This is a topic I'm all too familiar with. It took me 5 IVFs and as many losses to have DD. And in the past year, I've done 4 more IVFs, unsuccessfully, for a sibling. As PPs have said, people who have not suffered infertility just.don't.get.it. Period. For them, the ability to have children is a given, like breathing. In my experience, no amount of attempting to explain it to them or trying to help them understand what it is like will make a difference - you will only drive yourself nuts and probably get yourself even more hurt in the process. Trust me, I've tried (and tried and tried and tried). It doesn't mean they are bad people, they just cannot understand it. People also don't understand that having a child cures childlessness but doesn't cure infertility or the IF experience and what someone went through to have the child (often equated to PTSD). The best advice I have is to eliminate ALL expectations you have of them and ignore the absolutely ridiculous things that will likely come out of their mouths in their misguided attempts to empathize with you.
Originally Posted by
resipsaloquitur
Infertility is just as real as heart disease, cancer, MS and diabetes.
This is absolutely true, and yet the majority of society does not view it this way. Most people seem to think that if you aren't getting/staying pg, you weren't "meant" to have children, and what's the big deal about that? Again, since for them having children is a foregone conclusion, they can't begin to understand the kind of loss involved in the inability to have children.
Lucky single mama to DD 5/08 and DS 6/11