Not many people know - that's deliberate. They don't know that we're trying at all, let alone that we have all these issues. It's better it saves us hopefully from lots of questions and comments. Even so, people say stupid stuff, which brings me back to one of my original points, that it's impossible to know what this is like unless you're going through it. Below are some of the things that people have said, and why they were hurtful.
The first, well, what can I say, you should just never say this to anyone. If you're curious about someone's family plan, just deal with it. You don't have any right to know about what's going on, and if they want you to know, they'll offer that information.
"Why don't you have children yet? [other couple who got married after us] have a baby already. Don't you know how children are made?" (I literally could have punched the person who said this in the throat)
This is hurtful because, well it's just so tactless. Even if we weren't having all these issues it's a pretty tactless thing to say
"Prince Rainier and his wife had twins - I bet they got some kind of special treatment to make sure of that" (this can be substituted for many other celebrities). This is just bollocks - no sane person would go through IVF just to have twins. I mean, seriously, no sane person would go through IVF for the hell of it. The physical and emotional stress that going through fertility treatment, unless you're a sociopath, would make any normal person avoid it.
(when wanting to tell someone good news) "Is it that you're pregnant?" Depending on what this is said, this can be pretty devastating (as in, imagine it's just the day after I found out, AGAIN, that I wasn't pregnant?) It was meant in a nice way, but man it made me upset.
"I know you're going to have children." This is a nice sentiment, but at this point in time I'm only listening to medical professionals on this subject. Someone once told me "you can't choose to have children, you can only choose to not have children", and now I realise this is so true. Nobody knows if I will have children; I would like to think that it's something that will happen, but I don't know it. Doctors can say I have x% chance of this treatment or another treatment working or that based on the following test results, the prognosis is positive. But not even they can say with certainty that I will have children, so someone with no sight of my medical history, test results and so on can say it either regardless of how well it is meant.
So what can / should you say? This is one of those things where chances are, I (or someone else), just need someone to listen.
