think secondary infertility is harder for people to understand. I've always tried to be sympathetic but it was only when I read on here someone saying that in some ways it's worse because you know what having children is like and the desire is just as strong, whereas if you don't have any, you can still do lots of other different and exciting things with your life. Not saying that's totally right of course, but it really made me think.

That is quite an unhelpful thing to write on a thread about insensitive things people have said to people struggling to conceive. You can't have kids but you can do lots of exciting and different things with your life? Not much consolation for those of us who desperately wanted a child, and those "exciting and different things" are more difficult when your finances, time and headspace are consumed with trying to get pregnant.

Trying to compare the pain of primary and secondary is a bad plan.

Sorry, I really really didn't mean to be insensitive at all - all I meant was, reading that person's views helped me to understand more about how to be sensitive about secondary infertility because it made me think. The "at least they have one" thinking is something I've heard so many times about certain people.

I do think secondary infertility is harder for people to understand. I've always tried to be sympathetic but it was only when I read on here someone saying that in some ways it's worse because you know what having children is like and the desire is just as strong, whereas if you don't have any, you can still do lots of other different and exciting things with your life. Not saying that's totally right of course, but it really made me think.

If anyone said that to me I would be so incensed I'd have to walk off lest I thump anyone

When you're suffering with primary infertility you're on the outside looking longingly at the parents' club we can't join. I have no role in my friends lives any more, because they're all part of the mum club, and their lives now (understandable) revolve around get togethers with their NCT friends or play dates with their kids' friends from nursery or school. Our friends are on a path that's moving further and further away from us and we're become lonelier and lonelier

Friends with 'just' one child are part of that special club that we are so desperate to join. We may never do the school run. We may never see our 'only' one child play. For most of us the assumption is we will never be lucky enough to even consider having more than one child, because if conceiving one takes so many rounds of fertility treatment and miscarriages and years of getting nowhere, what are the chances of being able to do so again when we're older and even less fertile?

To that person I would say - watch this video, about 'The pain of never' and then tell me if you think 'at least you can go off and do fabulous things with your 'not in any way emotionally torn apart and wracked with a permanent aching sadness that you will never have a family' childless childfree life'

m.youtube.com/watch?v=5OEDYZ19EuE

Fuck I feel like a total twat. I really didn't mean to upset or imply there was any comparison, I just meant it had helped me not to be one of the people who said to anyone struggling with secondary infertility, "ah well, you have one at least," as I have heard this comment a lot. so sorry if I've upset anyone by not wording it well at all.

Lucia, your mother's comments are just awful (your friend too, but a parent's comments can get under your skin like nothing else).

I agree that it's not helpful to rank primary v. secondary infertility. Both shit in their own way.

I agree, both are shit - but in different ways.

For me, I've experienced both, and the sadness I feel with the secondary fertility is very different from the overwhelming emptiness of when I was primarily infertile. My biggest comfort during my MC's was my DS.

It's still shit, but of a different kind. I have had friends who couldn't be around me when I finally got pregnant. They were on the same difficult TTC journey as me and while they were truly happy for me, they were dealing with their grief in the way that they needed to. Some reconnected when they finally got their happy ending, others still aren't there yet. But the friendship will be there whenever (or if ever) they are ready to come back to it.

I sat next to some woman at a Christmas party who berated me for having just one, and that I shouldn't leave it too long. That was a welcome conversation, not!

People should be more sensitive I think. Even now, when we have been lucky extending our family, I get so many comments about the age gaps. Yup, that's because I couldn't get pregnant.

to you all.