The childless couple gets all the pity invitations. “It’s Jilly’s first birthday party on Saturday but I’ll understand if you don’t want to come.” When you do attend the birthday parties, you and your partner sit at the singles table, making awkward small chat with never-been-married Aunt Ruth and the one other potentially infertile couple. Seeing all those babies makes you further depressed and you leave the party, feeling like you’re never going to get pregnant. Happy F&^#! first birthday, Melody.

Sigh.

You find you either get the pity invitation or you don’t get invited to the party at all. The infertile couple doesn’t get invited to the Halloween party, the kids Christmas party or the mommy get together held every Thursday. You watch from the bleachers as all your mommy friends take their kids together to the circus, kiddie concerts and the zoo. You aren’t invited but you get to hear all about it afterwards and then you are forced to ‘enjoy’ all those Facebook pictures in an album called “Here are all the parties you weren’t invited to.”

It’s so thoughtful that you were invited to all the pre-baby parties including the baby shower (as a host and guest on several occasions) and the “I’m pregnant and you’re not” dinners. Maybe you can return the favor and invite the fertile to your latest IUI party, “My follicles are growing in a test tube” celebration or “I just paid $10,000 for a failed cycle, blowout.”

Kids are welcome. Please no gifts, only alcohol.

photo: here

“I HATE YOU, SPERM!
GO AWAY, CERVIX!
LEAVE ME ALONE, UTERUS!”

There is nice, friendly and helpful cervical mucus and then there is its moody teenage rival, hostile cervical mucus. The only bodily liquid of its kind that hates everyone and everything. It’s not just mean and angry, this cervical mucus is downright hostile, killing anything that gets in its way. You would much rather have hostile saliva, angry snot or moody urine but no, they are all quite friendly and accommodating. They always do their jobs with grace and enthusiasm. You are just one of the lucky ones who happen to have hostile vaginal discharge. In the past when you had a one night stand, you would say to Mr. What’s his name, “Be gentle. It’s a hostile environment down there,” and your fertility doctor would tell you that “your cervical mucus is quite hostile. He keeps slapping my hand back.”

No wonder you can’t get pregnant. You have World War 3 vaginal discharge. Kill that sperm. Soldier down. Soldier down.

Well-meaning family members like to tell you “it will just happen. You will get pregnant. I just know it.”

Fantastic!

Finally, after years and years of trying, someone has the inside scoop! They “just know” that you’ll get pregnant. How did they find this out? Did the Fertility Gods tell them? Did your uterus drop by and share the exciting news? Did his semen analysis secretly confess the big announcement? Did the future swing by your parents house and only told your mother? Maybe Michael J. Fox went Back to the Future and only informed your Great Auntie Annie. It’s so great that they “just know” you will get pregnant. You and your partner don’t know, your fertility doctor is not so sure and even your fur child seems pretty skeptical. But it’s nice to know that someone else is certain you will conceive.

Maybe your uterus told their uterus and then this whole rumor started. Perhaps your biological clock came over and “tocked” about it. Maybe your embryos wrote a note on their bathroom door “Did you know so-and-so is going to get pregnant?”

It’s super fantastic they “know.” But how do they know and you don’t? And if they know, why can’t they tell you when?

photo: here

Sallie to Becky, Monday – “I’m doing an IVF cycle this month.”
Becky to Sallie, Wednesday – “How was your IVF? Are you pregnant yet?”

As soon as you tell someone you’re going through infertility treatments, they seem to ask you if you’re pregnant only a few days later. You tell a friend you are doing IVF, they ask you TWO days later how it went and if you’re pregnant yet. “Hey friend! IVF takes about a month or longer. It’s not just a one day procedure!” You have to take fertility drugs first and wait several weeks before the actual IVF procedure can occur. Hey friend! Sorry to disappoint but if we tell you we’re doing IVF this month, don’t call the next day and ask how it went! It hasn’t happened yet!

Friends (or fertiles) also seem to think that pregnancy works differently for the infertile gal. You always have to explain that you still have to wait two weeks following ovulation before you find out if you’re pregnant or not. You do not find out on the spot.

“I had an IUI this morning and guess what? The future pregnancy test already told me I was pregnant, and guess what, I already had the baby. It was a boy.”

Freezer Phobia: definition
description: phobia
1. a childhood fear of being stuck in a freezer as an embryo.

Your future children may have spent the first months of their pre-existence in a freezer. You seem to be allowed to freeze your embryos but the law says something very different about putting actual babies in a freezer. Strangely, they refer to that as ‘child abuse.’ When your future children get older, you can lovingly tell them how they started life in a freezer, right next to the ice cubes and beside your fertility nurse’s frozen lunch. Isn’t it your RE’s birthday next week? Stick that ice cream cake right next to your future frozen twins! Then, one special day, you can tell your babies how they were thawed out like yesterdays meatloaf and re-inserted into your uterus, freezer burn and all.

And don’t ever think of nagging them to dress warmer. Weren’t you the mother who once stuck them in the freezer? “Sally, You need to wear a warmer coat.” “Jessica, you’re going to freeze in that short skirt.” “Billy, you’re not leaving this house without a scarf and hat, young man!”

Thaw me, mommy. Thaw me!

photo: here