The Unspoken Struggle of Infertility

I'm sure we've all known someone in our life that has struggled with infertility and I don't think you truly understand how difficult it is until you've been there. It took me about a year to get pregnant and although that may only be a small amount of time compared to other woman; man does it go by slow. You're constantly waiting for the next cycle and each month good ol' aunt flow comes, you're a whole new level of pissed off each new month.

I was probably the first of my friends to try for a baby and within the time it took me to conceive, seven people I knew got pregnant. Each stupid Facebook accouncement drove me nuts, but the last announcement was the one that drove me to my breaking point. One of my best friends had just gotten married a few months prior and we went out for Mexican with a couple other friends. The 4 of us rode together and began having our usual gossip talk, what's new and other fun stuff. When we arrived at the restaurant one of our friends started badgering my good friend "have a drink? Why don't you have a drink? You love blue moon!" With a huge shit eating grin on her face. My friend burst out "I'm Pregnant!". I didn't even give myself a second to have a pity party for myself, I glance up to congratulate her, but before words come out of my mouth, I notice all 3 of them are staring at me, watching my reaction. I congratulate her and begun the 'how far along are you? What are you craving' talk and then I quickly begin to realize that I was the only person at the table who didn't know.


"Waiter? Please bring me your strongest margarita..."


We carried on with dinner, pregnancy talk, more gossip and how much my friend is going to miss drinking for the next 8 months or whatever. Other friend tells me "how scared she was to tell me" and I can't help but feel like I've been put on stage for everyone to gauge my emotions I hated that my emotions clouded my excitement for her. I truly was happy that she was pregnant, but I was more disappointed that my body was not doing what a woman's body should do.


I went home that night and cried to my husband and pretty much had my first panick attack. It got me thinking, how could this situation have been better for me? Was the end result going to be the same either way?

The best way to deal with someone who is having fertility struggles is to just talk to them. Make them feel special and have a one-on-one with them, maybe even lie and tell them you had to tell them "first". Deffinately don't avoid the conversation all together and let your ever growing belly do the talking. She might be fragile, but don't ever think she's too fragile to hear the news from you. And before you get all pissy pants that your sister-in-law or distant cousin didn't giving you the over the moon "congratulations!" ...stop and think that maybe she might be dealing with some infertility issues, herself. She might be acting cold right now, but she won't be once your precious baby makes their appearence.