A fellow Bumpie posted this graphic to the board, so I just had to steal it. You would think that after three years (almost exactly, actually) of TTC, the bad advice and questions would end, but they don't. It is amazing to me that people will offer support and advice about a medical condition that they do not understand, but the comments are pretty constant.
A lot of people assume that since they were able to get pregnant, they must have some knowledge that I don't have that they must share. Some of them even had difficulty getting pregnant and even had to wait as much as six months (Shock! Horror!) to conceive. It seems pretty apparent to me that getting pregnant, or at least the process anyway, is pretty easy. Heck, sixteen year-olds are doing it everyday! When it isn't so easy, it certainly is not due to a lack of knowledge.
And if I hear about stress one more time, I am going to scream. While stress may delay conception or make it more difficult, that does not mean that it is the be-all and end-all of infertility. Women in war-torn countries with virtually no food or shelter are getting pregnant, so obviously the stress component is a little over-emphasized. I find it difficult to believe that a person living in a well-kept home in suburban Philadelphia with summers off and a low-stress job, particularly someone as cool-headed as me, could have so much continuous stress for three years that a vacation will "do the trick." For the record, I have been on four vacations with C since 2009, and here I am, still childless.
Back to my previous branch of ranting, I do not understand why people think that if they were able to get pregnant successfully, even if there were setbacks, that it somehow makes them qualified to give medical or lifestyle advice for me. Suppose I were to find out that a friend of mine has been diagnosed with Type II diabetes. This diagnosis is related in many ways to lifestyle choices, much more so than infertility. I have managed to avoid this problem for my whole life. Does that make me equipped to give them medical or lifestyle advice? Absolutely not. Just because my body is able to avoid a medical condition that their body was not does not in any way give me knowledge that they do not have. Even though they have not yet identified whatever medical problem is causing my infertility, it is still a diagnosis with apparent symptoms (BFNs) that has sustained itself for three years. How is this different?
Whatsmore, several of the people making these suggestions are otherwise educated and sensitive people who should really know better. When one of my colleagues with five children made a comment about relaxing, I brushed it off because, frankly, she's older and she's an idiot. But when my own family are wondering if there is anything I have done wrong, or if a vacation would help us "de-stress," I feel simultaneous hurt and anger. Are you suggesting that I am wasting money and an RE's time because I'm not really infertile? Are you suggesting that I don't know how to count, read a calendar or have sex correctly? What exactly are you saying?
And please don't give me advice about things to try. I have been under the care of an RE for over a year-and-a-half. I am also intelligent and well-informed and have done my own research about what I can do to improve my situation. Do you really think that you have some information that I or my doctors don't have?
In the end, I think a lot of people just don't know what to say, so they fill in the silence with blather. I have heard from people with certain chronic illnesses that people do the same thing to them. Infertility is particularly difficult because so many people think they know more than they do because so many people have children. That's why part of me would like to wear this infographic as a t-shirt so that people know that yes, I have tried things, and it really isn't that simple.
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