Dear Preggo…STFU. Signed, Mgmt.

Disclaimer: My dearest pregnant, and post-pregnant readers and friends, I love you.  I love your children.  I would like to take this moment pre-rant to say that I know pregnant people have their own issues.  That your having a difficult pregnancy should not be slighted by my or anyone else’s infertility.  I understand completely that your blues ain’t like mine.  Things that WE infertiles do, probably piss you off a bit as well….and I sincerely hope you have a blog where you can rant to high heaven about it…because I DO, and I plan to do so.  If you’re in the touchy, easily-offended stages of your life, I hope that you take this time to close your browser and scram.  This won’t be for you.  If you are, however, the kind of chick that can handle good-humored rants and raves, then by all means stay, maybe you’ll see something that annoys you too.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’ve been sitting on this one for a few weeks now.  Well, that’s a lie.  I’ve been sitting on this one for a few years.

I’ve rested quietly on my frustrations, primarily for the sake of not causing a rift between myself and the preggos that are driving me insane. Annoyances aside, I love them, and I know they sometimes can’t help how “drive-a-nail-into-my-eye” bothersome they become.  But then I reminded myself that one of the ways this blog reaches so many is by my saying the things you(readers) WANT to say. LOL  So it would be downright cruel for me to not rant on you all’s behalf!  I opened the floor for Eggshells to send me their most annoying things about pregnant people, and I gotta say….I love you guys. You’re HILARIOUS, and all of your mentions are included in this post!

To be fair, I don’t know that pregnant women understand the work that goes into trying to be genuinely happy for them sometimes.  On the surface, sure, who wouldn’t be happy for their best girlfriend or sister bringing a new life into this world!?  We stifle all our initial sadness and focus in on the beauty of it all.  Instead of being disappointed about ourselves, for once, we do our best to put on a happy face and think about the bigger picture.  Then they go and %$& it up by being jerks about the whole thing.

1.IF I CAN INJECT A NEEDLE INTO MY OWN A$$, YOU CAN LIFT THAT PEN!

The last thing a woman who spends her evenings ramming sharps into the side of her gluteus maximus wants to hear come out of a pregnant woman’s mouth is how she just can’t function now that she’s 72 hours pregnant.  The woman who’s had her second hysterosalpingogram is NOT at ALL interested in your back pain, when you’re all of six weeks along.  She’s really thinking, “Go flog yourself, whiny heffa!  If I can take gushing liquid into my fallopians, you can handle  back spasms.” Now this is not to say that once she gets pregnant herself that she won’t feel you on some level, but trust me when I tell you that she could give a hell less when her whole body feels like a pin cushion and you’re floating glowingly into your FIRST trimester.  She is taking one for the team every single day, dealing with just as many hormonal bounces as you, and with nothing to show for it. I’d advise you to shut it before she throws a box of Gonal-F at your head.

2. YOU ARE NOT A CELEBRITY, SECRET SQUIRREL!

Celebrities hold off on sharing bits of their relationships and pregnancies because they already share so much of themselves with the world.  They deserve to keep a little of it to themselves for as long as they can.  They wait until they can’t wait any longer to reveal parts of their lives to us.  I get that.  YOU, however, are Loquitta from 75th street…NOT Beyonce.  You share yourself willingly on every social media site known to man.  So when you get knocked up and post phantom ultrasound pictures in your profile, of course people will want to know what you’re having and if IT has a name!  Why the hell are you brow-beating us with your secrecy?  To YOU, it may not seem like a big deal. Perhaps there’s a warped sense of modesty in your “No, we’re not pregnant.  NO, the secret baby in here does not have a name, PLEASE stop asking us!”   However to US,  it just feels like you’re holding a gift box out in our faces and saying “Nah Naahny Nah Nah, It’s my Secret Box of Goodies and you better not ask about it“.  At the point where you start withholding information for kicks and giggles, you lose us.  We no longer want to know a damn thing about YOU, your pregnancy, or your squirmy secret spawn.  Keep ALL your crap to yourself if you wanna act like that.   Don’t facebook an ultrasound, don’t mention your morning sickness, don’t post a weekly bump shot, and don’t use passive-aggressive wit to let us know how angry you are with the next person who asks you a stupid question like, oh I don’t know, “do you know what you’re having and does it have a name”?

3. I’M  ASKING FOR COMMON RESPECT, NOT SEGREGATION

So the cat is out of the family bag about my infertility.  For whatever reason, the whole gang knows that my procreation plans are shaky.  A bit of care with what you say to and around me is appreciated.  Hiding entire new pregnancies from me, not so much.  I understand that in your head, the thought of having to use tact and decorum when informing me of your new baby was hard, I mean who could ask for crazy things like those?   So instead you decided to completely distance yourself from me until the shower invitations were out?  What the smelly hell?  You think my having to go to Babies R Us and decipher your registry is going to be easier because I didn’t know about it until your third trimester?  FAIL.  The simplest thing in the world would have have been to just tell me.  Tiptoeing around me is a cop-out.  It doesn’t make me feel any less frustrated to come to family gatherings and find that everyone knew about your news but me. The largest hurdle in my life is feeling normal, so thanks for finding yet another way to make me feel less than.

4. JUST BECAUSE YOU USED TO BE ON THIS TEAM, DOESN’T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER FOOLISHNESS BUBBLES TO YOUR LIPS

You know, if anything, I would hope that the persons most understanding of what not to say to infertile folk would be those who have graduated from our club.  I mean, truth be told, you never fully do graduate.  If you’ve survived a miscarriage once, I’m sure you go into all pregnancies with that extra bit of concern.  If you worked hard to get knocked up this first time, I’m sure you have your worries about a “next” time.  Yet some of our “graduates” find some of the worst ways to offend!  I’m not sure if its because you believe that you’ve been where we are, or if pregnancy brain has gotten the better of you, but saying crap like, “Well, I’ve gotten pregnant, now it’s your turn” or “Well I bet now that you’ve adopted, you’re sure to get pregnant now just like I did”, makes me want to assassinate you.  Did I miss the memo?  Did the old stork die and you took over his post? Is that what the holdup was this whole time? Your womb is the fountain of life now?  Kick rocks, jerk.

5. OH, WE CAN BE BITCHES NOW?  I DIDN’T KNOW!  LET ME GO GET MY COSTUME!

Considering the fact that I’ve received some of the most heart-wrenching news in my life during these few YEARS of infertility, I’m sure I would have just loved knowing that it gave me the right to be a bitter a$$hole.  I mean, you’ve only been pregnant for about six days and you’ve already picked up more than your fair share of bishitude.  Had I known that reproduction was warrant for talking to people any kind of way, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to hold it together.  I mean here I was letting silly comments roll off my back and all the while I could have been telling people off just like you!  Who knew!?  I’m sorry but the grapefruit in your belly is no excuse for you treating everyone around you like they’re incompetent and annoying.

6. WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, ASK.

If you are a pregnant reader of the Egg, this is my greatest advice.  Ask us if we’re okay with being involved in situations where we will be the ONLY never-been-pregnant person in the room.  ASK us if we’re comfortable with your making suggestions about what we should do to get where you are.  ASK us how OUR IVF cycle is going, or how we feel sometimes.  Just that small bit of concern, can change half of these rants into water under the bridge.

At the end of the day, it is hard to be happy sometimes.  As much as we want to be okay, it is truly difficult.  Many of the things that annoy us, overlap with the things we don’t mind so much.  Basically, the entire thing is confusing, even to us.   This post is not meant to “change” anyone, or to demand anything.  For all we know, those of us who contributed to this post could all get pregnant eventually and be JUST as aggravating for someone else.  But today, is not that day.  And today, we just had to get it out.

Got anymore preggo pet peeves?  Rant away in the comments!