.... to be fed-up when people moan about not being about to conceive DC 2/3/4/5/6/whatever

[AuntieDoris]

... when I can't even manage to get pregnant with number 1?

I know it doesn't make any difference to me but it still unreasonably winds me up :(

I agree with Mrs Campbell Black, and the OP and Jodie and actually lots of you!

Primary Infertility is hell - and the worst bit is never knowing if you will ever get there. It took me 3 and a half years to conceive my one and only.

I have tried ever since (Feb 09) to conceive #2 to no avail.

To be honest - I personally have been just as sad this time as first time round - and this time has the added 'I can't believe this is still happening/happening again', isn't it bad enough to experience this once?' element.)

But stepping outside my situation, I can see that yes, clearly, trying and failing to conceive the first is the worst place to be.

My DS was a miracle, and maybe I've had my quote of miracles for one lifetime?

I hope those TTC#1 get what they want. No one who hasn't been there would ever understand. Most people can't really see beyond their own particular set of circumstances.

Banana - I really don't think thats the case at all and certainly not what I think.

Imemoo - I do get where you're coming from and agree we should all support each other.

And I'm guessing that in RL the OP just nods and goes along with whatever people say and people do make very insensitive comments about infertility and has just come on here to rant a bit.

This thread has led at least one established and supportive poster - who jolly well needs support too - to say she can't use the ttc threads anymore. I earnestly hope she will change her mind but come on people - surely everybody can agree that there is something seriously wrong with a thread that does that?

This is as bad as the thread a few years ago where an attempt was made to claim that widowed women 'had it easier' than divorced women. That led to some fantastic posters packing their bags too. Comparisons are meaningless, they hurt people and the more some of you cling to your conviction that there is a point here that you must be right in, the more harm is being done.

Yes Mrs X, we know you have 10 agonising painful miscarriage, and we know you had a ectopic that ruptured and you collasped and nearly died. Oh and we also had to remove you Fallopian tube thus reducing you chances of conceiving.

But you already have a child so stop fucking moaning!

working I am in a position to compare and I will do just that (based on my own experience alone).
I am unable to conceive DC 2,
I have DD (8). I was told that I would not be able to have a child but I did. The pain I feel not being able to have DC2 isn't the same as the pain I felt when I faced the prospect of having not having a child.
My close friend is unable to conceive DC1 and I believe her situation is far sadder than mine.

IMemoo nobody has said that. Nobody has said that at all. Stop saying things like that to stir up trouble. You're being very unfair.

Jodie - I'm happy to take my place in the queue behind you!

And I'm sorry I've swore, that's not usually me. I'm just immensely upset by this thread and the hurt it has caused.

I truly think we should draw a line under it and get it deleted.

Just for the record, I do truly hope that you all get what you are longing for. I do understand your pain, I've been there. I'm also living proof that no matter how bleak things seem just hang in there and it will happen

iMeMoo stop calling people heartless bastards or whatever it was please.

When I posted earlier I certainly didn't mean to offend or hurt people who had gone/are going through secondary infertility (Apologies if I did). In fact I meant to point out that I am sure the pain feels the same, but that there is a difference of some sort in having a child at all and not having one - not that it makes one win over the other or one pain less than the other! (Don't think I have explained this well, sorry).

I also find it weird that people are saying not to discuss this on an open forum. Should people suffering primary infertility be constricted to only talking about such things in private? Or secondary? No. Come on. Let's face it, no one wants to suffer any kind of infertility. Personally I think sufferers of either type should be able to have somewhere to discuss it openly.

We just have to recognise that sometimes people with secondary infertility might want to say 'Not having a second is killing me,' in their conversation, whilst elsewhere people with primary might want to say 'And I don't even have one child', simply to vent their grief and pain. If we say such discussions must happen in private (and how do you find people going through it if that's the case), then we're denying both sets of people.

Personally, if I wanted to talk about infertility I would go along to that section of the forum or wherever, and do my best to think about everyone who might be reading on the general threads. If I went to a thread specifically about primary infertility I'd do my best to appreciate what they were going through - same to a thread about secondary, I certainly wouldn't wander in and should 'you have a baby!' when I know they have gone their expressly to talk about it. If a thread is obviously going to raise issues I'm sensitive about, then I think twice about going in at all. (fwiw I never minded people with infertility of any sort expressing their pain about it, unless they were going on to threads specifically about primary infertility and telling them off for being bitter - which happened a lot on one forum)

In AIBU I'd try to bear in mind that all comers can read, but that it's not really a tip-toe-y around things kind of environment.

I'm going round in circles, so will shut up now. Mainly I just think it's ridiculous to say anyone suffering should only do so in private.

their/there error, argh!

And I am not trying to be hurtful Jodie, not at all... It just isn't apparent to me, though I do think like every hurt there is in life it will have its own terrible resonances that are not comparable to other pain. I know that we all do have a hierarchy of pain on some level.. I am going for an early scan tomorrow and if it is bad news, I will cry but it will pass and I will move on and if it isn't repeated it will just be a minor blip in my life as a woman.. my father may have cancer, and I will cry if he does, but if he dies it wouldn't be the same for me as if my dh did or if I lost a child..

How it must be when you are facing a fourteenth miscarriage, or a second stillbirth, or how it must be for women like a friend I have who have been trying for literally years with nothing to finally fall pregnant and have a missed miscarriage at a 12 week scan, or even how it is for my best friend who just never found the man of her dreams and found herself at 42 facing a life without kids.. I can totally see that this can't compare to other experiences I have had in my life and I am in awe that people survive these things, or other things that would haunt any of us - suicide, rape, murder of a loved one etc.

So it is not unreasonable to feel anything, or to be angry with anyone secretly, or to rage and burn at how bloody unfair life is and sometimes how much more it is unfair to some than others. And I will say, if it were me, and I suffered secondary infertility, I would be grateful for my son etc BUT I still think it is a fruitless comparison in many ways. I still feel that my son would not be a replacement for the child I couldn't have.. he is him and that child I want is unknown and wanted and their absence would really change the future, and those Christmases and pictures on the wall and all of that. And for me, yes, I can concede it is still different from this vantage point because I haven't had years of multiple miscarriages or seen a baby born sleeping etc... and that is what makes me uncomfortable. Because some people have.. and I don't think that it is easy to say that those experiences are lessened or okay because you have a child already? That they are less important?

I am sure no one means that on this thread, but that is what it seems like.. that if you have one child you are insulated from a particular degree of pain relating to infertility.. and I can see how this can be the case for some people but just as easily how it wouldn't be for others.

Sorry if I am being hamfisted about this. I really don't get it, sorry.

Mysterious, it's less that it's an open forum than it's THIS open forum. AIBU really doesn't fare well with sensitive stuff, regardless of what it is.. because it is by nature about "winning" the argument. And how can someone win this?

Thing is though it isn't a queuing system is it? It's just a seemingly random push and shove, like trying to get on the tube at rush hour and constantly finding yourself at the back.

Oh it's just all so shit.

Lissie and Auntie and anyone else upset by this thread I hope you're OK.

And I just wanted to take the chance to say to Northernlurker I'm sorry if any of my posts have offended because I really respect you and the constant support kind words and advice you give in the mc topic.

Thanks Jodie, I talk about my miscarriages and my ectopic and that's making a spectacle of myself? And you wonder why I think your nasty?!

working - but people aren't saying that the awful experiences you desrcibed in your third paragraph are lessened or 'okay' though, the opinion some on this thread are trying to say is that it is slightly different - but both are awful.

Tbh I think those with primary infertility are mostly venting about their pain more than trying to take it away from other people, even if it doesn't always come across like that.

I was in deep, dark despair when I was in that situation and my venting would've seemed like abject bitterness sometimes when really I was just trying to find a way to cope. And comprehending other people's pain was just too tall a task sometimes.

It's a really difficult topic to discuss.

That it is true, working.

Ultimately it boils down to: Infertility is shit, and sometimes it makes people lash out at one another. Because it's shit.

working I think you said it there for me when you said it's a fruitless comparison. Yes, I agree with that totally.
I think OP knows this too as She says in her OP that it all unreasonably winds her up.

And just to bring up another horrible debating subject, this is why I can't stand those discussions that say people with infertility should just 'get over it' because it's what nature intended or whatever - honestly, how are you supposed just get over something so massive, when our hormones are designed to make us want to carry on the human race! (obviously this affects some people more than others, but still...)

CS - Thanks for that, I'm not at all offended, just sad about this thread and the feelings that have come to light in it.