Comments on: A rant

By: Deb Kalin

Deb Kalin — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 22:57:11 +0000

Yeah, the glee with which parenting horror stories are heaped on to you is … a bit unsettling. I’ve been driven to tears and people still don’t stop — I think they’re thinking they’re helping. When really, not so much. I get that the stories are meant to be funny, but when you’re already panicking they can quickly escalate into something more like torment. There’s a social initiation ceremony sort of thing going on which, combined with a general ignorance of mental health, can get downright dangerous. Just being told how happy you’re supposed to be can be damaging. Not to mention how apparently being pregnant means you’re now public property and every single thing you do/think/eat is up for judgemental comment. Even the ‘reassuring’ ones are loaded with words like should, which can just up the mental pressure. Ugh. I am (slowly) learning to deal with this in a water off a duck’s back kind of way, which I must admit is probably helped in some part by the relaxin my body is pumping out. Wonderful stuff, we should synthesise it for anxiety sufferers.

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:28:32 +0000

The thing is, noone knows what my fertility was like at 25. So the whole thing is supposition til I’ve been trying for a year. By which time I will be 38.
I’ve already been seeking medical advice. Because, yeah, planners plan ahead.

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:27:25 +0000

Well yeah. Again. Been preparing myself physically (and mentally) for over a year for this. Chances are, I’ve done broad research on the topic.

(love you)

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:26:47 +0000

OMG! Like what? What if you were like, SHIT! I’m NOT READY! Now the fuck what? I mean really?!
And Tansy has a great rant about the glee with which people have a need to tell you the worst stories. You know? I hear some people have dram free births and perfect, troublefree children – probability says this must be so!

But yeah. Ditto for me. I’ve been in therapy for like 4 years now for anxiety and OCD. I don’t need help with panic, anxiety, or stress. I gots them covered.

By: Deb Kalin

Deb Kalin — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 00:50:14 +0000

Everyone’s been sending me that link, too — and sharing their horror stories with me (even AFTER I ask them to stop, no really, stop), so I hear you. And I know they just want to bond / lower my expectations of easy / what have you, but the way my brain works I really don’t need people feeding worry and panic at me. I’m excellent at doing that all by myself, and one of the reasons I had so much trauma at the start of this pregnancy was I am excellent at forecasting and realistically thinking through consequences. So, yeah.

(Also, I used to work in the IVF industry, so I’ve seen the agony that couples go through re fertility, especially because of the choice factor etc, so I empathise with your concerns.)

By: Thoraiya

Thoraiya — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:35:18 +0000

Woman, you actually care about getting the nutrition right before conception, in a country that has one of the highest rates of fetal alcohol syndrome in the world. Way ahead of the Bell curve there. You’re not going to be terrible and you’re not going to fail. (So now you can’t say “everyone” because I count as somebody )

By: Significance

Significance — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 20:52:12 +0000

I did some research on this a while ago. There’s so much around on how much your fertility drops that it’s hard to find out what your chances actually are. But at your age, the best info I could find was that you’ve still got a 75% chance of getting pregnant within a year of coming off contraceptives, even without any reproductive assistance (except that of @maelkan, of course!)

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:36:15 +0000

People around me like to laugh at me, I think. Partly that’s my fault for going for the easy laughs when I want to lighten the mood and I make fun of myself. Which makes others think I’m the fair target.

And you know, everyone thinks I’m going to be terrible at it and not cope. Noone gives me credit for my project management skills – I have many things already in place to deal with this (main reason I have stayed in counselling for example).

I guess this post was also about just saying – hey, I got stuff going on, I may not be talking about it but I do.

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:33:22 +0000

I guess it’s always a good lesson for how to proceed in the world, myself – that you never do know someone else’s situation.

By: Thoraiya

Thoraiya — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 11:57:21 +0000

Respectfully, I would hope that sending you that link wasn’t about being in the smug club and laughing at you. I would hope it was about lowering your expectations, because the more difficult it is to get pregnant (and it was difficult for me) or the more desirable having children seems because of the possibility of your choice being taken away, the higher your expectations tend to grow, and that is why postnatal depression is more common and more devastating after successful IVF treatments.

Sorry to hear that people who love you have made you feel like shit. I sure hope you make it to that sliding door with plenty of time to spare.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:51:16 +0000

I don’t think you sound super-sensitive at all. It’s more that those who are sending it to you are super-insensitive. Everyone has their own choices to make as to whether or not they have children and for some there is no choice for all sorts of reasons. You have every right to be upset and annoyed. No-one knows what is happening in another person’s life and that means they have no right to comment, either directly or, as with sending this blog post to you, indirectly. I have never been able to understand why people feel they have a right to comment on personal aspects of someone’s life without an invitation to do so.

By: AlisaK

AlisaK — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:51:01 +0000

The privilege of choice.

By: Gene

Gene — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:49:25 +0000

I hear you.

Over the past couple of years I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never have children that are genetically related to me. Guys at work have been ribbing me about how I lucky I am to be young and single and free of the responsibilities of fatherhood, with the clear implication in the background that I have all that ahead of me and of course have the option of settling down and having a family when I’m ready. Yeah, hilarious.