While waiting in like to buy the ingredients for a very yummy mango macadamia nut crisp, when I saw an article in one of the rag mags about how Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt used IVF to conceive "faster." For some reason it enraged me that they didn't want to be "stigmatized" by saying that they did IVF because there is something "wrong" with not being able to conceive naturally. And, I cannot believe they did IVF just to conceive "faster"...it seems like too much of a struggle simply to get pregnant quicker. I can't see why they didn't do IUI, Clomid assisted, or any other variety of fertility treatment instead. I assume that they most likely did IVF for a REASON. Perhaps Angelina has too low a body weight to ovulate? Given that celebrities have near hero status in the United States, I think they have an obligation to serve as role models. For example, I applaud Brooke Shields for talking openly about her struggle with post-partum depression. To have people in the public eye deny that they might have a biological reason to pursue IVF is a disservice to all the people in the world that struggle with infertility. I remember finding a very comforting site that listed all the celebrities that have struggled with infertility when we were going through fertility treatments.
All this being said, I vascillate between wanting to be very open about our experience with infertility and wanting to just concentrate on the baby that we are going to have. I want to be the person that my friends can say: "I know this woman that was young and active and healthy and she struggled with infertility and IVF worked for her." However, I find that talking candidly about our infertility makes fertile couples feel uncomfortable and that after speaking about it I feel very naked and exposed. Also, I think some nasty part of me wants to make the fertile couples uncomfortable because their assumptions that everyone gets pregnant easily and simple references in their conversations cause me to have very painful memories of our struggle. Not very actualized of me...
For example, last night we were having dinner with a very wonderful couple (for whom I made the mango macadamia nut crisp) and the female partner was talking about how she had already put herself on some waiting lists for childcare because they were going to start trying to have kids in the fall. That is an assumption that I cannot make. Back when I thought it wouldn't take that long and we were just starting to think about trying, I signed up for a waiting list and was kicked off 16 months later and still wasn't pregnant. Even now, at 25 weeks, I find it difficult to sign up for childcare because I am so afraid that things won't work out and I will get a call several months from now that remind me that at one point in time I was hopeful. I have only signed up for 3 childcare places...which for my city of overzealous parents is simply not enough and at over 6 months pregnant I am risking not getting into childcare before my child is a year old. I assume that something will work out.
It is amazing to me how--even now--after conceiving my baby and being clearly pregnant that I still get bitter at people that have no problems getting pregnant. I wish that I could assume that we will have a second child or that I should start thinking about strollers to carry two children when I feel that I barely have one child. This bitterness has definitely subsided and I think less and less about that painful time, but I still feel that I need to quietly remind people that not everyone is so lucky as to be able to concieve naturally. I have also had to catch myself from complaining about the cost of conceiving this child. We just got another $2000 bill in the mail to freeze the embryos and it reminded me again of how we are "different." But, on the flip-side, I have to remind myself that I would be very bitter if we had spent all this money and had no child to show for it. I am VERY lucky to have been able to conceive at all and to have conceived at my first round of IVF.
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