Sensitive Post

Since we started our journey - or rather, rollercoaster of hell - through IVF, we have been hit with an unexpected baby boom.  I use the word 'unexpected' loosely, as after all, we are in our 30’s and our friends and peers are quite rightly, like ourselves, looking to the future and starting families of their own! I think 'unexpected' comes from the sheer scale of the "let’s have a baby" movement we have found ourselves wrapped up in. 

You start to think irrationally, such as, "What if the universe has a plan?" and "There are only so many babies meant to be born," and "One of these boomers has taken our slot - did they really want it as much as we do? Would they be willing to inject themselves night after night - go through humiliating and painful procedures like egg collections? Would they sacrifice holidays and new cars to pay to get pregnant?"  The answer of course, is yes.  I know any one of our friends and family would not only do this for themselves, but would do it ten times over if it helped us get pregnant! 

Announcements are hard! Don’t get me wrong - we’re used to seeing announcements; all you lovely Insta-warriors are posting daily, and I genuinely love nothing more than seeing the big 'sensitive' post picture.  For the record, I always swipe right.  You amazingly strong women and men give me hope that one day we will be posting a sensitive post of our own! But when it’s your friends and your family - it’s damn hard.  Someone asked me the other day, "what is the correct way to tell someone going through IVF that you are expecting?" The truth is, there is no right way.  It’s gunna hurt like f*ck and whether you tell them one-to-one, over the phone, in a room full of people or by text message, their response will be - fight or flight! 

Over the past year, we have hung up on siblings, cried with friends in public places and blatantly ignored the pregnant elephant in the room. This is not to say we are not happy for these people.  We are so happy, and usually, by the next day, we’re the lesbians buying baby converse for your unborn child; it’s what we do, it’s what we’ve always done.  But in that moment, when you break that news, our earth is shattering: our last failed cycle is running through our mind, we are trying to process.  We are jealous.  We are angry.  We are, for want of a better word, devastated. I can imagine that is not a nice feeling for the person delivering their happy news: they want you to be happy for them and they are, quite rightly, on cloud 9 and are probably thinking you're being a tad selfish and a bit 'me me me' about the whole thing. 

My honest advice and my preferred method of receiving an announcement, is probably an open-ended understanding text message, where you won’t be judged for not replying straight away.  It gives you time to compose your face and your thoughts, to have a bloody good cry and then respond to your loved ones "exciting news," without feeling like a shit and raining on their parade.

So - to all our friends and family, popping, popped and ready to drop - we love you; to all you IVF warriors getting your BFP's -  we salute you, and to all of you still fighting - we are with you and we support you!  And here’s hoping that one day soon, we will be able to post a sensitive post of our own.