Infertility in a baby-crazed world...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was good, with a heaping side order of emotion. Yesterday would have been the due date for the baby we lost in March. It is bitter sweet to think that we would be bringing home our new little girl or boy today. I also got anxious and decided to take a pregnancy test this morning, and it was negative. I also received a baby shower invitation today. To say I am a mess is an understatement.

I know it is hard for people to understand who have not been through what we have to fully comprehend why the loss still hits so hard. There have been people in my own family that have come right out and asked why I am not over it yet. It is just like dealing with the death of any other person. Every one deals with grief in their own way, and their own time. If some one's grandfather dies, you don't ask them nine months later why they aren't over it yet. You are sympathetic, and understanding, and comforting. I don't understand why people think it is any different when you lose a child.

When you add in to that the months of test after test and invasive interviews about our personal lives and becoming a lab experiment, combined with the none too subtle doctors who told us we basically have a snowballs chance in hell of having a baby on our own, taking off day after day from work for yet another doctor's visit, the emotion, the pain, the heartache...Not to mention practically everyone filling you with what they think are positive comments, such as, "You still have lots of time to have a baby," or "It will happen, just relax and quit trying so hard," or "Just adopt, it's the same thing, you still get a baby," or my personal favorite, "Well, I guess you just need to make a decision about which matters more to you, being pregnant or having a baby" when I tried to explain how adoption is a great choice, but not a choice we were ready to explore yet until we had exhausted our other possibilities.

I guess the thing that irritates me the most is the way that people expect me to react, or act, or feel a certain way about things, and tell me that I should feel x, y, and z about my friend having a baby, and how I need to just be happy for them. I try to explain that it is not that I am not happy for them, but their happiness is a big blinking neon sign reminding me of every uphill battle we have fought and lost and still have nothing to show for it except a broken heart, a broken spirit, and a dwindling bank account.

I apologize if I seem bitter or jaded, but I just don't know how much longer I can do this and be positive and Mary sunshine, the picture of optimism...How much is too much? When is enough enough?

I came across this article and thought it describes perfectly the day to day battle that people who can't get pregnant have with dealing with the baby obsessed culture we live in.
http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/2006/07/infertility