Hurtful success.

I have a new emotion today about my pregnancy. Guilt. I know that for some reading this blog that may seem strange but it's honestly how I feel. It stems from reading other blogs and their struggle with IVF and it not working for them. When I started this blog it was to inform my family and friends about our trip to Europe and why we were even taking it. It was also a travel blog, I documented our trip and took pictures, posted them to show my sister back at home that her big sister wasn't in some back ally clinic in the middle of central Europe. What I didn't expect from this blog was the connection to other fellow infertiles.

Are you out of the group once you have found success? Does your success hurt them just like others success use to hurt me? And if I am really honest, peoples success at "natural mating" still hurts me. It's a hard truth to realize... that sometimes your happiness isn't an inspiring journey for some but just another nail in the coffin.

In some infertile blogs the women are so angry and hurt by how easy it is for some to have IVF work on the first try. They are at attempt 4 or 5. I totally understand where their frustration comes from and I relate. But I can't really relate because I was one of the lucky ones that got pregnant on our first try with IVF. The connection seems to be lost. I don't want to hurt them by my joy and they don't want to hurt me by not seeming happy for me. The line we dance now is so odd and painful.

So I find myself in a new group. Where at times I feel I don't really belong there either. The expectant moms talk about how easy it was to get pregnant or how soon they will wait to start having more. Inside of me is still that infertile wanting to scream at them, "it's not so easy for everyone." And when I am asked by them if hubby and I plan to have more, it's so hard not to go off on this whole tale about how hard that would be for us. I simply say "we agreed on one" which seems to get the odd stares too.

I went to a meetup and we were sharing stories about our pregnancy. I shared that my baby was conceived through IVF and low and behold another lady said that was how she got pregnant too. I immediately turned all my attention to her. I felt rays of sisterhood pouring out me, I could seriously bond with this new mom. When we started talking more and sharing why we had to do IVF, of course I gave the speech about how there is no freeway system for the sperm in my body and no matter what we would of done the sperm wouldn't of mated with egg without some magic from the doctors. I expected her story to be similar, or one of the 10 reasons women have to have this done. But instead she said that 10 years earlier her first husband convinced her to have her tubes tied. They already had a kid and he didn't want another. They divorced and her new husband wanted his own baby. Her only option since the first doctor tied her tubes so well was IVF. Her story cut all sisterhood bonding with me. In my eyes, she took her perfectly healthy tubes, tubes that I dreamed off having and cut them! Then years later wanted to add to her already populated family. I judged her.

Now.. I take a look back at judgment and see how parallel it is to my feelings of guilt. Just like the bond of infertility has been broken between my blog friends I broke a bond because I stopped relating to that woman's journey. Both are wrong, but somehow seems inevitable because we are human.

We are constantly searching for people like us. People that understand us and "get us". We rarely allow the friends and connections to evolve when we step off the same path. And now that I am on the path of once infertile now soon to be mom who do I walk with?

Once an infertile always an infertile??