“When are you going to have another baby?”
“You need to give your son a sibling!”
“Are you going to have more kids?”
All of these seemingly harmless comments I hear almost on a daily basis. Most people think, “It’s no big deal, I’ll just come right out and ask.” I know this because I’ve been that person. It wasn’t until infertility slapped me in the face that I realized, “Wow! I want to freak out on every single person who asks me those questions, including the younger version of myself.”
Infertility is a monster. Secondary infertility is the wicked step-sister. It took us eight months to get pregnant with our son, which isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. I took a pregnancy test the day I was to start taking fertility meds; much to my surprise, I was pregnant! It was the answer to our prayers and truly the absolute greatest blessing in my entire life. We now have a handsome, funny, stubborn almost-four-year-old who I love so much that it literally takes my breath away.
It’s now been two years since we started trying for number two. We want to give our son a brother or sister to grow up with, we want to add to our family, and we want those dirty diapers and sleepless nights. We started seeing a fertility specialist in March of this year. We’ve been through a slew of testing: blood work, procedures, ultrasounds, samples, the whole gambit. It’s always been known that I was the issue; I have PCOD and Endometriosis. I beat myself up on a daily basis because of it, and yes, I realize it’s not my fault. So far, we’ve been through two rounds of meds, trigger shots, and IUI’s, all of which have failed. To say it’s emotionally draining is an understatement.
All of that brings me to this point: those “harmless” questions that you ask, aren’t harmless at all. They suck the life out of me, they make me do everything in my power to hold back tears, they make me cringe. I know it comes from an innocent place, I know it’s unintentional; like I said, I used to be “that” person, too. I just ask that if you want to ask those type of questions, to take a step back and think before you do. Infertility is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting. I know I speak for a lot of women when I say that we already spend so much time beating ourselves up because our bodies don’t want to work properly. The last thing we want to do is feel like we have to explain ourselves to people who have absolutely no idea what we’re going through. What I really want is to be holding a precious baby in my arms, rocking them to sleep, singing lullabies, and seeing my son be an amazing big brother. Maybe one day…
