Slightly more on topic of what not to say to people who are childless. You only have to read this thread really, but:
I don’t expect childless people to be sensitive around me when they’re talking about their fabulous travels, the freedom they have, or the opportunities being childless can bring.
Oh right, so you regret having children and would give it all up to have fabulous travels, freedom and the opportunities of being childless would you? Thought not.
"At least you get to have great holidays/go out for nice meals/lie ins". Are you saying you'd like to give up your children for those things? Or even that you think those things would compensate for not having children? Thought not. Do you not think we'd rather give up all those things in a heartbeat to have children?
"You're having IVF how exciting/you might have twins"
Statistically IVF is more likely to fail than it is to succeed so there's nothing exciting about it when the likely outcome is disappointment. It's not exciting, it's expensive, stressful and painful (emotionally and physically).
"When are you going to have children?"
It's not when, it's if and it's if the fucking ivf ever works
"It'll all be worth it in the end/when you have your baby"
A) it may never work and b) The struggle and £10s of thousands won't be worth it if it doesn't work and even if it does, we'd rather not have had to go through all the shit we've had to go through to get there and glib comments like "worth it", completely underestimate what we've been through.
"Have you thought about adopting?" Or "what will you do if it doesn't work?"
I don't bloody know. This is hard enough to think about and is one of the greatest fears of anyone involuntarily childless. It is even harder to talk about and I find it hard enough to talk about anyway, but glibly asking me about one of my biggest fears in all of this, is going to upset me and indicates that the person asking doesn't have a clue what we're going through.
"You could always just adopt".
What like you did? Thought not. There's nothing "just" about adopting either for potential adoptive parents or the child and using the word just totally ignores the significance and difficulty of adopting. Adoption has it's own issues.
"Will you have another round of ivf?"
We only found out this one failed a couple of hours ago. I need some time to pick myself up off the floor first. It's not just a case of cracking on with the next one-either financially, emotionally or physically.
"Have you tried......"
what ever this is, it's likely to either be something we've already tried, is not appropriate for us or some unproven woo. We've been to one of the best hospitals in the country for IVF and spent close to £50k so chances are we've already tried it or it's not appropriate. You also think that in the 4 years we've been trying, we haven't spent any time googling things and haven't thought of the thing that you've come up with off the top of your head.
And finally the trump comment, the fabled unicorn couple:
" I know of one couple, she had hardly any eggs, he had no sperm and only half a bollock, they were trying for 10 years, had 10/50/300 rounds of IVF, were told she'd never get pregnant, they gave up trying/went on the adoption list, then they went on holiday, just relaxed, got drunk and she just got pregnant naturally (with triplets)"
Ok I exaggerate slightly, but a variation on this theme. How is that going to help or make me feel any better? And while that's a nice (but mythical story), how is this in anyway relevant to me or our situation?
And there we have it, infertility bingo.