Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Fertility Wars Hurt


Look out. I'm processing. Or venting. Or getting a cheap therapy session at the expense of your eyes. Feel free to quit reading now. LOL


So there is a little "secret girls club" that I'm in on FaceBook. I left. Tonight. If I could have made a fool of myself by slamming the door on the way out, I probably would have. :-D Massively pissed and desperately trying not to cry, but that's mostly just hormones talking, LOL.

There's a mommies board that I've been part of for a number of years, great bunch of gals that I've enjoyed cyber-hanging out with. Their overall emphasis on graceful (non-punitive) parenting is one that I sorely need. :shifty  Anyway, there's a kind-of spin off group on FB with a number of members in common, so a lot of parenting stuff gets discussed on the mommies board and a lot of "other" stuff gets discussed on FB. And a lot of venting goes on in both places, especially since not all the people/personalities overlap. I'm in both groups (and a bunch of other gals I like hanging out with on-line are as well).
That's ^^^ the background, LOL. 


One of the FB gals posted yesterday something to the effect of "I get totally annoyed with and jealous of those gals who say they've 'never felt better' than when they're pregnant, have an easy time of the 9 months, look all adorable pregnant, and then the baby practically walks itself out at home when it's over."  And of course about a third of the group "liked" it, and the first comment (left by another gal in the group who's currently pregnant) says "They're lying"--in reference to those who say pregnancy isn't absolutely awful for them. Annnnd . . . . That's all. LOL. 

Clearly that's worth leaving a very cozy "safe space" group on FB over, right?? (Not!) I *know* this is just a perfect storm of mostly unrelated things. Really. I know that. And I'm fine. Really.

1. My post-partum hormones (think PMS on high-alert) have been really bad the last 2 or 3 days. Just feeling overly sensitive about everything, weepy, whiny, ect. The whole messy 9 yards that makes men thankful we don't have constant PMS, LOL. (Definitely the largest factor here.) 
2. One of the gals in our FB group just miscarried. She was "only" at 8 weeks, but far enough along to have delivered a tiny whole baby. Heart-breaking.
3. Then there's the gal who made the original comment: a young mom who *can't* have a second child because her first delivery did almost kill her. Literally. Absolutely HORRIFIC childbirth story. The stuff PTSD is made of. :-(
4. The gal who made the "they're all lying" comment is also pregnant. And has bad morning sickness, and a couple of other young kids under foot. And that sucks. It really does.
5. Probably about half of the FB group *does* have awful pregnancies/L&Ds. Morning sickness through the 6th month (it usually stops after the 3rd), hyperemesis gravidarum (the morning sickness from hell that leaves you so dehydrated that hospitalization is required), awful birth stories, pregnancy and birth traumas of just about every kind imaginable. So yes, for a lot of the group "happy happy pregnant people" are anomalous to their experience. Seriously divergent actually. (And I'll be the first to agree that "happy happy" people are annoying--no matter *what* they're happy about, LOL.)
6. The post in question was NOT aimed at me specifically. Obviously I'm not "adorable" while pregnant. ROFL. I do happen to fit ALL the other criteria, but the post was "I hate this TYPE of person" if you know what I mean. It wasn't personal. I know that.

But comments like that are still (even acknowledging all that^^^) painful right now. Painful isn't the right word. But my reaction is such a mix of pissed & wanting to take it personally, curl up and sob that I think it'll just settle for hurtful and vent on Blogger. :-)

I HATE being called a liar. Hate it. Just because YOU have hard pregnancies doesn't mean I (or anyone else) am lying when I say I have an easy time of it. Grrr... :hissyfit

And I try *really* hard not to talk much when I'm pregnant. Because for some stupid reason, women hate other women who don't hate pregnancy. *shrugs* And I don't like feeling like I'm rubbing in the fact that I don't struggle with being pregnant (even though I don't). So in a group with an unusually high concentration of members who *have* had hard pregnancies, I said nothing about me being pregnant. The entire 9 months. (Of course, we found out in April & didn't announce til August, so yeah. There's that, lol.) I'm not interested in rubbing salt in anybodies' wounds & I hate sympathy anyway!! If I'm whining, (*make note of this please*) I'd much prefer to be told to suck it up & shut up than to get the "oh you poor dear . . . you have it so hard . . . blah, blah, reflect feelings, blah blah." (Which the FB group is REALLY good at doing--which is another reason I don't say much about me, LOL. I get the validity of reflecting feelings. I do. But some days it feels like a patronizing pat on the head.)

I tend to be an intensely private person (or think of myself as such anyway-ha!). I don't like having people all up in my business ever, but especially not when I'm pregnant. Yet the "we hate you because your experience doesn't validate ours, so go away" message hurts. Which is totally unreasonable because it was NOT aimed at me. And it didn't even say go away. It only said "We hate you." LOL And even if I knew what to say in response (while I walked out the door) I wouldn't say anything out of respect for those in the group for whom childbearing is an *incredibly* painful topic.

And there's also my own personal 7 years of wanting a kid & not getting pregnant baggage in play here. :-S I might look like the proverbial "Fertile Myrtle" now, but it hasn't always been that way. And those hurts don't leave quickly (tho they sure pop up quickly when there are PP hormones around)!  Even "all these kids" later, I still can't stand "those women" who whine and complain about every . little . thing . the . entire . time . they're . pregnant. Especially when the pregnancy is preceded by whining every month they "TTC" and aren't "successful." CanNOT stand it. Try just being thankful that you CAN get pregnant when you do! So there's that playing into this as well, LOL. "They" hate "women like me" who have easy pregnancies and I can't stand "women like them" who bitch and moan about being pregnant. Cuts both ways, these mommy wars!!! >.< 
(Yet another reason to be careful when mouthing off about potentially sensitive topics.)

::steps off soapbox

1 comment:

The Savage said...

Just in the event that friends wander here from the FB group:

I have been contemplating leaving the group for months. I spend *entirely* too much time on FB (largely in that group). I did not leave because of the post/comment I just ranted about, it was simply the impetus I needed to click the "Leave Group" button tonight. *shrug* Love you guys!