Degrees.

Happy Thursday to the Barren and Blogging!

I am done with summer.  DONE.  Nevermind the fact that it is forever and always going to be the 'summer of a chemical pregnancy' in my mind, but it's 100+ mother effing degrees outside.  While I am a true American-mutt, I am mostly Welsh which means my skin tone and general temperament was meant for cloudiness and moodiness and not this never-ending-freakshow of sunshine.

It's tiresome.  I miss the thunderstorms, snow, etc., of the east coast.  With the exception of about 3 weeks out of the year, waking up to yet another beautiful day is fucking exhausting - makes me feel like I should be doing something wildly outdoorsy and positive, like I should be living out a fucking toothpaste or tampon commercial.

(Did I pick the right state to live in or what?)

On the subject of Fall - my lesbian-internet-crush EmHart is having a daily September photo challenge. I have never participated in such a thing and am notoriously crap at taking photos, but I am excited to give it a whirl and post my photos in a weekly posting.  Hopefully it will help bring on Fall a little faster.  Join us.  Drink the koolaid.

So, one of my bloggy friends, Ms. D, is pregnant.

She wrote an entry a couple of days ago basically about the general discomfort of being a newly-pregnant IFer.

This has to be completely uncomfortable.

Why?  Because when you're trying to make a baby for such a long time, you're very familiar with the "Oh crap" punch in your gut the minute someone says they're pregnant (and the varying degrees of happiness you can manage to muster for that person, which are often teeny-tiny 'can someone hand me a microscope?' amounts).  So I think we can all agree, when we finally get pregnant (and we will, damnit) even though we cheer for our own sisters in shittiness far more than the average fertile, we will know that the cheer is a spice, the mustered-happy is the mustard, not the whole hot dog.

Instead of the blissful ignorance of a fertile, when we say "hooray, I'm pregnant!" we will be able to instantly bring to the surface the feelings that that's going to bring other people, like when a song you listened to when you were going through a break up comes on the radio and it acts like a musical time machine.  The newly pregnant IFer is far more likely to associate the "I'm pregnant!" song with a lot of sadness and fear than they are genuine giddiness.

This has me thinking about how we have a tendency to 'rate' ourselves according to who has it worse, and the degrees of sympathy for each other.

Some admissions, first - because of years of infertility there are people for whom I would happily stand at the door of Club Infertile and bounce them out.

The people I will happily chuck out are those who are in the throws of a panic attack after one cycle of timed nooky.  This is not because I'm mean (fine but it's unrelated) but only because by the time I'm done laminating their club cards they will already be at the doors of Club Pregnant.

Second admission - when I click on an ICLW link or  on the name attached to a witty comment on a blog - if that person is already pregnant I usually don't stay, unless there's something that really stands out about it.

There are of course exceptions to this (the exception's usually in the writing itself instead of the subject matter).

 But, you know, if I were a long-time-single girl and blogging about it, I may not be too keen on blogs that are solely focused on wedding planning or the unbelievable love someone has for their husband.  Or if I was blogging about having to lose 100 lbs, 99% of my related-blog interest would probably be about women who are in some stage of a diet - not the ones that are 110 lbs after having lost the weight a year ago.  (The exceptions being the girls that still clearly have the soul of a fat/single girl).

I mostly want to meet the girl when she still has weight to lose, or when she has just met somebody - then I'm invested and totally stoked when she's skinny or in a relationship. I want to see someone get happy.

So some comparisons that we tend to make that are pretty gross.

IVF vs. IUI vs. Clomid
I am far down the road on the crazy train.  Not only do I have to do IVF - but I get to be a challenge within IVF.   At this point in time, Clomid seems charming and cute by comparison.  At the time it was fucking awful.  At the time, it was a rancid experiment titled "how many days can we go without committing a homicide?"

If Infertility were the Titanic, I have spent years watching people either right away or at the last minute find themselves a lifeboat, and I'm still stuck on the damn thing dancing & playing the violin, and trying not to notice that it's getting a tad chilly.

That being said - all I have to do is remember that Clomid sucked balls, too, and try my very best not to be jealous of people who may not have to go as far as I do.  I may be closer to the water and there may be less lifeboats, but I can still remember that 10 minutes ago I was still in a fucking panic about escape, and it was still 0 fucking degrees outside.


Miscarriage vs. Never been Pregnant
I think I may have even said this to D - but a year ago, I had thoughts like "if I had only had a chemical pregnancy, then at least I would've known I could get pregnant".  Now I can see that that's hogwash.

I did 2 1/2 years hard time in the "I've never been knockedupinstein, not even once" prison camp, and now I'm on the icky end of a chemical pregnancy.  It's apples and oranges.

We could debate all day whether it's better to have never had any chocolate while the whole world is a veritable Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or to have been allowed one square and then be told "nope, no more, not ever".  The bottom line is both suck.


Success vs. Not Yet
Now, having admitted that I don't usually do blogs that are pregnant before I even find them, the ladies that find success on some leg of their journey are still members of our group, I get happy for them and to sweeten the pot I even get a little hope for myself.  (And, should we ever indeed be the founders of an Infertile City, our neighboring towns are going to have to be full of IFers in recovery to be a buffer between 'us' and 'them').

No, nobody should feel 100% totally awesome when one of them gets knocked up - and I don't think they expect us to.  Not to mention that aside from the (to steal a quote from EmHart) Born Again Fertiles who seemingly forget they had trouble in the first place, they're the only mamas who are still going to get us.

Keep in mind, newly pregnant, you are the only ones that we muster any genuine cheer for.  Keep in mind, not-so-much-pregnant, that it would suck balls to be in a world where IFers never succeeded - and that more than likely said newly-pregnant has already to some degree had her pregnancy tainted by constant thoughts of "is this really going to be it?  Is this really going to be it?". She is therefor, definitely still not one of 'them' and needs us to rally around her, and maybe cut a few bitches.



So, the jist of Stork's point today, as one of the Elders in the Infertile Tribe, is that we should all try to be as inclusive as possible in our little club.  With the exception of those fucking asshats that try to get in after two months.