hello. a fellow infertility struggler manda linked to this on her site. i feel i should do the same. what not to say to an infertile couple. even if you think you’re being kind and sensitive, some things come out wrong, or are at least received wrong!!!!!!!
i found out the pregnant woman who works in the infant room (next door to me in the toddler room) tried a whole year before she got pregnant. wow. i never knew. i just thought it just happened. sometimes i get so caught up in myself i forget that i’m not the only one who has the problem of infertility.
manda also had a few questions that i’d like to answer – replying to people’s insensitive (or just plain ignorant) comments.
1. “I wouldn’t give up my twenties for ANYTHING. I can’t believe you are stressing about infertility at 25 (a few years ago)! What if God wants you to wait until you are twenty-eight?”
first of all, i have always wanted to be a mother. i wanted to begin my family when we first got married. for a while after we COULDN’t get pregnant, i thought God was punishing us for not trusting in Him to plan our family. i have since reconciled this. anyway, children are blessings from the Lord. why would i not want to be blessed????
2. “Be glad you don’t have kids right now. Kids can be such MONSTERS.” or “You’ll never want kids again, after watching mine.” or this is what i get all the time: “You can have my kids if you want some so badly.”
as if kids are always perfect, and i should expect perfection. no, kids are humans, just like us. and NO i don’t want YOUR child, i want MY child, from an infant, to love and teach as i want him to be raised!
3. “If you stop trying, you’ll get pregnant right away.”
that is NOT how infertility works!!!! trying too hard causes stress, which can’t help, but it won’t change infertility. infertility is just like cancer or a sickness – it has to be treated, not ignored!!
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well enough of that for now. i need to be going.
God’s blessings unto you,
jenn
