The day after my Beta, I got an email from a colleague at work announcing she is pg. Of course the timing was a little hard, but actually I can honestly say I was happy for her. She is a few years older than me and also has been ttc a couple of years longer than we have. I immediately sent her a big congratulations email, and it wasn't hard to do so. I knew last summer they had pursued adoption a little, and during the last school year she had switched to a different doctor (she used to go to the same RE I have gone to the last 3 years). She had done Letrozole a few times in the spring (I think the last try was in May). They had unexplained infertilty, and she had never been pg (she told me in 2005 when I had the ectopic that she would prefer to have a m/c as at least then she'd "know she could get pg"). She never did inj; she only did Clomid and Let. She said she didn't think she could give herself injections in the stomach so she wasn't open to inj/iui or ivf. She never even had an iui. And she was a nurse practitioner (and now is a nursing professor). I would think it would be easy for a nurse to give herself shots.
Okay so this is the hard part. Her office is a couple doors down from mine. Every time she told someone yesterday that she was pregnant, she did NOT sound happy about it. She kept telling people how she and her husband had decided they wanted a childfree life and how this meant they would have retired earlier, bought a condo, etc. She was medically ttc about 3 months ago. I just can't understand how THAT quickly she could get to the point where she sounded disappointed that she is pregnant. I talked to her as well and she was saying the same stuff to me. She was also talking about how awful she felt (morning sickness) and said how can I feel joyful when I feel nauseous? She said to me "I am sure once the baby is born I'll feel joyful." I didn't know what to say. I'd gladly throw up every day for 9 months if it meant I could give birth to a baby.
I guess I just don't understand how someone who ttc for more than 7 years wouldn't be thrilled to find out she's finally pg. And of course it's really hard to hear someone sounding disappointed that they are pg when I gave myself 59 shots and we spent $7,500 recently trying to get pg. And of course that's not to mention the ER process etc. It's one thing to find out someone is pg and they are excited. But it's really hard to listen to someone practically complain that they are pg. What's sort of ironic is that in 2005 there was a colleague who got pg about the same time I did. And ever since her daughter was born in Feb 2006 I've been shown lots of photos which are hard as I know that's how old our child would have been had he or she lived. Since then, I haven't had any pg colleagues at work - of course there have been staff and faculty pg since then, I just mean no one I regularly have contact with has been pg since then. Her due date is also in April as mine would have been if any of the embryos had lived. So every day I go to work I am going to be seeing a pg women who is at the stage I "would have been." It's just beyond ironic to me that just like in 2005 there is going to be a constant reminder at work. This is actually going to be harder than in 2005 as I will see this colleague far more than I see the other one. Well maybe she'll at least start being happy/ grateful that she's pg. That would help me a lot.
One other P.S. to this little story would be that when she told me she was pg she told me that it finally happened when they "gave up" and that she got pg while they were on vacation. Great. Just reinforced two pieces of advice people love to give. Well Paul and I have gone on LOTS of vacations over the past 6 years, and we had truly given up with ttc awhile ago. We have zero hope that we will ever get pg aside from IVF or FET. So giving up and going on vacation hasn't helped us. Of course they had NO male or female problems ever diagnosed by a doctor which is not our case either.
2 comments:
That has to be hard. I can't help but wonder though if this is her way of protecting herself. She doesn't want to get her hopes up or anything because she knows from all her years of ttc it brought heartache. We all react differently to these kind of things and never know what our reaction would be until we are in those shoes. Maybe that will ease the blow a little for you. It has been a hard few weeks and I pray "hope" will be just around the corner for you.
Hi Ruth, as I read your post I had the exact same reaction that Tamerarae had... she is probably trying to protect herself in case something goes wrong down the road. And maybe she was feeling a little guilty towards you and tried to "convince" you that being pg is not fun at all. The bottom line is that it is really hard to be in your shoes, especially after the physical and emotional pain of losing your little babies. I continue to have you in my thoughts and hope that something really positive is going to happen soon.
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