Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I guess this is really real.

This is first and foremost, an infertility blog.  I started blogging to help process the struggle of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant and in the process found this amazing, huge, community.

Throughout these months, there have come and gone waves of discussion about what happens when infertility bloggers who are trying to conceive become pregnant bloggers.  I don't want to get into that side of the issue, but I want to examine a bit about what makes us different.  It's pretty cool that there are many infertility bloggers who are pregnant right now so I've been able to watch how everyone has processed it.

First, no one seems to fully engross themselves in their pregnancy.  Everyone is happy and relieved to "finally" be pregnant, but at the same time there's this sense of waiting to see when the other shoe will drop.  When will this end and go back to the miserable, unhappy time before?

Now, many of us are entering the second trimester and I'm seeing a shift.  Many of us are starting to believe that "maybe" this is real.  Quotation marks because we'll be silently waiting for viability and then counting each week past that toward full-term.

For me, it's all about my belly.  My belly is real.  I look like an obvious pregnant lady.  I'm not so self-conscious about how I look, but I am self-conscious about everyone in the public knowing that I'm pregnant.  This whole struggle has pretty much been invisible, but now, the evidence is on the outside.

And I still don't really believe it's real.  I'm getting there.  I'm thinking about the future and names and nurseries, but I'm not willing to actually get started and buy anything.  I'm still somewhat scared that it will all end in disappointment.  So there's a weird dichotomy between the physical public evidence of my belly and the truth and struggle and fear that this long journey has engendered.

Another part of it is that everyone looking at me will just think I'm just like every other pregnant lady.  But I'm not.  I'm scarred from the process and I don't want what I've been through minimized by people looking at me and asking seemingly innocuous questions.  But I'm not going to explain what I've been through to each stranger.  And I'm not going to be upset by their comments either, because I fully expect them and know they will be good-natured.  I just feel exposed now and it's weird!

I'm going public on Facebook next week.  I'm due mid-January and I've already seen announcements for March!  I'm kind of excited, but I also kind of wish I could just wait until the baby is born to actually tell people.  Does that make any sense?

How is everyone else processing their pregnancies after infertility?


27 comments:

  1. I didn't announce on FB until he was born. If you saw me in person, you found out. (although my dad told aunts/uncles etc over the phone)

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  2. It's tough! I'm so grateful and thankful to be 16 weeks pregnant with twins after our 2nd FET and two failed cycles, but infertility is always in the back of my mind. It wasn't until we hit the second trimester that I've truly been able to relax and enjoy being pregnant :) I'm so excited for you too!!

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  3. Hi! I love this post. It's so true, isn't it? Going through all of the years unhappy - always being the infertile one, etc. etc. (I don't need to get into all the self-sabotaging, negative things we say to ourselves when we are in "can't have a baby" mode).

    My husband and I have decided to adopt, and we are seeing this same shift within ourselves. Fearful of moving towards the "wow, we're having a baby soon!", b/c it's like we don't even know how to be hopeful anymore. But hope is re-emerging. It's such a great space to be in ... feeling like there is light at the end of the tunnel and after all this struggle, we actually are going to have a little baby in our arms, our home, our lives!

    I just am so happy to feel happy again - and to know that the joy we will have for our little one can never be matched by someone who didn't know the pain of not having it.

    Congrats on hoping again! This really is happening for you!

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  4. I'm a bit further along then you (15 weeks). Not planning on announcing on FB at all, maybe a birth announcement and one or two pics. Personally, I hated FB pregnancy updates while I was struggling and I don't want to become part of that to any on-lookers who might be struggling themselves. Also, my pregnancy feels very private- really just between me and my husband, I get annoyed when family members tell us what "they want" in terms of genders or names (though I forgive them because I know it is 100% normal) and I am not into the "public consumption" that is the nature of Facebook. When I do post a baby shot, I will make a shout-out to everyone out there still struggling towards parenthood.

    I am planning on sending email updates to people who want them. That can include a pic every so often, as I live abroad and none of my family or friends will see my belly in person. I've already sent out some emails to choice folks letting them know when I hit 12 weeks.

    I got an email from a friend after that email who had a baby last year. In MY email to her, I expressed my fears (I'm having twins) and that I've been a bit traumatized by everything (IVF, OHSS). Her response including pat advice including that she's sure all my fears won't really happen etc and "tips" as she now likes to offer advice to other pregnant friends. I know she meant well but I found it completely misguided and totally unaware of A. my pregnancy is different from hers because of IF and B. My pregnancy fears (early delivery, NICU etc) very well might "come true" because of the twins. Simply put, I am just not interested in advice from moms of singletons who got pregnant the first month after BCP (she did). I just can't. It's like we are from different worlds. It's confusing though. Part of me wants to be a "normal" pregnancy, treated like that by, say, the lady at the baby store, but in terms of people I care about, I really need them to acknowledge my journey.

    Anyway, sorry for the ramble.

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  5. A great post! I've also noticed the changes in blogger's confidence as they move into the 2nd trimester. And as for your question of how I've processed pregnancy... well, I'm no where near up that yet. I'm only 9dp5dt on my first IVF and tomorrow is the BETA day, so my answer is "watch this space'!

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  6. I also skipped a facebook announcement. Im too broken to pretend allthe announcements I've read havent hurt and facebook isn't the right place to share the painful path its been to get here.

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  7. Poorly? I don't know. I waffle between excitement and fear many times per day. I hope that as things move forward (you having overcome a reduction, and me hopefully with no more bleeding) that we both are able to embrace the happy parts of pregnancy more and more. Only 6 more months!

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  8. It hasn't really hit me yet. Last week my husband looked at me and said 'you look like a pregnant lady' which was reassuring but I am still anxious and I take disappointment for granted. We have shared this with our family members and close friends. I am yet to spill the beans to other friends and may not do it until third trimester.

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  9. I suffered Secondary Infertility, so I could easily compare my first "carefree" pregnancy with my second. I was so much more aware the second time of (a) how lucky we were (b) how many things could go wrong. I found myself often prefacing every sentence with "Hopefully" and ending sentences with "probably". It was not until I hit the second trimester that I started to really feel okay with it again...but I looked at my pregnancy journal for my first one--and saw how naive and innocent I had been compared to the second time.

    Wishing you the best of luck!

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  10. Processing a pregnancy after infertility (and loss) is tricky! As time goes on, though, I find myself not worrying quite as much. And actually embracing the pregnancy. I know I'm not in the clear, but as each day, each week, each milestone passes, I start to actually believe that I will have a baby in January. It's scary and wonderful and crazy all at the same time.

    And once I have the gender scan, I think that will help me connect to this pregnancy even more.

    I hope that you start to believe soon, too! It's such a weird place to be, pregnant after IF. It's what we wanted for so long, but now that we are here... what do we do?! :)

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  11. It's hard. I feel really weird telling people that we're pregnant. We've told close family and friends and I've recently told work, like yesterday. I've been really reluctant to say anything on Facebook yet I don't want someone to slip and steal my thunder so to speak. I'm due early January.

    I've followed your struggle on here and WB as I was also on the six months thread. IUI baby here and I'm also in my late 30's so worried about those issues. Don't want to use my WB name here since I can't figure out how to not use my whole name and I don't want my WB name googleable by googling my real name.

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  12. We won't be announcing till I'm 20wks although yesterday we were forced to tell my MIL because of my recent trip back to the Ob because of the heavy bleeding, she'll be coming to stay with me while on bedrest since hubs is away at Olympics for a month. I've been just trying to take everything in stride, given everything going on. I did a registry because I'm literally home laying on my back bored but that's about it. I know my freak out will come around 28wks which is when I lost my daughter, but hopefully once I pass that mark I'll feel at ease. On till then, my mind goes back and forth between acceptance and waiting....waiting for the shoe to fall, especially with all this damn bleeding.

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  13. As someone who is due in March it makes me cringe to hear that other March girls are announcing on Facebook already. But then again...I am an infertile and I tend to keep these thing close to my chest.

    Every week that I make it closer to the 2nd trimester I feel my anxiety lessen a bit but like you said in the back of my mind I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop which makes it very hard to fully engross myself in this pregnancy.

    I certainly FEEL pregnant. (All-day sickness anyone?) But I hide it from the world for fear of becoming not pregnant. But it encourages me to see so many other infertiles get into the 2nd trimester around this time. There certainly has been a wave of BFP's the past few months. All we can do is continue to support each other and hope for the best.

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  14. I do know how you feel. I talk about "my baby" and "when the baby comes" and all that, but inwardly I keep doubting. I've read too many stories of people who seemed past the danger zone and lost their babies anyway. I've had no trouble telling friends and relatives, but it's hard to go more public than that (FB, coworkers I'm not friendly with, etc). The whole thing has been so private up until now, it is strange to realize that pregnancy is, in fact, a very public thing, once you start to show.

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  15. I understand everything you're talking about. You're a month ahead of me, and I refuse to say anything on fbook. Too hard to take back, that's what I think in my head. I will eventually announce, probably in four weeks, about as far along as you are now. I really truly relate to what you're saying about not being "just another pregnant woman." I don't want to be that girl. I'm so much stronger because of this journey and I don't want to forget that. Those March baby announcers are nuts (in my opinion :) ) But I guess that's what we learn the hard way. I'm happy for you and your little boy :)

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  16. I didn't want anyone on fb to know I was pg - maybe a little superstitious? I actually just figured I would post the arrival of the baby.... BUT my SIL put a pic up of me and my belly at 25 weeks so I was outed (got to the post too late to delete, already 30+comments).... But I have noticed it more of a trend NOT to put it up there .... If you're not comfortable doing it - just wait! It's almost more fun running into people saying "woah! I didn't know you were pg!"

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  17. Although I didn't blog while going through my infertility struggle, I understand what you are saying....but for me....I just had to move on and think positive because I believe soooo much in the power of positive thinking. We were pretty open about our struggles with our family and close friends...they saw us through our first tries, a pregnancy of twins, the loss of that same pregnancy and then several failed IUI's and an IVF. Once we failed at IVF .... we decided to go dark. Our friends and family were great, but we felt like we were dragging them along on our cycle of hope and failure or success followed by loss. So..for IVF#2 we went dark and pretty much had people convinced we had moved on to adoption (which was sort of true since we were not real confident so we started attending adoption workshops). It was so hard for me not to have my friends and family in on it. And then when it was successful....I wanted to tell all...but had fear of loss...so we pretty much just suffered quietly until 11 weeks and then couldn't keep it in any more. But from that day forward....I stopped dwelling on the struggle and concentrated on the success. Yes...there was fear...I knew too much, I had friends who lost babies very late in pregnancy without warning. BUT....I had to just be confident. I had already been robbed of the joy of just loving my husband, making a baby and being blissfully happy and oblivious. I didn't want to let my fears rob me of the whole experience of carrying new life and planning for our future. No matter if I was positive or guarded...would the pain be any less if something went wrong? I doubt it. So I just jumped in full force and told myself I was going to bring home a baby.....and I did. And it was AWESOME! And I didn't let the comments of others bother me, but I was not shy about letting people know that we fought for this baby....there is no shame in that. For our 2nd child...we had no chance of using our own goods so we adopted embryos and decided we would be very open with friends and family again...and once again...we were blessed with a beautiful child. This pregnancy was actually a bit harder than the first with early unexplained bleeding...but we still embraced it and moved forward. I had all the great, fun pregnancy moments and I just let them happen naturally.
    I know your journey so far has been really different...the need to get to 13/14 weeks and have the reduction carries a lot of different emotions and risk...but hey...you are on the other side now. It is okay to be happy, joyful and ...."just one of those pregnant ladies out there". Afterall...isn't that what you wanted all along?
    Kd

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  18. I heat ya! I am not.going.to announce or discuss my next one on fb at all.

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  19. We're in a weird place where I'm going to be 13 weeks this weekend and our miscarriage risk is still just below 50% due to complications. So it's making it hard to even accept that this is real because I'm scared to get attached. Today I noticed my stomach is starting to change shape which is so the opposite of how I feel about this pregancy emotionally. So I 100% agree with what you're saying about the difference in the physical reality and the emotional reality of being pregnant after IF. Honestly, if there was a way to hide my stomach until the baby is born I would prefer that because I'm just.too.scared.

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  20. I could have written everything here - and even used you as an example on my blog when I was trying to describe this feeling. :o) I am 12 weeks today and had a clean NT scan this morning. Just NOW does it feel real. I figure 12 weeks + a good NT scan = most likely this is all going to end well, so I am embracing it and starting to tell people. I doubt I will ever go FB official, but will probably post a pregnant photo on two down the line... Let people draw their own conclusions. :o)

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  21. I waited till after the first trimester to announce, I just felt any sooner was too soon. I have seen some announce the day they take the pregnancy test which to me is crazy whether you have had issues or not!

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  22. I'll be 7 weeks on Saturday, and even though I've seen a heartbeat, this whole thing does NOT feel real. I want to hoard it between just DH and I, which is tough when everyone and their mom (no seriously) knew we were going through it. I'm not nearly ready to share with even our closest family (aside from parents/siblings). Tough stuff, this whole pregnant after IF. Tough stuff.

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  23. I waiting to announce on FB until 20 weeks. It was scary to do even then. You are totally normal with everything you are feeling!

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  24. I'm sure I wrote that post... :) Even now at 35 weeks, I still feel a bit strange in public when I see other people noticing my tummy (how can you not!) and especially other pregnant women. I find myself wondering often if my pregnant-ness is hurting someone else who is TTC for as long and as hard as we did. I just wish there was some way I could let them know it wasn't easy for us and that I understand.

    I think I waited until 20 weeks to announce on FB. I struggled with how to say it and what to say. I ended up drawing a cute little picture (ObVuEnN <-- bun in the OVEN is how it should be read and the picture showed much easier) and stating something about how it took us x-long to get here. (I had written a status over a year before about our struggles on FB, so I felt this was sort of a follow up.) After that, I haven't said too much about my pregnancy on FB, except for a few statuses recently.

    Moving along from TTC with IF to becoming pregnant with IF is a struggle I think all of us IFers go through. You're not the first and definitely won't be the last. Try to enjoy everything, continue to be conscientious and you should do just fine.

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  25. I had a friend on FB that didn't out herself until the baby was born- this is before we started trying/learned that we were infertile....I wonder if she had a loss prior to her son and/or had problems getting pregnant? If I am ever able to get pregnant I could see holding off on the announcement until viability...just because I have read too much on people's blogs.

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  26. Let me just tell you, my due date is in 4 weeks and I still don't REALLY believe it's real. Like I can't really comprehend that we'll ACTUALLY have a baby soon. No idea if it's the infertility and loss making it so impossible for me to wrap my brain around or if I always would have felt this way, but there it is, I'm totally in denial that we're about to have an actual BABY!

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  27. I really related to this post. My triplets are 11 months old. I spent 9 months TTC and did with Chlomid. I worried every single solitary day of the 35 weeks and 4 days that I carried those babies. My babies are healthy and I'm very blessed. I NEVER announced on Facebook and to this day my children's pictures are not on Facebook due to the request of my private husband. Regarding my pregancny, here was my reasoning; if I wouldn't call up someone to tell them I had lost a baby (or lost a relative, got a new job - anything), I wasn't going to have them know I was pregnant in the first place. Even in public at 30 weeks and looked well past due, I would smile nicely at people who said "wow you must be due any day?" and say "yes I am." Being pregnant already brings enough of crazy attention, I didn't need the added stress and attention and questions about having 3. But in hindsight I agree with someone else about staying positive. For those that are pregant , I would give this advice because now that I believe our family is complete I would have approached the pregnancy differently. Embrace it as much as you can and keep calm, hang on.

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