Our Land – Please be patient with me

What day is it?  It’s Wednesday! Wednesdays are for empathy and wonder!  I am honored (she would say honoured) to feature another excellent writer in the Our Land Series which began here because you guys were so supportive and wonderful. I’ve recently gotten to know Lizzi (aka The Considerer at Considerings) and am so very glad for it. She’s prolific, brilliant, insightful and does a really good job of actively seeking thankfulness and contentment in a difficult situation. Lizzi is responsible for coming up with the Ten Things of Thankful weekend share which has been an empowering experience for me, along with countless others.  It’s easy to let life’s frustrations and roadblocks get us down. Writing ten things that I’m thankful for each week is a way to remember how blessed and lucky we truly are. The best part? You, too, can join in. It’s live each weekend, all weekend. Anyway. I ramble. Presenting Lizzi and her excellent reminder of empathy and wonder.

Please be patient with me…

I love the idea of Our Land. One of the things which inspires me most about the blogosphere is the amazing platform we have to influence one another for good, or better, for awesome. The posts so far have been an education – I now have solid, concrete advice for how to deal with some of the more awkward social encounters which might take place:

• If a child is playing up and their parent is struggling; don’t judge; give them a break!
• If a person looks disabled – don’t ask to know about their disability; get to know them. If they want to share later, they will.
• If a person seems to be excluded – don’t let it lie; join them in.

In reading these, I felt inspired to share a little of my world and offer some solid, concrete advice for those who may come up against it in their own situations.

This is the world of primary infertility – a world which (within a species designed to reproduce and a social structure which makes other people’s efforts so to do a popular topic of conversation) causes instant squirmy discomfort on both sides upon first contact.

To give you some background, the diagnosis of infertility belongs to my husband (which means that we, as a couple, are infertile, even though I am technically still capable of bearing children) and arrived earlier than expected (he has global endocrine disorders and his eventual treatment will render him permanently infertile), shortly after our second miscarriage.

And believe me, two miscarriages are bad enough, but a post-loss diagnosis of infertility adds serious insult to injury.

At the moment, we’re in a position of waiting to see whether treatment can a) make him feel better in himself and b) reinstate any level of fertility so that we can pursue a medically assisted pregnancy. We’re trying to stay positive, and it’s really tough.

The impact other people have (particularly on me) is astonishing and I can be raised up or brought tumbling down by seemingly innocuous comments and situations. As far as other people are concerned, there are ways to handle it (I have discovered) and ways to definitely not. So here’s the ‘How To…’

1. Please be patient with me. Every month I have a painful, physical reminder of the manner in which I lost my two children – two pregnancies which have turned out to be bitterly ironic, as I may not have any more. This hurts more than I can say. If there seems to be a monthly pattern in my mood dipping, my forgetting things, my being unable to engage with what’s going on with life, and generally being bad company, please bear with me. Don’t expect too much of me – I’m already aware that I’m letting people down and dropping balls all over the place and the plates I’ve been spinning have crashed to the floor. Please don’t make it worse.

2. Please don’t be offended by me. Seeing you with your children hurts. The sight of a newborn with his mother is something I now endure rather than enjoy. If you have a big, fat, pregnant belly, I’m probably going to glare at it and turn away from you. I don’t want to upset you and I’m glad that you have your children/babies/pregnant tummy, and I truly don’t begrudge you – you really do deserve your wonderful family and I’d never want to take that from you or wish you ill; I Just. Can’t. Look. Not yet.

3. Please don’t be upset if I block your updates. Babies and children are a cause to celebrate. I truly, truly get that, but if you repeatedly present me with information on their every moment, I will be cutting down on the amount of information I let you share with me. I want to be glad for you. I want to rejoice with you, but everything you post is like a stab to the heart which then echoes around my empty, unfulfilled uterus.

4. Please don’t come to me when you’re struggling with your children. I know I used to be a good shoulder to cry on, and I will still offer a listening ear on other topics, but if you come to me complaining about your kids, I might just haul off and punch you right in your fecund vagina. I know you’re tired and fed up and haven’t managed to have a shower in a month and haven’t eaten properly in two, but I would give almost anything (except my womb) to be in your position. And if you joke about the hard time you’re having and whether I’d like to take one of them off your hands, you and I will rapidly fall out. It’s not funny – it makes you appear ungrateful for the thing I desire most in the world.

5. If you don’t know me, please don’t ask “Do you have children?” I know it seems like a relatively harmless conversation starter, but this casual, throwaway question leaves me feeling like I’ve just been emotionally assaulted. Just talk to me about the situation we’re in. If, at some point, it becomes pertinent, I’ll tell you I can’t have children and how much I’d like to, and how difficult it is, but if not, then it’s really none of your business anyway.

6. Please don’t make suggestions. Unless you have an intimate understanding of our situation (in which case you’ll know what the problem is, what will and won’t help, and will probably have more sense than to chip in with your five eggs), just don’t. Just relaxing won’t make it happen. Trying to adopt won’t make me suddenly fall pregnant. If it’s God’s Plan for my life, I don’t want to hear about it, nor would I like to know your take on His Timing. By all means agree with me that it’s a terrible, painful situation and sympathise, but don’t try to make it palatable.

7. Don’t belittle my losses. They weren’t ‘only’ early miscarriages, they were my children. They were human lives in their earliest form. And they died and I don’t have them, and that’s very tough to manage. There is no silver lining to infertility and I don’t want to ‘work on my career’. I want children. I want a family. I want to feel complete. If your opinion is that my pain doesn’t matter or shouldn’t be important, please keep it firmly to yourself.

8. And most importantly, for Pete’s sake, please, please don’t give me the ‘Pity Face’. That ‘head on one side’, ‘eyes wrinkled up’, ‘lips pursed downwards’ look that makes me want to break things.

You probably will pity me – I’m in a pitiable situation. I’m one of those anomalies who can’t have children and it’s unnatural. I know that. But internalise it, okay, because otherwise I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stay in control.

Sadly, the list of ways you can help is fairly superficial – there’s only so much you can do – you can’t fix it, you can’t heal my pain, and you can’t resurrect my lost babies. But you can improve upon my day.

1. Do sympathise. I know it’s a sucky situation, but to hear you genuinely recognise that and acknowledge it, helps. Say things like “That must be really difficult” or “I hope things change for the better” and mean it. Then, if I don’t seem to continue the conversation into ‘infertility turf’, know that it helped and it was sufficient.

2. Do appreciate your children. It’s hard enough that you have them and I don’t, but seeing children being screamed at, hit, smoked near, neglected or abused *really* sticks in my craw. Your children are precious, they are miracles, and yes they can be little shites, but mostly they are wonderful, full of potential and yours. Don’t waste them.

3. Do share your own experiences. If you or someone you know has faced miscarriage or infertility, feel free to tell me about it. If nothing else it reassures me that I’m not alone.

4. Do offer to distract me with something shiny. If you feel in the position to offer a visit; a day out; an email, please do – sometimes I want to get out of my own brain for a while and indulge in something fun. Feel free to offer to help me forget all about it for a while, but don’t be upset if I’m not able to take you up on it at the moment – that fluctuates.

5. Do listen to me. I have a lot on my plate and it’s made easier if I feel I can vent my feelings, anxieties and frustrations in your direction without fear of judgement or being called an infertility bore. The intensity won’t last forever (I hope) but at the moment I need you to listen, I need you to acknowledge, and I need you to care that I’m hurting.

6. Do let me cry. This is one of the hardest things, and although I’d love to maintain my desperate grip on controlling myself, sometimes a tear or several will slip out. Don’t be embarrassed, just offer me a tissue. If you offer me a hug, I may cry more, so be prepared for that. Crying is good for me; I just haven’t accepted that yet.

7. Do remind me that there are other good things in life, and help me see them. Because there are, and it’s easy to miss them when everything is coloured dark by the ‘Can’t have kids’ glasses. But it’s important for me to remember that there are things I can be thankful about and things which make every day worth a go.

8. Finally, and possibly the most important thing you can do is share this post. So few people know about my world and even fewer are equipped to handle it well when they bump into one of the inhabitants. I really want my world to be included in Our Land, and the way to make that happen is to share understanding, show support and develop compassion, all of which begins with knowledge. And that’s right here.

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And that’s right here. I told you she was incredible. Friends, I really want Lizzi’s world to be included in Our Land, too.  Don’t you?  If you don’t know her already, please go check her out.  Her recent post, in which she interviewed her Sub Conscious, was epic. Her bio:

I’m Lizzi (a.k.a. Considerer), a non-professional blogger from the UK. I have been married since 2010, blogging since August 2012 and discovered we were going to have fertility problems in September 2012. I love the platform the blogosphere provides to offer solidarity, comfort, humour and hope in the real stories of real people. I am pleased and honoured to be part of it, and that even such devastating experiences as miscarriage and infertility can be used to touch people’s lives and bring a little positive.