Really? That sort of mild encouragement is what you’re talking about? You said that you were irritated because people treat infertility like cancer. “Aw, don’t let him get you down” is what you meant?
You know, infertile people often choose to avoid parenting blogs and baby showers and that sort of thing, because it just leads to emotional distress. Maybe you should do the same for infertility discussions, because it seems to make you irrationally upset.
I don’t completely understand it, but it is a real tragedy for some people (mainly women). And I wouldn’t have believed it if my wife and I hadn’t dealt with it. I would have been fine without kids, and I fervently love the two we have (through fertility assistance). But my wife wanted a third child desperately and literally cried every month, for years, when she wasn’t pregnant.
It’s not like cancer in that she’s not sick or in danger of dying. But it is a crushing blow, an unfulfilled need she has to have another child. It can’t be dismissed with a “get over it, what’s the big deal?” I can only imagine how it is for some women who haven’t been able to bear kids at all. It’s definitely not “self-absorbtion” as you call it.
Besides, why do you care if other couples are preoccupied with infertility? It’s not hurting you, and it provides money and jobs to all those fertility clinics out there.
I don’t know what people you are hanging around, but as someone who is infertile, the only people I expect to care about my difficulties are my immediate family and very good friends. And only because I would care if they were going through the same. I really don’t give a flying fuck if you care or not. Or any of my random acquaintances. It is a hugely personal thing for most people going through it, and I, for one, am not going to be talking about it with just anyone. If you are encountering such self absorbed jerks, I’m guessing they are self absorbed jerks in other areas of their lives.
Why didn’t you ‘just adopt’ instead of being ‘self-absorbed and entitled’ enough to add not just one, but three biological kids to the population? There are kids out there with no families, why the hell were you and your wife so selfish as to keep having your own kids and not to give any of the ones you didn’t make yourselves a home? Shouldn’t you have considered ‘just’ adopting before you even got pregnant the first time?
You have been making your own case for yourself over 50,000 times—The number of SDMB posters who take you seriously (on virtually any subject) is dwindling each and every time you type something out, in your laughable, pathetic, pathological need for validation and/or controversy.
I long for the day when you are forced to go somewhere else for attention, as everyone around here has learned to finally ignore you once and for all…
I haven’t expressed any opinion about fertility treatments.
I have close family members who have had fertility issues and/or gotten fertility treatments, but they were not self-absorbed or dramatic about it, so I had no issue with them. One of those couples (my wife’s sister) adopted, another (one of my brothers) has just decided to remain childless.
This may belong in a thread of its own but doesn’t it seem that more couples are having this trouble than say 30 years ago?
I think it’s the very attitude that infertile people have something wrong with them that contributes to this psychological distress. Since there’s nothing wrong with being infertile, there’s nothing to offer sympathy for.
Oh, is this what this thread is about? I haven’t noticed anyone treating other people’s infertility as though it was cancer. Although I know it’s personally tragic for many, I don’t hear a lot of whining from the people I know who have those issues. In fact it seems most couples struggling with infertility don’t really broadcast that fact. I had no idea, for instance, that a woman I work with had been trying to conceive for 10 years - she shared with me, when she was finally pregnant, that it was with a donor egg.
The internet is a whole different ballgame. But if you stay away from forums dedicated to the subject and posts written by people who are clearly grieving, you’re unlikely to see anything over the top.
No, accusing me of wanting or trying to “get people down” is what I meant. I didn’t say anything to discourage anybody from getting fertility treatments or trying to have a baby. I didn’t say anything critical about them. The fact that I was accused of being hostile to those people on the basis of nothing is exactly what I mean by the social pressure to show groveling sympathy.
I’m not upset. People are attacking me, I’m not attacking them.
I think the strength of desire to have children is something you need to feel to understand.
I spent most of my 20s without feeling anything for kids. I liked them well enough, but had no real desire to create my own. The idea of getting pregnant and having a kid seemed pretty foreign and not really appealing.
About a year or so ago, around age 28, some kind of switch flipped. Suddenly, I started feeling this deep desire to have a baby. I’d start imagining myself pregnant, getting weird chills when I saw other people’s babies, etc. I have no doubts this is almost entirely biological. Intellectually nothing has changed and it will be a while before I can think seriously about actually having one (I know that’s cutting it close…but what else can I do?) But I still wake up with this sort of weird ache in my heart.
Honestly, before this happened I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t picture it. But when your body talks to you, it’s unmistakable. Only one other time have I felt a biological message so strongly- when I had malaria my lizard brain told me in clear terms “You will be dead soon” Luckily my lizard-brain didn’t know much about moder medicine.
I don’t understand it either. And I also have had the “be gentle with them, they can’t have kids” admonishment. I have even been scolded to not mention that I don’t have kids in case I hurt someone’s feelings…eh? I voluntarily chose not to have them, so that will break their hearts?
I try to be as sensitive as possible. I will never understand it…but I never get excited about babies to start with, so I already get looks about that from other girls. Babies come in and I just take one look, say how cute it is, and go back to work.
But when the topic of infertility comes up, I can handle that. I think “these people wanted something badly, they didn’t get it, it hurts”. Ok.
I do NOT understand spending thousands and thousands of dollars on IVF and other treatments. Mortgaging their houses and their lives. Putting all of their happiness on hold because they don’t have a child. Sometimes jeopardizing the marriage! And I have heard of all of this from a few of my friends and acquaintances.
That’s where you start to lose my sympathy. My whole philosophy on life is, “This is what you get, this one life, enjoy it before it is taken away from you.” To see people making themselves miserable over such a thing is baffling. THIS DOES NOT MEAN I TELL THEM AS SUCH.
Which is why I’m glad this thread is here, because none of this stuff would I ever say IRL, except perhaps to my SO. But while I disagree with Dio on tons of things, he’s not wrong about this. It is treated like it’s cancer. Everyone expects sympathy.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.
None of our kids were planned.
Many women are waiting longer to have babies now. The average age of marriage and pregnancy is going up as more women go to college and have careers. Fertility rates drop pretty rapidly after early 30’s. I don’t know many women in their early 20’s who have trouble with infertility (there are some, I am sure, but most women undergoing things like IVF are 30+).
There are also more treatment options available now than 30 years ago. I would bet there wasn’t talk about it then b/c there wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it if you were infertile.
The internet has also made people more able to share about everything, not just infertility, but you are more likely to just know more stuff about people’s lives in general now than 30 years ago.
Reading Blalron’s prior posts in this thread, I don’t think he (she?) does either. I believe that you two are in agreement.
Look, I too don’t really understand why some people are willing to spend unbelievable amounts of money and go into massive debt in order to have a baby. I am with you there. I also agree that it’s not similar to a death in terms of sympathy required, although frankly I haven’t really encountered that expectation among my own friends and acquaintances.
However, comparing the desire to have a baby with the desire to have a sports car is just…tone deaf, at best. If you wrecked your car would you be as upset as if one of your kids was in the hospital? I am guessing no. Not being able to have kids can be a fairly big deal. Is it worth spending $100,000, mortgaging your house, going into debt, demanding hushed tones of sympathy from all your friends, and acting like you are dying of cancer? No. But it’s not, “big whoop, I can’t have a sports car either, why should I care about your non-problem,” either.
In my opinion, it’s just a normal variation within humanity. Like having red hair. I wouldn’t offer “sympathy” for someone who has red hair, because the very act of offering sympathy implies that there is a problem. If someone were getting distressed about it, I’d just say “don’t fret about it, you’re fine the way you are.”
Hmm - some folks suffer from some biological limitation. Of those folks, some folks get very emotionally engaged with that limitation - and other folks who don’t have that limitation feel passionately sympathetic to their cause and resent yet other folks who question the need to feel so limited.
Sounds like simple human behavior - why look for more beyond that?
I think that someone being born hairless is a better analogy, actually.
Edit: I’m not suggesting that this means that it is automatically requiring of deep sympathy. Just that it’s a better analogy. 
I played basketball and football into jr. high school and really liked them, but I was also really short and skinny and couldn’t keep up once I got too small and everybody else got too big. My dream of playing quarterback in the NFL was dashed by my genetic puniness. I see being infertile as being akin to being short. It’s limiting, I guess, but it’s not a disability or a disease.