Chapter 5

This chapter is all about the fact that "If Everyone Else Can Do This, Why Can't I?". It talks about feeling left out when so many people around you are getting pregnant. The authors break it down into several factors that affect your self esteem when dealing with infertility.

One of these is the thought that getting pregnant is easy. Three years ago thats what I thought too. You hear stories of women that dont know they are pregnant until they give birth or the women that say they only have to think about being pg to actually be pg. Just like everyone going through infertility I always ask myself the question "Why us?". Why can this be as easy for us. A girl at my work is pg, she got pg on her first month, no problems. I came home and told L 'Hey guess what? It really is easy for some people to get pregnant. It really does work like on tv for some people'. Unfortunately not for us. There is also the myth that treatment = success. Isnt this a false one. For us it has been 2 failed IUIs and I know that for some couple out there there have been countless failed cycles. It would be so easy for all of us if treatments yielded 100% success. Although it would still su.ck to have to go through them, we would just do it with a lighter heart because we knew success would be our but we all know thats not the way it works.

The one about cultural myths hit me hard. I am hispanic and L is part italian. Being a childfree household is not the norm in our cultures. These are two cultures that are notorious for having large families. L has 6 aunts/uncles on his mothers side alone with each of these having at least 2 kids each. I have many many aunts/uncles on my side each with at least 2 kids each and these kids also have their own kids. We always grew up with the idea of children because that is what we know and that is what our dreams are.

Another thing the author points out is the changes we make in ourselves and our lifes to prepare for children and then not having those children. This so describes me. When we first got married I was in retail management. Knowing that we would want children one day and this wasnt a family friendly industry I moved to the nonprofit industry and have been there for the past 3 years because 'when we have kids this schedule can be flexible'. The non profit industry is great and I love it but the pay su.cks. So now I am at a cross roads, do I change to a more challenging/better paying job or do I stay at this job that offers great flexibility and lots of time off. For a baby I would gladly give up the first but staying at the second and not having a baby is frustrating.

The chapter also talks about guilt. Am I being punished for something I did in the past? I struggled with this more in the first couple years than I do now. I had the thoughts that maybe God was punishing me for something I had done/not done. Then I got to the realization that the God I believe in wouldnt use babies as rewards. Even with this realization its still hard not to think of the guilt that actions from your past are coming back to haunt you. Doesnt the saying go "what comes around goes around".

Secrecy. With infertility comes this new volume level, most people around infertility start talking in whispers. Nobody wants to talk about it because we dont want the scarlet I that society can put on people. Although I am more vocal about it, its still hard because most people arent comfortable when caught in this kind of conversation. So people need to watch out when asking me the dreaded "when are you having kids" questions because depending on my mood I will give you the standard "we'll see" or "well if you really want to know, we are infertile and have been trying for 3 years and our problems include ....".

The chapter ends with healing your self esteem. It is necessary to focus on your talents. Put infertility in a box so that it doesnt take over your life. Remember your strengths, celebrate the good in your life that your self esteem will slowly recover from these blows of infertility.

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