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05/03/2004
Can you have it both ways?
Tertia wrote: "Is it easier being in or out the closet [about infertility and loss]?"
The comments feature some really thoughtful commentary on why people choose to tell or not. Some people tell because they want to reduce the stigma attached to infertility — a legitimate medical condition, not an embarrassing moral failing of some kind that should engender shame. Some women, remembering their own feelings of isolation, hope to help others feel less alone. And some are open and blunt in hopes of protecting their own feelings — going on the offense against a million hurtful comments made in ignorance. All of these responses apply to me, and to the reasons I write here.
On the other hand, a lot of women don't tell. Some fear added pressure from family members. Some can't count on people responding in a helpful way. Others keep quiet to protect their husbands' privacy. All of these responses also apply to me, and to the reasons I don't tell many people about our infertility.
Online, I've told anyone who cares to listen about everything we've experienced. On this blog, on others', on message boards, in chat sessions, I've been open to the point of painfulness.
Offline, I've told my immediate family — my parents, my aunt, my grandparents — about seeking treatment, but I don't discuss the day-to-day developments. I told only my parents and my aunt about my first loss; I told only my parents about the second. A few very close friends know bits and pieces; not even my best friend knows it all. Paul's family members know nothing.
I've told no one in my real life about this journal.
It says something revealing about me, I'm sure, that I can discuss my most intimate hopes, fears, and body openings with my friends inside the computer, people I've never met and probably never will, yet feel uncomfortable to the point of nausea at the very idea of telling, say, Paul's sister even something so basic and vague as "We're trying to have a child."
A lot of the time I feel like two separate people — one who communicates enthusiastically, even promiscuously, and the other who lies by omission every minute of the day.
Posted by Julie at 02:31 PM in I've learned a lot...but I'm not sure it's worth it. | Permalink
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Comments (18)
As for me, I share my infertility only with very close friends (and i don't have many so that's about 2 people) and my mother. To all the rest of the world (especially the bitches I hate), if I ever do get pregnant and stay that way long enough to announce it, I'm going to lie like Sarah Jessica Parker and claim it was a complete surprise!
Posted by: Enough Already at May 3, 2004 3:14:57 PM
I'm increasingly becoming sensitive, personally, to the overwhelming complexity of self-disclosure. So I totally get this one. The world of blogdom opens up a new chapter on this old topic, because it so weirdly mixes anonymity and intimacy ...
Posted by: jilbur at May 3, 2004 3:30:46 PM
I treat my infertility the same as you, Julie. I have a group of online friends who have been with me since the first semen analysis, and they know pretty much all there is to know. My real life disclosure, though, is limited to family (both mine and my husband's) and a very few friends. I keep quiet because I fear dealing with insensitive comments and I don't like having to justify to other people choices that haven't been come by easily.
I have been feeing increasingly uncomfortable with this as I scurry around, preparing to be away from home for several weeks as I cycle out of town. I have a large circle of co-workers and professional acquaintances who aren't quite mollified by a general "I need to be out of town." I could tell them, and they'd probably be supportive, but I just can't quite cross that hump. I'm somewhat disappointed in myself for staying quiet, since I generally think that closets are for clothes. I think the thing that really keeps me from letting loose is coming back to lots of people asking me if it worked. I don't want to be accountable to others, especially since I'm not brimming with confidence that I'll return pregnant.
Posted by: runnerwoman at May 3, 2004 3:51:35 PM
My parents and my husband's parents know (oddly enough, I feel easier talking to my mother-in-law about it - probably because she had much the same thing happen to her, as it turns out!). In addition, I've told three close friends, two of whom have also had fertility problems. We only update them on the big developments/setbacks, though. No blow-by-blow updating for anyone except me and A.
I find it's better if a few people know. It makes it harder to pull back into your shell with no explanation, and I have a bad tendency to do that.
Posted by: Sonetka at May 3, 2004 3:56:43 PM
Julie,
Thank you for this post. Your timing is exquisite. I am naively new to the world of blogging. In fact I am shocked at what I am finding. So shocked that I have spent the past four days with my sorry ass stuck on the right side of my recliner (the left is reserved for my cat) under a blanket and occasionally a hot water bottle/cat (to assuage the disappointing cramps of yet another cycle) eyes glued to my moniter.
I am tremendously buoyed by your insights, observations and experiences. Your recount of your ectoptic and subsequent miscarriage have been more theraputic in dealing with my own than the three years of therapy I just stopped. You have inspired me to start my own blog. I know I will have to deal with the issues you've written about today, and frankly they are hard. I whole-heartedly embrace the anonymity of the web. I lied to my therapist (so fucked up - I know) but can absolutely imagine posting the naked nasty truth. Being honest to yourself about infertility is obviously important. Deciding who else to allow to see that honesty is a matter of terrifying vulnerability. You seem to have done a fantastic job of separating infertility from the rest of your life. Separation is not the right word, it's your primary, and well groomed focus here. I admire that, and I'm a little curious, not about your decision, but as to 'how' you are able to be so selectively revealing. I am just not that organized. Infertility is such a big looming thing for me and my reactions to it are pervasive and messy. They lead me to explore all my other issues, my victories, and my disasters.
I want to be honest to my husband, to my best friend, and to my mom. I want to be absolutely honest. But jesus christ some of my disasters are embarrassing, and that in itself is an issue, a therapy issue as well as something I need to continue to explore. I do not live a compartmentalized life. Or perhaps I just don't have the head for it. Unfortunately for me, that often means I do a whirlwind repression act and find it difficult to negotiate revealing anything to anyone. I wobble between the extremes of holding high regard for people I admire and holding them at arms length with sarcasm and superficial banter or (once in the last four years) I find myself oversharing - thank you alcohol - and then getting incredibly embarrassed. Oh, look at my post, make that twice. But I guess that's the point, Can I have both honesty and dignity? Can I be honest to myself and to the important folks in my life? But this is yours, and mine will be mine and I need to put myself in a land of my own making. I will figure it out and I need to thank you for inspiring me to do just that.
Oh yeah, and I need thank you for being smart and out there. Horrible and offensive comment to follow: before I randomly followed a link to your blog, my TTC board had me convinced that smart folks didn't share. Glad I'm wrong.
Posted by: Stormy at May 3, 2004 4:02:23 PM
I'm not a secretive person at all, but infertility isn't just my issue, it is my husband's as well, and I do find myself telling our story to people I've just met and then thinking, "Does G. Want the world to know he had surgery for vericoceles?"
Then I think, "Why the hell not?"
I've gone through so many phases of wearing this on my sleeve. When we had been married seven years and decided to have kids, we told a few people we were trying. Oops. Then came the frustration of the dichotomy of on the one hand wishing I didn't feel so alone in my infertility struggles, and yet not wanting to have to hear the obtuse comments of idiots around me. At that phase, our "active infertility phase," I got neither support nor privacy. A big screw.
Then we adopted Nico, who is Vietnamese, and of course that's like wearing a hat with a flag on it that says, "WE COULDN'T HAVE OUR 'OWN' KIDS. ASK ME ALL ABOUT IT." I'm not shy about talking about why we chose adoption, what it was like, shy Vietnam... really, there's no aspect of it that I feel I personally need to keep private. It's okay with me, talking about infertility in the context of our adoption experience.
Now that I'm pregnant, though, there's a whole new depth level to the questions, and the "no, you're totally off the trolley track" factor on the comments. And yes, I am starting to feel a bit... awkward at times. There's the whole floodgate that opens when someone asks, "Is this your first?" They mean child. No, it's not. So I answer truthfully: "First pregnancy, second child." But then it's like I'm begging to give a dissertation on the most intimate part of my life. I mean, I've got nothing to hide, and a fair amount of time on my hands. So I explain.
But I am going to have to become more and more sensitive to the needs of the other people involved in "my" story, like my husband and my kids. Just now I'm finally learning to tell people, "Go ahead and ask Nico. He's standing right here," instead of launching into some long story about him in the third person when someone asks, "Did you adopt him?"
Everything I have experienced is real, and for me, I guess, more than building awareness of infertility or adoption, I just want to further the cause of talking about real stuff. Airily is fine. Doesn't have to weigh a ton. But I prefer real topics to vapid ones, and so I engage on this stuff.
But it has its pros and cons.
Posted by: mollie at May 3, 2004 4:08:20 PM
That was supposed to be "why Vietnam," not "shy Vietnam." I can't live with typos.
Posted by: mollie at May 3, 2004 4:13:58 PM
A nice thing about telling your story in a blog is that you can say what you have to say at the moment, uninterrupted, without having to respond to someone else's response to your story. You can tell what you need as you need to tell it--and then people can choose to read it, or not. And the people who end up reading it are people who want to...Which is different than, say, talking about vulnerable and sensitive things in any real-life context I can think of. Bloglandia can--at its best--be a kindler, more thoughtful, more careful world. And that is one of the reasons I like it.
Posted by: Eve at May 3, 2004 5:02:12 PM
My biggest mistake last cycle.. telling our parents. Telegraph, Telephone, Tele-Mother-in-law. She blabbed to everyone that we were doing IVF. Then we got phone calls from them asking when/where/what. Then once it started, we got DAILY phone calls for updates from both sides. His side was much worse. After retrieval... they'd call daily, even when I told them we'd know NOTHING until beta day. By the time beta day arrived, I was a nutcase. When we got the BFN, we sent an email to everyone saying it failed.. and "PLEASE don't CALL, we don't need to hear I'm sorry yet again". Was probably rude at the time, but enough is enough.
This time, when my MIL asked "when are you getting started again?".. I replied.. "we are on hold until further notice". Only my close online friends will know the details. Those people I can cut off easily. LOL
Posted by: BrendaS at May 3, 2004 6:17:09 PM
For us, it was SUCH a relief to start letting people know. The "so when are you going to pop a baby out" comments stopped, almost completely, overnight. I found some real-life friends who were experiencing the same thing, but we had never talked about it. Now, we get together once a week.
I don't tell everybody in real life ALL the gory details, but I have found it immeasurably helpful to my own mental health to let people know that there's something "going on."
Posted by: Kendra at May 3, 2004 7:34:39 PM
I shared my pregnancy loss and infertility with everyone that would listen.
I wanted to make it less taboo for others to discuss, and help if I could. I've made a lot of wonderful friends from this openness.
My pregnancy, on the other hand, I've been reluctant to talk about.
Posted by: Tessa at May 3, 2004 8:25:26 PM
As I said in my blog this morning, the consequence of being 'out' is that you have to relive your bad news over and over again. When I got back from my scan I had to tell about 10 people the bad news, when all I wanted to do was crawl into my cave and lick my wounds.
It really is a double edged sword.
Posted by: Tertia at May 4, 2004 1:57:13 AM
this is going to sound nuts.. hahaha.. anyhow, i read all of y'alls weblogs. i'm a big fan of y'all wanna-mamma-be's (thats my term, wanna-mamma-be, i use it to refer to myself, myself being infertile not because of my body but because my current life situation isn't set up for baby, yet, and it is totally affectionate and all that and i hope it doesn't offend you!) and what you are going through to become mamma.. its courageous, admireable, and each thing you do during your fertility treatments, i see, as being an act of love for a child yet to be brought into your lives.
that said.
the closet. i suffer from depression. in fact i'm just getting back started after being stopped in my tracks with it. the whole closet thing and who you tell and where you tell.. at one point i kept it closeted.. then last year i told everyone, because i hated living in a closet, but this year i'm toning it down. its become something i rarely discuss with others and something i don't discuss on my blog much anymore.
its a very difficult thing, revealing the most intimate parts of you. my thing is that i want people to see me as strong.. when they here about the depression and my getting stopped in my tracks their opinion of me, well.. i'm super sensitive, i fear their opinion changes.
anyhow. all of y'all wanna-mamma-be's who are trying so hard constantly are constantly making me think, or smile, or excited (when someone comes up with a postive or, like mollie is carrying a healthy baby). thank you for sharing.
Posted by: brooke at May 4, 2004 4:44:36 AM
(Tessa! I wondered where you were! Busy gestating, I see. Congratulations — I wish you the very, very best. Please don't be a stranger.)
Posted by: Julie at May 4, 2004 8:34:47 AM
I'm just reading over old entries since I'm fairly new to all of this. I just had my first cycle, waiting for next week to find out if it took. I have told all my friends and just recently, spoke to a friend who suggested that may have not been the smartest thing. I hadn't thought of the fact that I'm not entirely sure of how I will react if it is bad news. I just thought, these are my friends, I'm basically an open book, they should know and will support me and help me if it's good or bad news. Now I'm not so sure. I'm become more emotional -- I spoke with a woman at the lab today waiting for her blood test, in the same situation as me (first cycle), and I teared up when she unexpected hugged me and said Good Luck. So maybe I will be a basket case if it's bad news. I want to stay positive though.
Well, we'll see.
Posted by: Kayla at Dec 16, 2004 10:05:09 PM
i've been married for over 7 yrs. until the past couple of yrs we had decided not to get pregnant. my friends and family were curious and wanted to know if we couldnt have kids; we said its too soon, we r goin to enjoy before we settle down with kids.
we have been trying for the past 2 yr and still v r not pregnant, last week v went to the doc for a check-up and boy - o- boy... both of us have major problems. i have polysystic ovarian disease and i'm undergoing medication; my husband has got vericoceles and his sperm count is very low
we are both very depressed; v havent shared this information with our parents yet; its beyond our imagination
this coming 6 months is very important; only then will we know is there is even the slightest chance of us getting pregnant
its feels gud to share this with someone; thankyou... we are praying for a miracle
Posted by: hopeful at Feb 6, 2005 5:25:58 AM
Iam 24 years old and mother of a six year old boy. I am currently with my husband and we have been trying to get pregnant. For a whole year now we have had unprotected sex, but I have never got pregnant. Now this past month we had unprotected sex again and now I am late on my period 6 days. What worries me is that I took 3 different pregnancy tests and they all came out positive. I really do not feel any symptoms except that i have frequent pain in my lower stomach. I am so scared and I dont want to go to the doctor. I checked on the time of how far I can be and I am 4 weeks 3 days. Please help. If the tests are negative, then why aren't I getting my period!
Posted by: me at Apr 14, 2007 2:36:27 PM
I won't even tell my mother. She knows we are trying to get pregnant, but that's all.
Posted by: Sonya at May 2, 2007 9:57:11 AM
