two more days

While Dan was out seeing King Kong, I got the tell tale ovulation pains (whew!). At 3:45 am, he came home in a daze and told me that it made him cry and "King Kong taught me how to treata lady."
"How do you treat a lady, Dan?"
"If anything bothers her or makes her unhappy, just knock it down and tear it apart."
since then that big gorilla is all he can talk about. I am a little afraid for my students today because they are really bothering me and making me unhappy this week. For those of you who don't know, Dan's job is basically to be an outside behavioral support to the classrooms. (removed some sentences about students) Two more days, people. TWO MORE DAYS!!!!!

Yesterday was Dan's birthday and I feel kind of bad that it wasn't more exciting, but we were both EXHAUSTED and my cold has come back with a vengeance. Yesterday did seem to be the day of correspondence, though. Face-slapping, send you reeling communications from friends and relatives. Two very nice birthday cards for Dan, three fertile families worth of photo Christmas cards with the smiling, beautiful children, one invitation to a baby shower in one week, and one phone call that really hit me in the gut.

Our friend JJ, who we visited in Los Angeles last summer, is eight weeks pregnant. Its good news. They will be wonderful parents, and totally deserve all of our congratulations. Since we've been trying, we've seen LOTS of people get pregnant and have babies, but this one really hits hard. She was one of the few real life people I confided in about what we've been through. When we were in L.A., I was taking my last round of Clomid. She shared that earlier last spring she had an early miscarriage, which was "right" because they weren't really ready yet. She told me (in summary) to just relax, it will happen. She knew we would get pregnant. So she calls yesterday and two months after "not really trying, just throwing away all birth control," she got pregnant. And I am not. So, she was wrong. Maybe it won't happen. The funny thing is, there seems to be a rash of pregnancies on infertility blogs I read  and I couldn't be more thrilled for these people. Why is it that I am such a selfish, petty person to this living, breathing wonderful flesh and blood friend? Oh, I am just SO JEALOUS!!! And a little hurt. Because she didn't even acknowledge that this might be hard for us to hear. But, how would she know? She has no idea what it's like to be infertile.

I guess what I am so jealous of is not so much the pregnancy but the fact that she is basically anxiety free. That to her the whole thing just seems like an easy, natural process. I, and the whole community of people out there who have dealt with infertility will never be able to be anxiety free about this process again. Wherever any of us are on this road to mommyhood, we will never be innocent again. My friend is one of the kindest people there is and had no intention of hurting us. I think that in her innocence, she honestly had no idea it WOULD hurt.

Comments

[MsPrufrock]

My take on all of this is that fertiles have no capacity to understand how difficult infertility is. Some of them manage to deal with infertiles with aplomb, whereas others muck it up royally.

Though it's not fair, I view it as a guilt by association situation with pregnant fertiles. Though I may love and adore you, if you're a pregnant fertile, I will be resentful and jealous. How could I not be? However, it's much more acceptable when infertiles get pregnant because I am acutely aware of what they've gone through to get to that point. That is not to say that I never got a bit jealous of pregnant infertiles, but as I've gone into great length about this on my blog I'll leave it at that.

Final note - the reason infertiles, pregnant or not, help maintain your sanity is that they will never tell you to "Just relax".

[Amanda]

Hey, yesterday was my Dan's bday, too. How funny. And yeah, the fertiles will never get it. It must be nice to be so innocent.

[korin]

You should seriously just relax. That's how I got pregnant! Oh wait... no... it was IVF and a fuckpot of money ;)
I agree with Pru... most fertiles just have no clue. So by default, unless they are well informed (by a swift kick in the ass) they say stupid shit. I haven't ever felt the green horned monster of envy when another infertile got pregnant, but then again, I got lucky the first IVF. I may feel different if I had done it a million times or had a history of loss. i never felt jealous... but i will say that more than once i wished it was me. Is that the same thing? who knows.
I do have an infertile friend that seems to be more irritated when infertiles get pregnant than fertiles. Now, that I really don't get at all. But, I think it's just her.

And even though i have found the holy grail and am currently pregnant, I still have serious pangs of jealousy when someone says "we only had sex twice and now i'm pregnant!" or some such crap. Cause I'll never ever ever know what that is like. Ever.

[DD]

You know what gets me the most about the recent rash of pregnant infertiles? I'm afraid the cash cow will fizzle and I will be one of the many who an ART cycle DIDN'T work for. It seems to be the topic in so many blogs lately, I know it just can't continue...

[Joie]

Korin, I don't really understand your friend who is more jealous of infertiles. I feel like we are all a team...the "special olympics" of fertility. I just want everyone on my "team" to reach that finish line, however slow and hobbly they get there. But, maybe she feels abandoned by her "team" when they get pregnant. I know there was a time when I was just starting out in this online community where I had mixed feelings about possibly getting pregnant right away...like I was betraying the rest. I have SOO gotten over that!