"How Many Years Have You Been Married?"

I’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately. I’ve been going to some conferences and networking events, and our office has recently expanded. There are a lot of first topics that people talk about to get to know someone. Mostly it revolves around work, career history, maybe a significant hobby, and sometimes if it’s obvious that there’s a spouse people will ask what they do. And sometimes one of my most dreaded questions arises, “so how many years have you been married?” This is a totally normal question to ask. It’s not one of those questions you shouldn’t ask people who don’t have children or you know are suffering from infertility. It’s really a part of everyday conversation. And yet for me it’s one of the scariest.

I love that my husband and I have been married for over 5 years now. I actually love saying how long we’ve been married. It’s the question that potentially comes after, that makes me all anxious. “Do you have kids?” The truth is, that most often, it’s not asked. But the potential of that question instills so much fear in me.

Focusing on our Husbands this Father's Day

When going through infertility, us women are pretty focused on what we're dealing with. Treatments can take over our lives. It's hard for us mentally, physically, financially. We're the ones who have to go to the clinic all the time. We have the painful tests to do. We get the phone calls from the clinic with either good news or bad news. We're at the front lines of war on infertility. There are constant triggers and reminders of what we cannot do. I swear, it doesn't matter what direction I look, everyone is pregnant. Or has a baby in a stroller. Even when I went to the bank this week to take cash out of the ATM, there was an ad for mortgages or something on the machine of a happy family with a toddler and the wife is pregnant. Even at the bank I'm reminded that I'm not a mom. And we get really caught up in it that sometimes we forget about the other half of Team Want To Be Parents.

When Someone You Love has a Baby

I really debated writing this post. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad through my blog, and this topic is a little bit touchy. After all, the purpose of this blog is help others going through infertility and those connected to us, and to also help me deal with what I’m going through. I believe that this what all women in my situation feel, so I’ll do my best. Don't worry, at the end I get all optimistic.

When dealing with infertility, our brains and hearts get a little mixed up sometimes. They communicate in this odd way, and send each other messages that often don’t make sense. Like dating in high school.

Taking a Break or Vacation

Summer is here!!! Ok, it’s cooler and rainier than I would like, but summer signals us to slow down a little, have a beer on a patio, and maybe even take a vacation. A lot of offices even switch to summer hours so that everyone can leave early on Fridays. I’m just excited to start camping again. For those going through infertility, planning a vacation can be impossible. But it’s important to try and get away, even for a long weekend.

Once a couple starts fertility treatments, it’s as if any option for going away comes to a halt. I’ll let you in on how the thinking works. It goes like this:

“Ok, so we’re starting IVF next week, that means 2 weeks of hell, egg retrieval, hopefully an embryo transfer, and then the 2 week wait. If we are pregnant (hopefully!), that means that we wait until there’s a heartbeat at week 6, which is 5 weeks after the embryo transfer. To be on the safe side, let’s wait until the 2nd week that there’s a heartbeat. Then maybe we can find some deal to get away for a week at some point. But this is assuming that all is going well and there are no complications. So let’s book for 9 weeks from now. But wait, if we’re not pregnant, are we going to do another cycle right away? We should probably wait a month for all the hormones to leave my system, so that’s a good time to go away, and that would be like, a few weeks from now. But in case we’re pregnant, I can’t ask for time off work now to book for a few weeks from now. So let’s wait for the results of the pregnancy test and then decide. But what if I am pregnant and not feeling well during the first trimester. This means we should wait until we know that I’m feeling well. But I’ll have to let work know at the beginning of my second trimester and what if they don’t let me go away on vacation knowing that I’ll soon be taking a lot of time off. But so many people go on “baby-moons” so it should be fine.”