I'm going to preface this by saying that this is 100% my experience and 100% my opinion. This is an extremely sensitive subject for those of us who are TTC and we all handle these things in our own ways and none of those ways are wrong, no matter if someone disagrees with you. It can be one of the toughest obstacles for some and I don't want anyone passing judgement about how myself, or anyone else deals with this subject. Please be respectful!
I've been asked this question a few times via email so I thought that I would share a little bit about this. This is a sensitive subject for many of us who are TTC and I have a story of my own that I've never shared publicly about my reaction to a friend’s pregnancy announcement. I've wanted to share this story for a long time, and I feel like now is the time to do it, so here goes...
A couple of years ago after about a year and a half of actively trying to TTC before being treated by our RE, I had my first experience with a friends pregnancy. We were all out together at a local watering hole, it wasn't being announced like "everyone pay attention, we have a surprise", it was kind of just being casually said in small groups. Before I was "officially" told, my very close friend came up to me and told me what was happening as to kind of prepare me. Our situation was public knowledge by then, I had already started the blog and everyone knew what was going on with us. I feel as though, her pulling me aside to tell me, she was just trying to be the great friend that she is and protect my feelings which I appreciate. At this point in time I had not yet dealt with a pregnancy announcement while TTC.
To make a long story short, after my friend had whispered to me what I was about to hear out loud, I went into the bathroom to try and collect myself. Being at a bar and going out to dinner before, I had a few glasses of wine in me and was feeling extra sensitive since AF was on her way and we were dealing with another failed attempt. These are in no way excuses for my behavior; they were just the catalysts of my reaction. I came out of the bathroom, sat down at my bar stool, and started sobbing trying to hide myself from my friend who was about to tell a few of us that she was pregnant. I quickly grabbed my things and headed out the door to try to prevent her from seeing me and completely disregarding her happy news. Joe came out and decided to take me home for the night.
The next day I apologized via text. I wasn't sure that she had even seen me crying, but we had a conversation about it and I thought things were smoothed over. It was a pitiful apology on my part, but I just didn't know how to even deal with something like this. Months had gone by and I was researching more and more about infertility and started thinking that I needed to get serious about talking to my doctor. It was August and I hadn't spoken to this friend since the incident back in February. Without going into detail about it, I learned that she was still upset with me and read some things on my blog that upset her even more, nothing that I had said about her, just things that I had said about what I was sick of hearing people say to me about trying to get pregnant. I told her that I felt that we needed to talk in person and we did. Sitting down and talking we smoothed things over the best that we could. I felt as though she tried to understand my situation the best she could and I tried my best to be sincerely apologetic and explain to her what I was feeling. I am happy to say that she has been supportive of us on this journey we have been on and I'm very thankful for that!
This experience single handedly helped me learn how not to and how to react to other people’s pregnancies. First I had to accept that pregnancy announcements at my age are inevitable and there is no possible way to avoid them, even by deleting Facebook or Instagram, I would still encounter pregnant women. Even though my reaction to her news had nothing to do with her, and it was all about my anger and frustration at our situation, it still hurt her feelings that I was crying (in a bad way) about her news. I had to remember that if I was going to be upset about a pregnancy announcement, then I needed to do it somewhere else, not right in front of the person who is pregnant. I started becoming more active in the TTC community where I would see pregnancy announcements of people who were struggling with TTC just like we were and I found myself actually happy for these people who were fighting for their dream as hard as we were. I noticed how easy it was to be happy for someone that had really had to work as hard, if not harder than us to get pregnant. I try to look at it as a success story, inspiration, something that could one day happen for me because it happened for them! Eventually, being happy for anyone who got pregnant was no longer an issue. It’s feeling sincere happiness that took a long time and a hard lesson to really feel.
I’m not going to lie, my heart still sinks sometimes when I see a BFP, but I always remind myself that it should give me hope for my own future! That it is possible, and that it's a process and something that I will continue to learn and grow from every day. The other thing to remember, whether you’re infertile or not, is that all humans react and see things differently and that is something else that we need to respect. I’m sure there are TTC sisters out there who have no issues with being happy for others pregnancies, but I know there are TTC sisters out there who really have a hard time with it, with baby showers, with friends and family who are pregnant, with being around babies and kids in general and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s our right as humans to deal with life in different ways. I just hope that I can give some insight to those who are still struggling with this issue. You are not alone in your feelings towards this subject, it's one of the hardest challenges to overcome, but I think it's important to try to get ourselves to a place of genuine peace and happiness for others who are pregnant.
Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! All that we have on the books is brunch Sunday and lots of working on the house! I promised Joe I would spend lots of time painting the windows since I've really been slacking, wish me luck!