Please note: this post isn’t aimed at any specific bloggers or tweeters. It’s a challenge to the infertility community as a whole (including myself).
There’s been a lot of drama in the infertility blog-o-sphere and Twitter-land lately.
It seems like a large amount of women who have been struggling with infertility for years found themselves pregnant last month. Some of them were very active on their blogs on social media during infertility and they have continued to be active during their pregnancies.
Some people stuck on the infertility roller coaster don’t like to see former infertility patients posting about their pregnancies. I completely understand this, yet I want to encourage our community to reflect on some things.
A few months ago, I interviewed Emily. She had been very active on Twitter during her battle with infertility and she recently gave birth to her baby after going through IVF. In her interview, she said something that struck a chord with me:
Pregnant women are not the enemy. Infertility is.
Anyone who has suffered through infertility will no doubt be overjoyed when they finally conceive or adopt. Yet, we all know that wounds and scars from any kind of significant pain do not heal quickly or easily. Many of the women who are currently pregnant are still dealing with the doubt and fear that lingers when we know too much about loss. Those of us who are still in the trenches of treatment need to be careful about “killing the wounded,” as blogger/podcaster Chris Locurto puts it.
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I’ve often said that infertility is a bittersweet sisterhood. We are very good at sharing in each other’s struggles, but it’s apparent that we need to improve when it comes to sharing in each other’s triumphs.
I don’t believe that joy and sorrow have to be mutually exclusive. We can rejoice when someone conceives, and still be simultaneously sad that our own wombs are still empty.
So by all means, un-follow someone if it makes you too sad to read about their pregnancy or see their bump pics. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself. But please think before you publicly put someone down on the internet.
If we cannot build each other up, let’s at least refrain from tearing each other down.
