Friday, April 11, 2008

To Tell Or Not To Tell

What do you say when people ask if you plan to have children?

I really want to tell the truth- we have been trying for 32 months and gone through 7 cycles of IUI with Clomid (12 IUIs total), without any "signs of life" (as B puts it), so we may never have children. I want to tell the truth because bottling it up inside is killing me. I want to tell the truth because unless people start talking about infertility, nobody will ever realize how common it is. I want to tell the truth because I want to meet other women with the same problem. And I want to tell the truth so that other infertile women know that they aren't alone.

The best non-committal answer I can come up with is, "Perhaps someday." But I dread the most likely response, "You're already 37. You can't wait much longer."

The problem is, people who ask are never people who have trouble conceiving. If they had had trouble, they would realize what a touchy question that is.

So, instead I end up embarrassing the question asker, who is completely taken off guard by my response. They deal with the shock by giving well-meaning but useless advice:
You drink coffee, don't you? Maybe if you stopped...
Do you know that your fertile period is between days 9 and 14 of your cycle?
Never give up...
Buy a new car. Our daughter was having trouble, but as soon as they bought a truck that they didn't need, it cleared up.

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