Throughout our lives, well-meaning people ask well-meaning questions that, frankly, are annoying. When you finish school: “So when do you start studying?” When you reach your 20s: “So where is the boyfriend/girlfriend?” When you have a significant other: “So when is the wedding?” And then the one question that can go from being annoying to being upsetting in a few short months.
When are you having a baby?
For people who have no interest in having a baby, this question can be purely frustrating. How many times is too many when you have to justify yourself to the whole world as to why you have no interest in having children? For those who really want children but are struggling, this question hurts.
My version of this question is: “So…when is no 2 coming?” With variations including “Isn’t it time for another?” and “When is it time for the next one?”
I have what is known as Secondary Infertility. My first was almost textbook. Just under a year after we got married I came off the pill, expecting three months of “practice” before the hormones from the Pill wore off and we could start seriously trying. I fell pregnant almost immediately after coming off the pill.
For baby number two we waited for things to be “just right”. I wanted to be in my new job for more than two years before going on maternity, I wanted to travel, and we wanted an age gap of about three years. So when people asked, we had an answer: “April 2014, we start trying”.
April 2014 came and April 2014 left, and each month I peed on a stick all excited, and each month Aunt Flo arrived, later and later. I went to my doctor and everything seemed in order. I cried, because if everything was in order then why was I not pregnant?
Still people asked and the answer was easy: “We are working on it.” But every month my smile got a little more fake and the hope faded a little more. After six months of no menstruation, I visited my doctor again to discover I was not ovulating. We put an action plan together, full of clomid and timed intercourse (so sexy) and then if that didn’t work, more clomid and artificial insemination and lots of tests.
Hope was renewed. I almost sang “We are working on it” back at the well-meaning askers and I was sure that I was going to be pregnant before those five months were up.
One year and seven months after starting to try, Monday was the end of the 5th cycle. With the end of the cycle came the end of the hope. I decided that I need a break. My body needs a break. I have come to terms with the fact that 2015 is not my year. I can’t hope for these three months because I cannot handle it any more.
The second guessing of everything I do, avoiding things because I might be pregnant, reading too much into events around me and googling symptoms at 2am when I can’t sleep from worry.
So please, stop asking your friends, stop asking strangers and stop asking me: “When is the next one coming?” Because I don’t know.
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