Please Stop Staring

Dear Restaurant Patrons,

I know I am fat. I know I have old, frumpy clothes. That's part of the deal with staying home with Jayden. Clothes for me are not a priority and there is no room for them in the budget.

I know my husband is 6' 6". I know you have all sorts of questions for him. Including, but not limited to: "My friend and I have a bet and I have to ask- How tall are you?" "Do you play football?" {Insert various other sports questions.} "Do you need a special extra long bed?"

I know my son doesn't look like us and you are trying to figure that out.

I know I brought a toddler in to a restaurant and you don't want us sitting near you.

But, PLEASE STOP STARING AT US! Believe it or not, when you are sitting at your table, you are not behind tinted windows or a one way mirror. We can see you. And when you stare for an extended amount of time with no smile, it comes across as disgust. Especially if you get the attention of someone else at your table and use your eyes to point at us. (YES, WE CAN SEE YOU.)

I may be busy getting my son settled in his high chair or entertaining him so he isn't too loud for you, but I promise my husband is noticing you staring. And I will have to hear about it during dinner. Then again on the way home. Then again as we are falling asleep that night. And we will have to discuss it and list all the reasons you could have been staring at us like that.

How about you just try to remember we are human beings trying to have a nice night out and not actually putting on a show for you to watch.

I rarely get to leave the house so please let me enjoy my night out with my Groupon.

Sincerely,

Lisa

Note to most grocery store, zoo, and museum people: Thank you for smiling and telling me how cute Jayden is. I don't know what is wrong with those restaurant people.

The Baby Shower Invitation

I got an invitation to a baby shower in the mail. As soon as I pulled the invitation out of the envelope enough to see what it was, my gut reaction was: Wow. Bold Move. I can't wait to see who sent ME a baby shower invitation. I don't know anyone who is pregnant right now who would send me one. I opened it up and was shocked to see it was from one of the parents of the kids I work with. Well, used to work with. Her daughter came here for three years but recently had her last day here.

During her entire pregnancy, I felt like she threw her pregnancy in my face an unnecessary amount. My tolerance for that kind of stuff is high. I've been on my own journey to motherhood for over 7 years. I've been to my fair share of showers that I cried before and after. I have had to hold back tears through countless pregnancy and birth announcements. It honestly takes a lot for me to feel like someone is being insensitive to my situation. But, seriously, she talked about her pregnancy with me a comical amount. It felt like every sentence out of her mouth either started or ended with "because I am pregnant."

The next time I saw her after telling her on the phone that I needed to have a hysterectomy, she told me in detail about the cute way she planned on telling her family that she is pregnant. She also went on about morning sickness. I barely held it together and burst into tears in the bathroom right after she left.

But even putting all that aside, we're not friends. She has never invited me to do anything with her as a friend. It makes no sense to invite me to the baby shower unless she is inviting every person she has ever met.

In the three years her daughter came here for daycare, she never even gave me as much as a Christmas card. (She is actually the only parent to never give me anything.) But, I am supposed to go to her baby shower and buy her a gift?

I wouldn't even know anyone there. Could you imagine if I went? I just picture myself in the bathroom crying.

Some people just really have no clue what other people are going through.

Insensitive

We all know by now that when you are going through a tough time, there is nothing like the support of people who have been through it. Without blogging and twitter and support from adoption and infertility friends, I am not sure I would have made it through the past few months.

With so much great support, you begin to open up and trust that you can talk about your feelings and that it is safe. You may even start to think you can talk to people outside of your support system. Which is great. It's great to be able to open up and not hide what you are going through. Infertility can be so isolating.

But, beware that when you open up to people who have no idea what you are going through, they can say awful things. Awful things that make you fight back tears until you can be alone and cry.

This past week was one of the hardest weeks I have had during our adoption wait. The children had off from school for spring break so I was working long hours and I was exhausted from the roller coaster of emotions that came from being profiled. Someone mentioned that I looked tired. I told her that it was a tough week for our adoption wait. I told her we were being profiled and it didn't work out. For about a second it felt good to talk about it. She then starts telling me a story about how one of her cousins just found out she is pregnant. That she didn't think it was possible to get pregnant because she did fertility meds to get pregnant the first time and they weren't even trying now. I couldn't figure out why she was telling me this story. She went on and on and then basically ended it by saying, "So, I've been praying for both of you." What?? What was the point of telling me that? Clearly I am never going to accidentally get pregnant. She is well aware of my lack of uterus. So, her story was to tell me how other people have it rough too? And her "rough time" story is someone getting pregnant accidentally when she didn't want to?

There was also a person who when I told her I had endometrial cancer, told me about her friend who really had cancer. Unlike my fake kind. I know how lucky I am that it was caught early and that all I needed was surgery. But, it doesn't change the fact that I lost my uterus to cancer. I honestly lost count of the number of times leading up to my surgery that she told me I was fine and acted like I was making a big deal out of nothing. All I had said was that I was scared of the surgery. Even my oncologist said he didn't know how advanced the cancer was until he went in. I was scared. But, I had to endure multiple conversations about how there were people in hospitals with real cancer.

I told one of the parents about it all over the phone. I needed to give everyone notice because I would be closing for two weeks to have the surgery and recover. The very next time I saw her after telling her I was having a hysterectomy, she told me she was pregnant. She went on and on about it and told me about how they bought onesies to decorate to give to their parents as a fun way to tell them they were pregnant. They hadn't even told their parents yet, but she had to tell me then? I barely held it together while she talked and then cried so hard as soon as she left. It wasn't that she was pregnant that bothered me. It was that she decided to tell me then and go on and on without any regard for what I was going through. She really thought I wanted to listen to her talk about her morning sickness?

You know what another person said to me when I told them? "I don't get it. What's the big deal? You couldn't have kids anyway, right? I mean, no offense."

Do you have any idea how many people have told me their abortion stories? Just in the past year two people have told me that they've had multiple abortions and that they were on birth control each time they got pregnant. I am not in any way judging their choices, but for pete's sake, why do people feel the need to tell me these things? Both times the women ended the conversation by saying something like, "Fertility is wasted on someone like me."

After seven years of trying to start our family, I've heard it all. I wish I had realized a long time ago that all my feelings are normal. That there are other people out there feeling the same way. That I didn't have to be alone for so many years.



National Infertility Awareness Week is April 24-May 1, 2010.

If you would like more information about making #infertility a trending topic on twitter, please visit The Long and Winding Road.