5 THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN SUPPORTING A LOVED ONE GOING THROUGH IVF
If ever there was a post voted most likely to lose me an audience, this is it. I’m not going to try and sugar coat it, this is hard going. The mind of a woman going through IVF is not a pretty place. It’s a place where logic has been abandoned for the comfort of emotional roulette. So in the interest of public safety, and to hopefully save someone from ending up filleted at the hands of an IVF sufferer, here’s my top five DON’TS:
1. Save the Horror Stories for Campfires.
I know that you know someone who went through IVF and ended up growing a tumour the size of a small truck from all the drugs, but I don’t want to hear it. I also know that there’s people out there that went through IVF twenty times and still didn’t end up with a healthy baby, but I don’t want to hear it. I know that there was a woman somewhere that gave birth to six kids at once after IVF, but I don’t want to hear.
I don’t know what it is about medical procedures that makes us all want to tell people about horror stories. I know that I’ve been guilty of doing it as well, but this is not the time for story telling.
The last thing I want to be thinking about as I go in for an egg retrieval is the friend of your cousin’s brother’s girlfriend that had the procedure and it ruptured her uterus. If it’s all the same to you I’d rather be imaging my life as a Johnson & Johnson Baby Wash commercial so please save the horror stories for someone else.
2. Complaining about the Children You Have is Not Cool.
Rationally I know that you love your children. I know that they are the apples of your eye and that you’re just having a brief moment of wanting to vent about something that they’ve done. But now is not the time. Any other time in my life sure, hit me with your tales of parenting. Just not now.
While you’re living the dream I’m still stuck in the starting gates and the whole time you’re talking to me about your little horrors I’m smiling, nodding and wishing that the Earth would open up and swallow you whole. It’s nothing personal it’s just that I’m a crazed walking hormonal cocktail that has lost all grasp on reality.
So if you love me, and I know you do, please don’t complain to me about your children while I’m in the process of bankrupting myself just so I can have a eating, pooping, crying machine to one day complain about myself.
3. Do Not Poke The Bear.
When I’m going off the handle about the fact that someone cut me off in traffic I know I sound like a lunatic. When I’m going on and on about how invasive all the procedures are, I know I’m being a whiner. Under NO circumstances are you to point out the obvious to me.
I don’t like being the nutcase. I don’t like being the unstable emotional cripple that I seem to have woken up as that morning. I do not need you telling me that I’m being a dickhead.
In fact, should I have a moment of self awareness and point out how much of a dickhead I’m being it’s your job as the supportive, loving, caring person I know you to be to tell me I’m not a dickhead.
4. Don’t Tell Me How Fertile You Are.
Your husband just has to look at you and you’re pregnant; good to know but not what I want to hear right now. Just found out your having your third child and it’s not planned and you’re not happy; again not something I need to know right now.
I’m sure that having to worry about the danger of getting pregnant without wanting to is a massive pain in the butt, but for those of us currently leveraging our entire fortune on just a wing and a prayer that we’ll be pregnant one day it’s not something we want to hear about.
On a rational level I understand and I empathise, but rational left the building the day I agreed to mix medications and be harvested. Come back to me when it’s all done and I’ll be more than happy to commiserate with you, just not now.
5. Don’t Expect Me to Go to The Supermarket.
There is no greater hell on this Earth than the supermarket. Combine this with the overwhelming desire to kill that is currently pumping through my veins from all the hormones and I’m a ticking time bomb.
Add to this Molotov cocktail the fact that the hormones seemed to have blinkered me to all the great parents out there and not to all the horrible ones and it’s a recipe for disaster.
I cannot, and will not, go to the supermarket. Unless of course you do actually want me to end up in jail for pointing out someone’s short comings as a parent. Then by all means, wind me up and send me in there. Just be aware that I won’t have the money for bail as it’s all with the Fertility Clinic.
Image source: Getty
I told you it wasn’t going to be easy, and I’m proud of you for sticking through it and getting this far. To reward you I’m going to throw in a sixth, and the most important, don’t.
6. Don’t Hold Back On The Cement Pill.
As you can see from the above, sometimes it’s all I can do not to fall to the floor in a blubbering mess of self pity and self centered-ness . I’m human and I have moments in this hormone haze where I need someone to be brave enough to tell me to take a cement pill and harden the F up.
Don’t be too afraid to send me a reality check.
I don’t want to be the self obsessed cranky pants that thinks that her problems are the only ones out there worth caring about. I need to be reminded that all of us are going through something that to them is really big. And that just because I’m going through something doesn’t mean that I get to be stingy on the love and tolerance.
I need you to get me to repeat the following words: “I am not the center of the universe. Everything does not revolve around me. There’s millions of people out there that have it worse than me.”
After all, what’s the point in bringing a child into this world if you can’t lead by example? And what kind of example is someone that’s only concerned with their problems and loses sight of the fact that we’re all in this together!
♦♦♦♦♦
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Loved reading this. I think anyone who’s done fertility treatments has been there. I find myself guilty of some of these from time to time and I always try to stop! I think sometimes relating is just a way of showing you care, even though it doesn’t help. The only thing I disagree on is the tumor comment. I think most specifically doctors should be throwing side affects of medicines out there as I developed some from the fertility meds. and no one EVER told me that it could happen.
Great advice! Thanks for posting this. Opened my eyes to some things I may have done and not even known it.
Definitely!! I’m so busy with school but excited that in January we’ll be starting! It’ll be good to know either way if we can have a child. *hugs* Glad it’s not all downhill.
ROFL at the “eating, pooping, crying machine to one day complain about myself,” because it’s SO true. Also loved “rational left the building the day I agreed to mix medications and be harvested.” My kind of humor!
More seriously: yikers, that is a lot you’re going through. Before I get the fear of God put into me and start ducking for cover, where are the DOs? (Is making offers of potential surrogacy ok or a no-no?)
Hang on tight!
I’m glad I made you laugh because your blog keeps me in stitches!
I think it’s kind of misleading in some ways to write this type of post because it’s just a small portion of the experience. I’ve actually been really surprised at how the things been going. Apart from a couple of tense days, it’s not been as bad as I thought it would be. Although we haven’t really gotten to the business end just yet…
Great point! I’ve gone back and linked in all the previous posts so people should be able to see the positives not just the negative.
I’m sensing things are tough. 🙂 Imagine that being all the way over here. *Hugs* Feel free to email me and rant if you need to. I may need to do the same when we begin. I don’t know if you’re comfortable posting here when your extraction date is and all the other details. 🙂
Jessica
Heyya 🙂 Actually they’re going pretty good. Some of these are things that tick me off by just the fact that I’m infertile and I have to listen to people complain.
It’s a REALLY hard balancing act because I COMPLETELY understand that people just want to vent and 99.9% of the time they’re coming from a place of love and support. It’s just there’s always one fly in the ointment that I’d like to drown because they’re so clueless about seeing anyone else’s situation.
Apart from a couple of tense days last week I’m actually doing pretty well at the moment. I’ll post the key dates and keep you up dated. I was only wondering this morning whether I should or not…
🙂 Thinking of you!!