trying to grok

HINDSIGHT

It's amazing how different everything looks in hindsight.

We tried for nine months to get pregnant, lost that baby, and tried six more months to get pregnant a second time.

That doesn't even sound like infertility, just substandard fertility. But it only feels like that in hindsight; it was agony to live through.

I read a few weeks ago a blog post at A Little Pregnant that hurt my heart. Readers were upset that Julie still dares to act like an infertility blog when she is pregnant with her second child. Nevermind that the first was the result of IVF and barely lived, and the second has been conceived with donor eggs. Clearly she doesn't understand how fragile some of her readers are and how it hurts them to be confronted by a pregnant infertile.

I only recently found the A Little Pregnant blog, and I do remember a twinge of irony: Geez, even the infertility bloggers are pregnant. But no matter how bummed I felt about my situation, I can't even compare myself to couples with Real Problems. Donor eggs? Ouch. How could anyone begrudge Julie her happiness? How could they think she hasn't suffered enough?

Shoot, looking back, I think I didn't even suffer enough. I feel almost embarrassed that I never made it into the fertility treatments, as if I broke the rules or something. I don't even rate when it comes to fertility woe.

But that's not how it felt while it was my reality.

I understand where these broken women are coming from. I have felt more anger and bitterness in the past year and a half than I thought I was capable of. I had to deal with a lot of ugliness in my personality.

But it's amazing how all of that washes away when you find happiness.

Washes away, but doesn't completely disappear. I will never forget what it felt like to dispair, to not get pregnant, to sob at night in bed because you just want to be like everyone else. And I will always empathize with people who are going through it.

As does Julie.

Posted by Sarah at May 13, 2008 10:04 PM | TrackBack