Limbo Land

It’s a situation we’ve all been in. The incredible torment you feel when you hear that a friend or acquaintance is pregnant, when you are filled with an envy so painful it might start oozing out your pores. I know how to deny my feelings, smile, and pass along my congratulations.

I don’t know how it feels to be on the other side … to announce a pregnancy, unknowing that the person I’m directing my news at is experiencing infertility. There are so many of us out there, I’m sure it will happen. Actually, I take that back … it has happened. Another young woman in my group at church is having difficulty, at what level, I’m not sure. She congratulated me earlier this week, and I could see the wistfulness that I know so well. I still feel it myself. She said she was going to really start in on treatment now, and without asking for details, I told her I’d be happy to help in any way I could.

I’ve talked a lot to others about our issues, with the hopes that people would talk back. Infertility simply isn’t a subject most people are comfortable discussing. But it should be okay … just like talking about any other medical condition that may be central in your life. It requires as much treatment, or more, than many other diseases, and becomes so central in life, so emotional, as well as physical. There shouldn’t be shame, there shouldn’t be bashfulness. So many women have reached out to me, both infertiles and regular folks. I hope, with all my heart, that I can be as helpful to just one woman out there.

I have many sisters-in-law. Numbers One & Two don’t have problems conceiving and all, but Number Three and I share some similar circumstances. She’s done a few IVFs, many years ago, and has one child. I think she might do another soon.

SIL Number One just told me how hard it was to knock on SIL Number Three’s door and announce her second pregnancy. How she cried and cried when sharing her good news. I wonder if it got easier when she had her third and fourth? This is a woman who I’ve always thought to be so strong and infallible, and the fact that making this announcement to an infertile was hard for her, shows me a whole different side. She also told me that SIL Number Two was very, very nervous about how to tell me of her recent pregnancy. We haven’t really talked about it, but I did send her a note, telling her how pleased I was for her, but too excuse me for a bit, because good news can hurt, too.

I wonder, how will I feel when people assume that I got pregnant like most everyone else? You know, the easy way? Will I shout out “People! This was the product of careful calculation, measured dosages, and exacting timing; not of a bottle of wine under the stars!” ? Will I exhibit Tourette’s like symptoms, blurting out rapid fire statements? “IVF!” “Bad Sperm!” “Petri Dish!”

Women are comfortable asking about the details of conception, when they ask “Were you trying long?” I hope that I won’t cower and cave in, that can answer honestly and with enough information to perhaps open people’s eyes to what I, and so many women and men, deal with.

Where is this going, you may wonder?

I feel weird about being pregnant. I feel odd that I got so lucky. Because much of it is luck, I feel. Did I pay my dues? Why me and not some other deserving person whose been after this elusive goal so much longer? As has been discussed over here, I feel some “survivor’s guilt.” I’ve never felt shameful about our infertility, although I know J. has.

But I feel a little bit of shame, in this community, that IVF worked. I’m feeling caught in a limbo of sorts … where do I belong?