No Man’s Land

**Prefaced to say: I wrote this about two weeks ago, hence the old references to other peoples posts. I was too scared to post it because I was scared I would jinx things by calling myself pg out loud. Pathetic hey. I also don’t want you to be fooled into thinking I can write more than 3 lines in my current nausea induced stupor. This was written BN (before nausea).**

Where does a pregnant Infertile live? The home where she grew up no longer belongs to her. Sure she can go visit, but she knows it is no longer her home, she can only pop in for a visit, have a cup of tea, but then she must leave. Her presence there is sometimes hurtful to her former housemates and good friends. She knows, she has been there.

Moving to the normal pg world is impossible. They speak another language there. It is all hope and total confidence that all will be ok. Their pregnancies were planned, there was no blood, sweat and tears as their foreplay. It is a totally alien world. You don’t suddenly forget all you’ve been through once you get pg, you don’t suddenly become ‘normal’. Once an Infertile, always an Infertile. The scars run way too deep.

It amazes me how fertile people think that once I am pg I have to forget about the past and just be obliviously happy to be pg. I can’t. It still hurts like shit when I hear about people getting pg at the drop of their underpants. I still don’t do baby showers. (It was my sister’s second one yesterday, in the four years I have been TTC. And even though I am pg now, I still did not go.) You can’t undo years and years of pain in an instant. Or even a lifetime.

But it is lonely, as Julie said. Being infertile, and being among infertile people, is all you’ve known for so long. You are part of the club, part of the sisterhood. It’s comfortable and comforting. It’s the lot of you against the world, sisters in arms. It is home. And then when you get pg the sometimes unwritten, often boldly stated, rule comes into effect. You are pg, you must move on. I know there are some brave souls who will say ‘no, don’t worry, hang around, your presence doesn’t hurt’, but for others, your presence does hurt. They don’t want your baby, they don’t want you not to be pg, but they want to be pg, very fucking badly, and you being pg around them hurts like a splinter. Sometimes its fine, other times it pricks you with a jolt of pain, the pain is always there. And I cannot hurt any one of my infertile sisters, even unintentionally. My heart bleeds for them, I don’t ever want to add to their pain. God knows it’s hard enough for them just to be, I can’t bring hurt into the one safe haven they have.

However, I know there are ways to hang around my infertile sisters without being too obtrusive, too in your face. I know because I have been pg four fucking times already. (down boy, what’s with the emotional outburst!). As I was saying, I’ve been pg before. I’ve been through this before. So I know how to be as sensitive as possible. I don’t mention my pg without being asked. I don’t post gratuitous updates about my pg. I will never complain about any pg stuff among people still living with infertility. And dear lord, I never, ever post my pg progress (like 28w b/b) on an infertility BB.

Quick aside: How can any one be so f’ing insensitive as to post their pg progress on an infertility forum?? And even worse, posting your pg status or children status on a loss board. I’ve seen it. On the loss boards. They respond to your post by saying “I am so sorry you have had your third loss. Signed Susie, Susie Jnr 20 months, 23w with a boy!” It blows my mind. Have you absolutely no sensitivity what so ever? Why don’t you just rub peoples’ faces in it? It’s bad enough if your signature is automated (you could have just forgotten to disable it for that post), but good lord, these people willingly type that shit in!!! But the all time sensitivity winner was a post on my little boy’s webpage from some one who also had a preemie, but luckily for her, her preemie made it and is alive and well. I got that as a footnote after she expressed her sympathy. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, it certainly makes me feel so much better about losing my son. Winner post. Ta!

So, I can hang around for visits, I can sympathize and empathize. But I can’t talk about my fears, my paranoia. I can’t write “oh girls, I am so scared, I don’t feel any thing and this is how I felt when I lost the baby at 8w. I am petrified it’s a bad sign”. I know that if the situation was reversed and I just had a BFN, or a particularly bad day, I would want to scream “shut the fuck up, at least you are pg, I would kill to have your problems right now”. So you can’t sit around with your infertile sisters and tell them about your fears. You should be grateful, right? And I am. I really am. I’ve made it a huge step further than so many, I can get pg. So I am very grateful, but I am not yet blissfully happy. I have not moved on. I am stuck in no mans land. Too infertile to be happily pg, too pg to be part of the old gang.

IVFC’s has made a PG Vets board, for Veteran Infertiles who get pg. It is supposedly a place to hang out and share your fears and paranoia’s among others who are in the same situation as you are. The horrible thing is that I am not sure there are very many there who are as paranoid as I am. I don’t like pigeonholing people, I don’t like to be categorized myself, but I have to admit there are degrees of differential that seem to apply. There seems to be a distinction between those who are eventually pg after a few IVF’s, and those who have had multiple losses. Sure, the pg Vets are scared, but having been pg before, a few times, and having lost those pregnancies, well you lose your innocence. I can’t join in and be happy and secure, I am just too scared. I also don’t want to be doom and gloom among the happy PG Vets, I don’t want to bring the party down.

I know that some of the PG Vets read my blog. I know this because I have started lurking on the PG Vets board. And I know they wish me well and would want me to join the party (thank you!!). And I would love to join, I want to really badly, but I am too scared I jinx things. How pathetic is that. Like Mollie says in her very poignant letter to my NBF Julie, it is like if you don’t say it, if you don’t join, you are somehow protecting yourself from a jinx. I feel as if as soon as I come out and join the PG vets I will jinx my pg. That I will join and then my next post will be a good-bye post. Sad sad sad.

I know I will pass a point where hope starts to equal fear, but I am not nearly there yet. Maybe after 12w, maybe after 16w. Then I will find a new home. But for now, I guess I will have to live in No Man’s Land for a little while longer.

Comments

[Janine]

V.weird: when I sat down to write last night, I got to thinking about where the infertile mother fits in. Clearly we're connected in the way that only infertiles can be.

[summerbreeze]

You know I only started reading your blog about the same time you found out you were pregnant. And I love your honesty in your posts. I really hope that you get to that point where hope=fear soon.

[Tracy]

You are not alone - I think most women whose infertility experience went beyond a month or so of Clomid feel the same way to some extent. Those who suffered losses even more so... it's not like you can say "I'm pregnant, yay, my ordeal is done!" I remember when, early in my pregnancy an infertile parent said something about "when" your child is born, and I was furious! How dare she assume it was a "when," since we all know it's an "if."

I used to be a regular on the Usenet newsgroups. There is a wonderful newsgroup for women with primary infertility - alt.infertility.primary - where women who do become pregnant are still welcomed with open arms because everyone there knows that the goal is to have a baby, not a pregnancy. Talk about pregnancy or children is not tolerated. They were wonderful and supportive and I still miss them. There is also alt.infertility.pregnancy, for women in the no man's land, but some infertiles find the atmosphere there a bit too positive, if that makes sense. I know several women who were afraid to jinx themselves by posting there.

There's another group. alt.infertility.parenting, that used to be a wonderful refuge for infertile parents, but I had to abandon it because it had been taken over by idiots.

[Ellen]

Very poignant and beautiful post.

[Lauren]

Well said as always Tertia. There isn't a place for terrified infertile pregnant women with previous late pregnancy losses. When is it safe to be happy.... I don't know but it isn't now - really not until a healthy newborn is in my arms.

[Julia]

Amen, sista.

Of course, I'm in a different category even than you. I've never been technically infertile. But I still have no children, even though I've been pregnant three times. And I don't fit in with the recurrent habitual aborters because my losses were all different and from seperate causes.

So I just type whatever my addled brain will allow and hope that anyone visiting my blog will have the compassion to understand where I'm coming from. Well, that, and I bug you and Julie via AIM whenever possible. But the chatrooms still aren't a good fit for me - for all the reasons you listed.

Thanks for posting your thoughts.

[wavery]

Well said Tertia,

This is your blog, you write here for you, I read here because I hope to be in your shoes one day. Getting pg is scary. It's what I want and I'm terrified of another loss, of watching my husband be put through another one, afraid of losing hope, of many of the things you've said. Connections with others are tenuous perhaps but your posts make me feel less alone. Thank you.

[Kelly]

Remarkable post.

[patricia]

The fact that you have more empathy than bitterness shows what a great person you must be.

Of course you are going to be paranoid, who wouldn't be after what you've been through. I do think I could give you a run for the money in the worry department.

You deserve great happiness, I hope it's coming very soon.

Your posts always make me feel better about what my own complicated thoughts.

[patricia]

The fact that you have more empathy than bitterness shows what a great person you must be.

Of course you are going to be paranoid, who wouldn't be after what you've been through. I do think I could give you a run for the money in the worry department.

You deserve great happiness, I hope it's coming very soon.

Your posts always make me feel better about my own complicated thoughts.

[Sheena]

I wish I had the same outlook on life as you had, T. But until then I will keep reading this blog in the hope that it is more influential on Me...

Thank you.

[OliviaDrab]

Now this post, I can relate. Or at least retrospectively. I felt this way when I was pregnant. I knew that so much of the blogship was women still struggling. I felt for sure that anything I said would unintentionally hurt people I have grown to love dearly.

But being on the other side of the fence I can honestly say that I am thrilled beyond words for you and Julia and Julie. I am rooting as hard as I can for your little sprouts. It is hard to be hurt by women who have been through so much and can still laugh, and who are finally getting a break. A WELL-DESERVED break.

Rock on.

[RainbowW]

I read much and speak little on your blog and julie's and olivia's and julia's. i myself suffer two strikes against me on the welcomeness front: first, i'm a man (or at least was the last time i looked), and second, i'm not the infertile in my family, my wife is. she lost her tubes at 18 to cysts.

but i also know all of the insanity we put ourselves through. my own infertility experiences have been relatively painless. search my blog for the full post if you want.

but i know where you're at, tertia. my wife and i had some scares, and a miscarriage, and so i'm not nearly as gung-ho about all this pregnancy positive outlook as folks who had a big oops or choose to live without birth control and now have a family of 14.

all i can tell you is that you're welcome in my world. and i hope you'll continue writing, because i like what view you offer into yours.

[Heidi]

I've said what you just wrote many, many times and have written about it in my journal as well, though maybe not as well as you have. Being a pregnant "infertile" is HARD and I've been there twice. And let me tell you, being an "infertile" mother isn't always easy either. You don't fit in with your infertile friends, but you're not like all the other moms either. Though you'll be happy to know that it DOES get better and easier with some time, but the "infertile" aspect never goes away. What you've been through just never gets erased and becomes part of your being and who you are. If you are fortunate enough to become a mother (either genetically or via adoption) you still never forget the pain you went through to get there and it is easier to "overcome" the stress and strain of the infertility I would imagine than someone who never does get to experience motherhood. (I have a few friends who have tried for 5 years and finally chose to live "child-free", something that I imagine never takes the sting or pain out of infertility.)

I think we need to set up a new blog-ring for "infertile mothers" since it's like being between a rock and a hard spot!

Congratultions and know that there are a lot of us "infertile moms" out there that know just how you feel!

[Robyn]

Although I only had one loss (at 18 weeks) I can relate to your paranoia. I am now pregnant after my 2nd IVF. I have rented a fetal doppler with I use several times a day (because once is not enough for me) and this seems to calm me down a bit. I am 24 weeks and I am still worried. I also have a sister who got pregnant two months after I did on her first try, and I was very angry and jealous. Especially after my loss. I know she didn't do it on purpose, but infertility has played some evil tricks on my mind. Anhow, I just wanted you to know you are definitely not alone in your feelings.

[nightglobalt]

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