Entries wanted: Most idiotic advice from well meaning family/friends to ttc mumsnetters.

[SweetFudge]

I got one from my cousin just half an hour ago when we were speaking on the phone.

She said "Can I be frank with you? Why don't you just concentrate on getting on with your life and get a pet?"

This from a woman who spent years ohhing and ahhing over baby clothes in shops and telling us what she'd dress her babies in before she had her two kids recently.

I love her to bits but if someone had given me a stupid stick at that moment, I'd have crawled into the phone and smacked her with it.

Best entry gets a brand new electric cattle prod to poke at any future stupid "advice".

Great post, SweetFudge! Insemination does have a knack of bringing out the complete idiot in people. The follow-up to the charming, 'Why don't you just pick up a stranger in a pub' suggestion was me explaining that that was unlikely to work because it would be a one-off (alternative replies: 'Because I don't want to get raped/bashed/herpes', 'Because I happen to be in a monogamous relationship', 'Would you??'). Follow-up suggestion: 'Well, why not find a man at work and start a secret affair with him and keep going till you're pregnant'. My response: 'How would that be fair to me, my dp and the hypothetical man?'. Their response: 'Well, if you REALLY want a baby...'

What hurts is the sense that because I can't make a baby in the normal way, I've somehow become bizarre and unnatural and immune from normal feelings and sensitivities. Don't people realise that I would do anything in the world to be able to make a baby in the normal way with the person I love? No, presumably not.

I so agree with people on this thread who have kept it quiet from the start. I told too many people and have had to try to reel it in. I'm much more protective now of my privacy, since there's relatively few people who can be trusted to say the right things. Thank god for MN!

Heheehehee.... this is why this place is the best, because you are surrounded by people who can share your thoughts and concerns.
now when people ask me what about babies i tend to say may be will start thinking about it next year. It's none of their business, because unless you find sommeone else who have struggled through ttc, people don't really undertand the turmoil we go through.

initially we only told DH's family (mine's so big one whisper and the whole lot of them know) but in the end I rang my mum up so depressed about it, and DH didn't know how to calm me down - ( I told him nothing beats a hug from ur mum so he stuck a pillow up his jumper and said, right will this do?) any ways in the end he said, 'oh ring ur mum and tell her everything, maybe she'll have better ,luck with you, low and behold she did, and about 2 hrs after I rnag her, the whole family were on the phone giving me their advice..... note to self for future, don't tell anyone!

Surely everyone has been told about the couple they heard of that tried for years and years and then gave up trying and conceived immediately. That goes with the whole "just relax" and "stop worrying about it" lines.

Several people told us we were lucky that our mc came between our children rather than before our first (not ttc, I know, but just as annoying). Strange, cos lucky was never a word I attached to having my baby die!

not sure if this has been mentioned...but "it was for the best" when I lost DD twin at 12 weeks really still kills - how exactly is losing what had been seen over 7 scans to be a healthy and wanted baby after 3 years TTC and loads of tx be FOR THE BEST ffs?

Hi everyone- Thanks, Hester! I think you've got it right in describing how these throwaway comments are indicative of a misguided (and frankly unintelligent) view that those of us who have to do more than throw a coy look at our dhs/dps in order to conceive are desperate oddities who have lost focus on all other meaningful aspects of life.

The utter crassness of the comments ttc MNs have received is infuriating - "All for the best" after a m/c? Mancmum, I'm sorry you had to hear that from some unthinking individual. Similar to the gem I got after m/c.

Thank God for MN.

I had 'well it is very common' after my mc. Yes, so, death is universal ffs! I also had better then than later. Er sorry, don't see that much advantage tbh.

MancMum, you said it perfectly. The only context I don't mind being told that it was probably a defective embryo is if people think I might be blaming myself/thinking I could have done something that would have led to a different outcome.

But nine times out of ten, when people say 'It was all for the best because there would have been something wrong with it' what they mean is, 'You should be pleased! Just think, if you hadn't had this mc you would have had a defective baby!' And I want to scream back at them, 'I'm not saying I wanted to carry on being pregnant with a foetus that wasn't viable! I wanted to have a baby! And I'm not just mourning the miscarriage, I'm mourning that I didn't produce a viable embryo! Is that so hard to understand?'

Apparently, it is

I've just had to change my diet to wheat and dairy free and suffer from IBS. Just spent the w/e with my Mum who keeps telling met that she thinks my body is 'just sorting itself out' (whatever that means) and when it has I will get pregnant again!!!!!!!! Oh, and not to get depressed about it and how much they love the gd I have already given them!!! I do wonder about her sometimes? I am at a loss as to what to say to her really!!!