No more help

Life is not fair. I think all of those going through infertility crap know this lesson all to well. I have this thought at least several times a day as I take care of kids whose parents seem very unfit to parent yet they already have 3 plus 1 more on the way. Well today's unfairness rant comes not from a patient but rather from a friend - a fucking fertile friend.

About 2 months ago we received an e-mail from a friend of ours who lives in another state. This is a friend whom we had not heard from in a while so she was catching us up on her life. In her e-mail she boldly proclaimed, "I will be pregnant in 6 weeks". HAHAHA - we laughed so hard and thought how nice it must be to be that stupid and naive. Upon further questioning, it turns out that she and her partner hadn't even set up their account with the cryobank. So we (well mostly R, as this is really her friend), spent countless hours on the phone and via e-mail educating this friend on all things related to trying to conceive. We gave her realistic expectations about her percentages and the such. We held her hand through the whole fucking process. And how are we repaid for our knowledge??? With a text page regarding 4, that's right 4 fucking positive pregnancy tests.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't wish all this infertility crap on anyone else. By no means am I proud of the bitter woman I've become. However I firmly believe no one should get pregnant on their first try. Seeing your menstrual period and experiencing that disappointment once is all that I'm asking for. I think it keeps you humble and lets you know that you don't really have any control in this. Certainly not the level of control that is implied with statements such as "I will be pregnant in 6 weeks".

And really, even though her betas aren't until next week, I'm sure she'll have a perfect pregnancy - all 40 weeks of it. Not 9 weeks, 3 days of it like my first pregnancy. Or not a fist full of positive pregnancy tests only to have the blood work confirm that it's only a chemical pregnancy like my second pregnancy. No, the fertility gods don't work that way. The blissfully ignorant will have a healthy pregnancy. The women who put pregnancy tickers on their message board posts at 3weeks5days will go on to have some 10 lbs. baby. But those of us who study the toilet paper every time we wipe to ensure that we're not spotting during our pregnancy - well we're the ones whose babies will die in our uterus without so much a drop of blood, leaving us walking around carrying a dead baby in our uterus for days to weeks.

So R and I have decided on a new policy. We will no longer serve as your infertility or trying to conceive counselors. We have many friends and acquaintances who call us for this information. Usually we have gladly walked them through the entire process (except for one acquaintance who we don't think will make a good parent, so we kind of blew her off - let her figure it out on her own). I'm tired of people stealing our fertility. Karma is just crap. We've been through too much while still being nice to everyone else. It hasn't come back around yet, so fuck it. Everyone is on their own.