"If I am lucky enough to have a baby, I will never ..."

[CatnipMouse]

What promises have you made to yourself about how you will or won't behave, if bastard infertility goes away and you actually have a pregnancy / baby / toddler / small child? What have you seen from other parents that made you think 'you don't know how lucky you are, I will never do that!"

Ranting or lighthearted or unrepentently judgey, it's OK, and don't worry no-one here will hold you to them!

I'll start - if I am lucky enough to have a child I will never call it a fucking shitbag, especially if it is behaving well at the time, like a mum did last week during a flight I was on.

And - if I am lucky enough to have a baby, I will never say to anyone who has no kids "oh you should really crack on with it, especially at your age you know, ha ha!"

One more: if I am lucky enough to have a baby, I will not complain about night feeds / sore boobs / lack of sleep to people that I know are struggling with fertility or miscarriages (and if I am stupid enough to do that I will not be offended by the massive FUCK RIGHT OFF that comes my way!)

Totally agree with your pledges! In particular, even if I'm REALLY suffering, I will never complain about lack of sleep.

I will never ask other couples when they are planning on having babies.

I will never post new baby photos all over Facebook. Or even scan photos for that matter.

I will never take 5 weeks to name my baby like a woman at work did. Hell, we've got longer to think of names than most!

I will never say things like 'I'm aiming for my second child to be born in June' or 'I'm going to make sure that there are two years between my children' (that's if I get even luckier and have a chance at having a second child!)

Hmmm....

I will never say to someone who's struggling to conceive anything blasé or fuckwitty. Unless it happens to someone who said something shitty to me in which case "I'm sure it'll happen when you least expect it. When you're not even thinking about it!!!" And then eat a fat slice of Brie and down a glass of red wine and a pint of prawns.

See, I worry that never wanting to complain about anything baby-related puts a lot of pressure on yourself. If I remember rightly, there's evidence that parents who go on to have a baby after infertility can experience problems for exactly this reason - because they feel like they've gone through so much that now Everything! Has! To! Be! Wonderful! and struggle to reconcile that with the very real physical and mental demands of pregnancy, birth and parenting. So, although I definitely agree that it's important to ensure you don't do any complaining if/when it would be hurtful to others, I personally will be quite happy to have a moan occasionally at such times as I'm not feeling wonderful, if I'm ever lucky enough to be successful.

Ah no, I'm sure that if things work out for me I will have a moan and a whine and a cry when things are tough and I'm not daft enough to think I will be the perfect parent! I just won't complain about it to people who I know (or suspect) are trying to have a child.

Ha icy I read that as a pint of red wine. I could totally murder a pint of wine right now. Can't though as am off the sauce in prep for next ivf cycle :0(

....I will never forget how it feels to be infertile and desperate for a baby of my own.

...I would never give unsolicited advice to people trying to get pregnant.

...I will never do that smug 'you'd understand if you had children' thing.

I will not insist on taking my child on lunch dates with friends who do not have children. Not everyone wants to hang out with your child!

I will never announce my pregnancy on Facebook or upload scan photos

I will never ever have a pregnancy photo shoot

I will never allow this experience of infertility to put pressure and unrealistic expectations on me as a first time parent.

I will never allow this experience of infertility to put pressure and unrealistic expectations on my child

I totally agree with most of these!

I will never make a massive deal and song and a dance about having a child free night/week/weekend. If I am ever lucky enough I'm away so much with work I may even give up my job so I can actually see this child I've been trying for over 2 years for!

I will never flippantly offer a family member who is suffering infertility to take the "nightmare 3 year old" off our hands so we can get some sleep! Bloody discipline that child properly and she will understand!

I won't blame everyone else around me for my child's bad behaviour!

I will totally understand if certain friends can't be around me or even talk to me when I am pregnant or have my baby. However I would make an effort to meet friends in this position (without baby) and ask if they want/need to talk!

I absolutely will never spend the 9 months of pregnancy updating FB with every whinge about aches and pains or every kick! I wonder how many of my FB friends are going through this at the minute probably not many as practically everyone I know has popped out a child or 2

Can you tell I'm surrounded by parents and kids? Ha!

I will not tell people without children they have things so easy because they only have themselves to think about.

I will not ask people if their husband might leave them because they haven't had a baby.

I will remember that if there is someone in the group without children it might be courteous to occasionally talk about something other than which type of nappy is best.

I will never say "why don't you just adopt?" If I am pregnant and feeling fed up I will absolutely never text my infertile friend saying you are so lucky you never have to go through this and I'm adopting my next one.

I won't bang on about how being a mother "completes me".

I won't tell my dil to hurry up and start trying for a baby and shower her with fertility statistics as if we had absolutely no idea at all (despite her being a qualified bloody doctor). I definitely won't offer to help with moving costs only if the house has more bedrooms...

Sometimes people are just shit. There is no other word for it.

This is a very interesting post- I agree with all of the comments! I'm kind of on both sides of this fence because I battled with infertility and got lucky with ivf. I now have a ds.

However I will never forget the infertility journey and the Inane comments from other people. Actually the comments continue and still hurt afterwards- eg all of my Nct friends are talking non stop about "baby no 2" and one in particular told me last week that she's planning on getting pregnant "in June". People are ignorant and have no idea how lucky they are just to have one child, never mind planning the exact birth month of second children! I'm also enduring a lot of comments myself about "when" we will have baby no 2, which aren't easy to handle either.

However, I also agree with the comment above- the early days have been incredibly hard- even after doing ivf - BUT I think the point the original poster was making is that it's important to never complain to someone who is struggling/you suspect is struggling, if you are Lucky enough to have success yourself, which I completely agree with!

"I will not ask people if their husband might leave them because they haven't had a baby." Fuck me, someone actually said that to you? What on earth did you say in reply to that?! You've got some other jawdropping ones there purpledaisies but that stands out

"I will never allow this experience of infertility to put pressure and unrealistic expectations on my child" that's a bloody good point, I will need to watch out for that I think lugo

"I think the point the original poster was making is that it's important to never complain to someone who is struggling/you suspect is struggling, if you are lucky enough to have success yourself, which I completely agree with!" yes that's exactly it - everyone needs to have a whinge sometime and that's fine but FFS some people need to have a think about who they are complaining to.

Yes-our problem is all me. A friend asked since I'd said before we got married that we wanted kids and now that wasn't going to happen was I worried that dh would want to look elsewhere. I said of course I wasn't, just as if it had been him with the problem I wouldn't even have considered trading him in for a fully working model. Til death do us part is what we said and that's it. She looked embarrassed and said she hadn't meant it like that but I still can't see how that question ever comes across well. She can be a bit blunt at times and not intentionally hurtful but we've stayed off the subject ever since.

Yeah that's an awful thing to ask!

I will never arrange a team meeting to "announce" the sex of my baby and make my poor team mate who is undergoing ivf (me- I had told her about this before she arranged the meeting, so ignorance was not an excuse) attend the meeting and vote in a poll on what the sex might be!

Some of these are unbelievable - to all of you.

I have one too: I will never, whilst sporting a six-month pregnant belly, say to someone whom I know has suffered pregnancy loss "you can't imagine how awful my first scan was....they couldn't find a heartbeat". Well, yes I can actually. And yes, I did say that to her.

I'll never post those awful things on Facebook that say you've never known real love until you've felt the love for your child. Thanks for reminding me I've clearly never known real love and may never do then.

I'll never say to my infertile friend 'Well maybe you're just not meant to have children'. Nope, I'm a terrible person and clearly shouldn't have a child, but good to know that God deemed you worthy of reproducing.

I'll never say "Oh count yourself lucky, at least you can go on holiday whenever you want. I'd kill for some time away from my kids sometimes"...

And, when my infertile friend tells me that her latest scan revealed that her endometrioma had returned, I would never say "Oh, that's just like when I had my scan and I saw the first photos of my baby!". Yep, seeing my massive cyst on the screen must have felt just like that.

Wow. Some people are so thoughtless. x

The sheer crassness of some people is unbelievable. to all those on the receiving end.