Friends and Family

Among the many things I’ve learned during this process is that it is much harder to cope with the pregnancy of a close friend or family member than a co-worker, aquaintance or facebook friend. It strikes you in such a different way. Your first response is to be genuinely happy for her, but on the most primitive level, jealousy is an instinctive reaction, she has something you want. For me, Myrtle’s possible pregnancy was the motivation to shift the science into a higher gear. I got one of the doctors I work with to write me a prescription for Clomid. I switched to the easy to read digital ‘smiley face’ OPKs, and had coitus on both days of the positive response –I was back in the game!

I never followed up with Myrtle after her phone call, I figured she would tell me when she was ready. Sure enough a few weeks later I received a text “8 weeks pregnant, saw baby’s heartbeat, feels so surreal!” ‘It sure does!’ was all I could think to write back, adding a note of congratulations. I got a bigger surprise during my two week wait when I met up with my cousin for lunch and she disclosed that she was pregnant. My 41 year old cousin had dealt with infertility for a few years and required IVF to conceive her son, who was born a year and a half ago. Shortly after her son’s first birthday, she had told me that they had decided not to defrost any of their frozen embryos to have a second baby. She explained that although her gynaecologist warned her about the potential for pregnancy after infertility and advised her to use birth control, “we were in Hawaii, and we were so relaxed…” At the time, I wanted to say ‘no, you were just lax about using birth control!’ but now I’m really annoyed that someone who struggled with infertility would pull the “we were relaxed…” line.

As I was thinking that I could potentially be pregnant at that time, I felt bitter with this false sense of entitlement: this was supposed to be my news! As jealous as I was, it pained me to know that this jealousy was shared by my parents. My parents have been desparate for their only child to give them at least one grandchild (they’ve informed me that cats don’t count). A few years back I told them that I wasn’t interested in having children (which was true for that time). I havn’t revealed that I’ve changed my mind for the purposes that I don’t want any additional pressure on us, and I want to give them the surprise of their life if we are able to announce such news. If we come up short at the end of this fertility journey, I can also tell them about our struggles and make them feel guilty for badgering for so many years. Emotional blackmail works both ways! As it turns out, the silver lining after my first failed Clomid cycle was being able to drink wine when my parents were visitng for a week (I had actually gone as far as to get some white grape juice to see if it could pass for wine, as we wouldn’t have been ready to tell my parents as I would have been all of five minutes pregnant). However, my parents changed the details of their trip at the last minute, and decided to visit right during my fertile time. Husband can attest that nothing kills the libido faster than the idea of fornicating with your in-laws in the next room. It was a waste of a Clomid cycle and the last opportunity to have a baby born in 2012, but I was starting to see how insignificant that would be…