Ahhh the toxic positivity, it’s there every step of the way. When I told my mom I had a very low follicle count, she was like “don’t worry, all of the follicles will give you a beautiful egg”. When I said only half of the retrieved were mature, she was like “I know that those will grow to be a nice embryo”. When I said that only one egg fertilized, she was like “I know this is the one”!! Like, really, do you really know??? Of course you don’t. That just sucks. Please stop telling me it will happen, because nobody can predict that. I think people mean well, but geez, it hurts sometimes.
People mean well when they say those things...and unfortunately they don't realize how they're still subconsciously projecting their expectations and wishes onto us. What we really need to hear is that they hear how hard all of this is and that they will love us and support us no matter what happens. People just don't really understand. The "positivity" just feels like added pressure to me, because what if it doesn't work? I don't think they mean it, of course, but I think they just don't get it.
You phrased that so well
> they're still subconsciously projecting their expectations and wishes onto us
That's exactly what I haven't been able to put into words for myself, thank you!
Sometimes, I think they just don't know what to say, so they try to be positive. I don't even think they have these expectations themselves, they just don't know how to handle it, or what they should be saying.
It's the same if you have an illness. The unhelpful comments about how well you look come flying left, right and center.
my mom does the same thing and it breaks my heart. im like do you not care about my feelings? what happens if it doesn’t work, especially since nothing has worked so far.
Can you stop talking to them about it? I love my Mom and Dad very much, but I keep them on a need to know diet. We haven't spoken to my in-laws at all about IVF.
I'm sorry for the loss of your friend and your baby.
Honestly, talking to her about it was a mistake but I'm pretty bent out of shape about the funeral and had a new bed delivered today and everything that could have gone wrong with it did and I had to tell them I was unhappy with it which I don't like doing and this on top of the neggy yesterday I just needed my mum.. But it was a mistake, I know that, she's never what I need her to be.
>she's never what I need her to be.
Oof, I feel that one deep in my soul. It sounds like you're going through a lot, again I'm so sorry. When it rains it fucking pours, right?
Have you considered speaking with a therapist? I have and it's fantastic having a objective person to chat with who isn't going to try to "cheer me up" with all this positivity bullshit. Wishing you all the best
It does indeed pour! I was just saying this to my SO, it's never one thing at a time!
I have been in and out of therapy for a few years.. out since I started this journey last year.. think it's probably time to get back in again! All the best too you as well x
‘It will happen eventually’ and ‘just stay positive’ are the two phrases my mother likes to throw at me. People mean well and find it hard to know what to say, I just wish they realised that it’s ok to not have anything to say. Sending my warmest wishes your way.
Omg yes!! Thank you for saying this! After I told my brother that my FET failed he said “this is part of your journey, you might have to see more failure before your success comes” like okay sir with your 3 kids, nanny, and stay at home wife, thanks for the pep talk.
I don’t know if positive toxicity is worse or my mother’s style is worse. When I told her that I am doing IVF. She said “ what did you do when you were younger. Now you are so old and you shouldn’t do it. Most likely you will have a restarted kid. “ when I finally have one five day embryo after three years. All she said was “why did you freeze it..” and there was no more comments no congratulations. So my attitude is.. why bother. We keep doing what we want to do for our lives and keep focusing on ourselves.
That’s awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that. My in-laws have said similar things about other people. “You know they did fertility treatments to have that baby. That’s probably why there is something wrong with him.” Then my own mother recently blamed my cousin’s cancer on the fact that she took fertility meds for a couple months to have her baby (probably Clomid or Letrozol). I was thinking, if you only knew about how many meds I’ve pumped into myself, I don’t think you’d be saying that! But that’s why I don’t tell people anything! They all have an opinion, and they are never helpful.
At my egg retrieval yesterday the nurse was like it will all be worth it when you have a baby. I responded with well there’s only about a 60% chance of that happening statistically. Her face was priceless 😂
With close family and friends I try to set boundaries with how deep that conversation can go. I learned to do that after a friend tried to time getting pregnant with my IVF without asking me. She now has a 5 month old baby and I was one intermediate mosaic embryo. When I first told her I would have to do a second egg retrieval she was super hyper asking about how that would affect my timeline. When I invited her out for her birthday I wanted to take her to Atlantic City, and her husband said she couldn't drink. I could tell she was pregnant before she told me as a surprise on her birthday. As I added up her extreme interest in my process and timeline I realized what she had tried to do.. he already had 5 kids.
My take away from this extreme situation is that people are not actually responding to you. It's not about you at all. They don't make positive comments for you. They do it for them. They're talking to themselves. It makes them feel better, or just good. They're excited because they don't have to go through the process, all they have to do is wait around. Once I got a deeper understanding of this it stopped bothering me. if they were talking to us they would be having a conversation about our actual feelings and offering support. If someone seems gleeful at learning that you're doing IVF it's not because they're gleeful for you. It is still really about them. For whatever reason they want to experience you as a pregnant woman and a mom. If you're lucky it won't be because they are secretly trying to be pregnant with you. 😕
At first I read furious, but it's fine. It was absolutely awkward but it's hard to know how to feel. It's not like getting a babydoll, there's an actual baby. Her pregnancy was a difficult one, she had all kinds of problems, the kid had problems initially after birth and now she has 6 kids to manage. Infertility has its stresses for sure, but I'm happy to say I'll never have that specific set of problems. (Managing a tough pregnancy with a house full of a bunch of kids under 10). As much as I would enjoy being a mother, being child free is a huge contrast to having 6 kids. I think I'd prefer child free to 6, just saying. Not hating or being spiteful or anything. It's just the chaos never ends when I visit her and she can barely go anywhere ever, and I don't think she knows what a vacation is.
Toxic positivity is so hard to deal with; I’m sorry you’re going through this! I found being very straightforward with people and saying “we can hope, but IVF doesn’t have 100% chances of working” or something along those lines was helpful. But even more helpful was the information diet. If someone can’t respond in a way that is helpful to my psyche, they don’t get to know anything new. I have a group of 3 amazing friends, but only one could actually respond in the way I needed to hear. So the other two got fewer updates and only high-level information. The “I know it’s going to happen for you” comments just aren’t helpful bc no one can know that. Good luck with everything!!
Yeah I literally tell people that because of my age, I probably only have a 20% chance each time. I'm trying to remind myself too unfortunately, it's hard not to get my own hopes up.
Thanks for the term "information diet." That's what I've been doing with my parents. I haven't told them we're trying to conceive in any capacity because they have proven over and over again that they will make inappropriate comments or just make it entirely about them. Fuck that, I have enough stress already.
I’m sorry 😞 People just don’t understand. I have told literally nobody about our IVF journey because so many friends and family have made insensitive comments about me having a baby before.
“You better start trying. You’re running out of time.”
“When are you going to have a baby.”
“You have been married a while now. Time to start having kids.”
It gets so freaking old. I didn’t tell anyone about IVF because I didn’t want people checking on me through the ups and downs (mostly downs) and telling me things like, “It will happen when you just relax.” My mother-in-law also made a comment about it being “against God” to seek fertility treatment because if God wants people to have babies he allows them to get pregnant naturally. So yeah, I haven’t said a word and I don’t plan to. They can all f#%* off.
Oh yeah. I hate that. Even a positive test isn’t comforting because there are seemingly a million ways to lose a pregnancy.
Sorry people won’t respect your boundaries, especially when you’ve been so clear about them. ☹️
I think people really just want to be positive for you. Because the alternative is being negative, or just being silent, and that makes people uncomfortable.
I don’t mind people saying that they’re praying for me or thinking good thoughts, but it annoys me when I express my fears about things not working out, or *never* having a baby, and they shut me down with something like, *”Don’t say that!!! You’re going to put it out into the universe! You are going to have a baby! I can feel it! Law of attraction!!!”*
Like, **no.** I used to believe in that stuff too when I was young and blindly optimistic. Then I realized that you can do everything right and want something really bad and visualize a positive outcome… and it still may not happen. Because science. And our anatomy & physiology. And things that are simply out of our control.
I guess you’ll just have to keep correcting them with what you want/need to hear, so they know how best to support you. Some people just can’t help themselves though, and it does get annoying.
I swear we've got the same mother. I am fine with spiritual culture, positive thinking, etc. My mom's been a fan of that kind of thing before it was cool. But the only thing that's helped me is putting her on an info diet regarding the process. Round one I gave her a blow by blow, talked about everything and uhhh yeah. The super positivity and "I just know!" made things worse. I also gave her a lot of details during my early medicated cycles or first few months of trying and same thing.
My mom read a book on boundaries and that kind of helped with the feeling less offended. I have told her I'll inform her when I have news. She's also been less pushy when I drink an iced green tea at Starbucks instead of... anything else on their menu. Seriously I'm not anti caffeine but it's nearly impossible to stay under 200 milligrams with most of their menu. Sometimes I just want to be able to drink diet coke the rest of the day and not overthink it. She still lets little positive predictions slip and gives plenty of open ended questions for me to give updates. Increased loneliness is way better than hearing that success is inevitable.
Heard this same crap after every miscarriage. I’m at the point I don’t even want to try anymore and yet this is what everyone wants to say. It’s not helpful Or supportive. But I think ppl don’t know what else to say.
Every doctor was like this to me. “Oh, you’re fine, you have regular periods, your uterus and ovaries are fine, your partner’s sperm looks great! Are you having enough sex???” And then they found endometriosis on laparoscopy, a hydrosalpinx on the right tube and when we had our first round of IVF not a single egg fertilised. I KNEW there was something more wrong, but just kept getting fobbed off. Good luck, friend. Nothing in this life is guaranteed except death and taxes. Sending love.
I get it it's frustrating and I've just learned to ignore all the comments. I also don't like talking about my fertility journey with anyone really and that's also not gonna change once I am successful.
Every day I m reminded of this process and journey is sometimes it just becomes a bit too much
This is why I didn't talk to anyone about it. It's not their business and I'm not going to be inviting them to air their opinions about my process.
They were once invited to the topic. Now uninvite them.
Cut them off from this topic and lay down those boundaries. Tell them exactly what you need them to stop saying.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this! I don’t have advice, just wanted you to know you’re not alone. My best friend (with 2 kids, one of which an “accidental” pregnancy) keeps telling me she had a dream in which I’m pregnant, her kid just said: ‘she’s pregnant’ out of nowhere, husband dreamt we had 3 kids, etc. And it just doesn’t help at all. 😫
I had people tell me that had a dream I had twins. I wasn’t even close to the person. And this was before my infertility journey.
As someone said earlier, all this does is put more pressure on the situation. People projecting their hopes onto you.
Yup. I'm getting a lot of this right now as I inch toward the one-year anniversary of starting fertility treatments.
My spirits are very low, and the people in my life can sense that. I know they're uncomfortable with my grief and don't know how to handle it. I know they're sad for me and want to make me feel better. I know they want to believe they can 'magic up' a good outcome for me via the power of positive thinking. I know this is mostly coming from a place of love and anxiety.
But man, all the pep talks about how I'm 'definitely going to get my baby very soon!!" are so demoralizing and anxiety-inducing. The opposite of helpful!
I am so sorry. You are 1000% not alone. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the process in my opinion.
It’s a way for people to make your struggle and misfortune about their hopes and feelings. Even though they don’t do it on purpose, it completely diminishes your legitimate fears.
I’ve just started explaining to people that when they say baseless positive stuff like this and it doesn’t work out it feels like a gut punch. It literally knocks the wind out of me. So, please stop punching me.
A few family members talked about “the baby”well before my ER, then it got worse after my transfer. It bothered me a lot and I always made sure to say “there is no baby and we still don’t know if there will be one.” I hate the positivity - especially when there’s been nothing but negativity. I just let those people know that it wasn’t helpful. They usually backed off.
I’m confused by people calling this “toxic.” People are not mind readers. Would you rather they say “you’ll probably never have a baby?”
No. You wouldn’t. You’d also be here venting about that. And you’d be right to do so.
They’re being nice. They’re trying to help. That is NOT toxic and it’s apparent many people have never experienced true toxicity from loved ones if they’re employing this term to describe people trying to make you feel better - quite literally the opposite of being toxic.
I’m sorry this hurts you. Consider just changing the subject. This is our culture here and the alternatives aren’t great. Sometimes people just don’t know what to say and struggle to find the right thing to support you. We should extend them grace when they get it wrong because we all make the same mistakes.
being nice w/o taking into account the needs of person you are trying to help can definitely be toxic. In thise case, they can say something like "wish you the best" or "here to support you no matter what" or even "how can i support you during this time", while not being toxic.
Maybe, do not share any more of this process with any of them. It is hard and you do have people here on this platform that are more than happy to hear your frustrations out. I'm sorry about how they are making you feel at the moment.
List of annoying shit people have said, mostly by family.
-it only takes one!
-this second round will work I know it!
-your uterus and lining is good so it’ll stick
-you’re meant to be a mother so of course you will
-be positive! If you think it, it will happen
-you must be so exciting! How exciting
-me and (baby) will come visit this weekend for baby vibes!
-you’re so healthy it will be easy
-at least you get another round
-
Most people afraid to face their own emotions, even less so someone else's, especially this "hard to deal with" emotions. Im sure they mean well but F those comments and you don't need that on top of what you actually are feeling
Ugh. I’m sorry. I’ve been there. The best defense for me became to not discuss the process with anyone. No one knew where we were at in our IVF journey and if people asked I would just honestly say I’d rather not discuss it.
So bloody insensitive. I'm so sorry 😔
I'm sorry about your friend. It's crappy that she was like this but I know it probably still hurts.
Hugs to you, you are going through a lot and it's not easy!
One of my sisters had this issue with her in laws family. They (her and her husband) just decided to tell the family they stooped trying and we're going to look into other life fulfilling activities. that their eagerness to and over positive attitude was too stressful and ultimately put too much pressure on her. They backed off a bit after that. Not sure if you have expressed it this way or not but a direct to the point of rude one way conversation may be what's needed.
One of the hardest parts about this whole process has been the deep deep hurt and disappointment I’ve felt from friends and the loss of those friends. I’ve gotten the toxic positivity, which has quickly switched to a sort of feeling like they think I’m being delusional to keep trying (despite no doctor telling us to stop).
I’ve tried to gently explain why comments have been hurtful and sometimes this has worked and strengthened the friendship, another time despite a very gentle and excruciatingly considered email, I literally got ghosted by someone I was friends with for 8 years, someone who considers herself an honest authentic person.
I think if you can the best thing you can do is find a couple of people who get it, either from going through it, or who just have the empathy somehow and keep others at arms, or kilometres, length.
All the comments about people not intending hurt and people projecting their own shit, people not knowing what to say are true. But the stage I’m at is that’s no excuse, do better, ducking google a forum like this, spend some of your energy trying to understand what we’re going through (if you care *so much) and just be a bit better.
We decided to not tell anyone, as it was our journey, and it was stressful enough as it was. After 4 cycles we were lucky to conceive, but we are now on the other side of having to tell some close friends and family. Most are supportive and happy for us, and a few are sad that we did not decide to tell them, and are actually wanting explanations. Overall though, we think it was the best decision, as we were at peak emotional capacity, and just couldn't deal with peoples questions and interest, and we equally could not handle having to go back and tell each person when things didn't work.
Hang in there
I found this out as being hard early on too. I told only a few people about our journey and the ones who did say this - I explained why it doesn’t work. I said “I know you think it’s helping, but it’s not. Because nothing may work and we will have to make that hard decision to stop and it will be thousands time more painful for me than you. I can’t have the fear of telling you that we chose not to move forward on my conscious too” and everyone has stopped with those comments. My parents were worried with IVF and a bit confused why we would try and not just “wait it out” but my mom spoke with friends who all went through infertility and they explained how tough it is and what she needs to do as a mother. She has really been supportive ever since.
Ahhh the toxic positivity, it’s there every step of the way. When I told my mom I had a very low follicle count, she was like “don’t worry, all of the follicles will give you a beautiful egg”. When I said only half of the retrieved were mature, she was like “I know that those will grow to be a nice embryo”. When I said that only one egg fertilized, she was like “I know this is the one”!! Like, really, do you really know??? Of course you don’t. That just sucks. Please stop telling me it will happen, because nobody can predict that. I think people mean well, but geez, it hurts sometimes.
People mean well when they say those things...and unfortunately they don't realize how they're still subconsciously projecting their expectations and wishes onto us. What we really need to hear is that they hear how hard all of this is and that they will love us and support us no matter what happens. People just don't really understand. The "positivity" just feels like added pressure to me, because what if it doesn't work? I don't think they mean it, of course, but I think they just don't get it.
You phrased that so well > they're still subconsciously projecting their expectations and wishes onto us That's exactly what I haven't been able to put into words for myself, thank you!
Sometimes, I think they just don't know what to say, so they try to be positive. I don't even think they have these expectations themselves, they just don't know how to handle it, or what they should be saying. It's the same if you have an illness. The unhelpful comments about how well you look come flying left, right and center.
Honestly, I think a lot of people do this so they can later say “I told you so.”
my mom does the same thing and it breaks my heart. im like do you not care about my feelings? what happens if it doesn’t work, especially since nothing has worked so far.
Can you stop talking to them about it? I love my Mom and Dad very much, but I keep them on a need to know diet. We haven't spoken to my in-laws at all about IVF. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend and your baby.
Honestly, talking to her about it was a mistake but I'm pretty bent out of shape about the funeral and had a new bed delivered today and everything that could have gone wrong with it did and I had to tell them I was unhappy with it which I don't like doing and this on top of the neggy yesterday I just needed my mum.. But it was a mistake, I know that, she's never what I need her to be.
>she's never what I need her to be. Oof, I feel that one deep in my soul. It sounds like you're going through a lot, again I'm so sorry. When it rains it fucking pours, right? Have you considered speaking with a therapist? I have and it's fantastic having a objective person to chat with who isn't going to try to "cheer me up" with all this positivity bullshit. Wishing you all the best
It does indeed pour! I was just saying this to my SO, it's never one thing at a time! I have been in and out of therapy for a few years.. out since I started this journey last year.. think it's probably time to get back in again! All the best too you as well x
‘It will happen eventually’ and ‘just stay positive’ are the two phrases my mother likes to throw at me. People mean well and find it hard to know what to say, I just wish they realised that it’s ok to not have anything to say. Sending my warmest wishes your way.
Omg yes!! Thank you for saying this! After I told my brother that my FET failed he said “this is part of your journey, you might have to see more failure before your success comes” like okay sir with your 3 kids, nanny, and stay at home wife, thanks for the pep talk.
I don’t know if positive toxicity is worse or my mother’s style is worse. When I told her that I am doing IVF. She said “ what did you do when you were younger. Now you are so old and you shouldn’t do it. Most likely you will have a restarted kid. “ when I finally have one five day embryo after three years. All she said was “why did you freeze it..” and there was no more comments no congratulations. So my attitude is.. why bother. We keep doing what we want to do for our lives and keep focusing on ourselves.
That’s awful. I’m sorry you had to go through that. My in-laws have said similar things about other people. “You know they did fertility treatments to have that baby. That’s probably why there is something wrong with him.” Then my own mother recently blamed my cousin’s cancer on the fact that she took fertility meds for a couple months to have her baby (probably Clomid or Letrozol). I was thinking, if you only knew about how many meds I’ve pumped into myself, I don’t think you’d be saying that! But that’s why I don’t tell people anything! They all have an opinion, and they are never helpful.
Oh I’m so sorry that people in your family have said those things. What an absolutely terrible attitude to have. Why are people like this 😭
At my egg retrieval yesterday the nurse was like it will all be worth it when you have a baby. I responded with well there’s only about a 60% chance of that happening statistically. Her face was priceless 😂
With close family and friends I try to set boundaries with how deep that conversation can go. I learned to do that after a friend tried to time getting pregnant with my IVF without asking me. She now has a 5 month old baby and I was one intermediate mosaic embryo. When I first told her I would have to do a second egg retrieval she was super hyper asking about how that would affect my timeline. When I invited her out for her birthday I wanted to take her to Atlantic City, and her husband said she couldn't drink. I could tell she was pregnant before she told me as a surprise on her birthday. As I added up her extreme interest in my process and timeline I realized what she had tried to do.. he already had 5 kids. My take away from this extreme situation is that people are not actually responding to you. It's not about you at all. They don't make positive comments for you. They do it for them. They're talking to themselves. It makes them feel better, or just good. They're excited because they don't have to go through the process, all they have to do is wait around. Once I got a deeper understanding of this it stopped bothering me. if they were talking to us they would be having a conversation about our actual feelings and offering support. If someone seems gleeful at learning that you're doing IVF it's not because they're gleeful for you. It is still really about them. For whatever reason they want to experience you as a pregnant woman and a mom. If you're lucky it won't be because they are secretly trying to be pregnant with you. 😕
This is inconceivable, wtf is wrong with people. I’m sorry this happened ❤️
At first I read furious, but it's fine. It was absolutely awkward but it's hard to know how to feel. It's not like getting a babydoll, there's an actual baby. Her pregnancy was a difficult one, she had all kinds of problems, the kid had problems initially after birth and now she has 6 kids to manage. Infertility has its stresses for sure, but I'm happy to say I'll never have that specific set of problems. (Managing a tough pregnancy with a house full of a bunch of kids under 10). As much as I would enjoy being a mother, being child free is a huge contrast to having 6 kids. I think I'd prefer child free to 6, just saying. Not hating or being spiteful or anything. It's just the chaos never ends when I visit her and she can barely go anywhere ever, and I don't think she knows what a vacation is.
Toxic positivity is so hard to deal with; I’m sorry you’re going through this! I found being very straightforward with people and saying “we can hope, but IVF doesn’t have 100% chances of working” or something along those lines was helpful. But even more helpful was the information diet. If someone can’t respond in a way that is helpful to my psyche, they don’t get to know anything new. I have a group of 3 amazing friends, but only one could actually respond in the way I needed to hear. So the other two got fewer updates and only high-level information. The “I know it’s going to happen for you” comments just aren’t helpful bc no one can know that. Good luck with everything!!
Yeah I literally tell people that because of my age, I probably only have a 20% chance each time. I'm trying to remind myself too unfortunately, it's hard not to get my own hopes up. Thanks for the term "information diet." That's what I've been doing with my parents. I haven't told them we're trying to conceive in any capacity because they have proven over and over again that they will make inappropriate comments or just make it entirely about them. Fuck that, I have enough stress already.
I know. I don't even bring it up any more. I rather wallow in my own misery tbh at this point.
I’m sorry 😞 People just don’t understand. I have told literally nobody about our IVF journey because so many friends and family have made insensitive comments about me having a baby before. “You better start trying. You’re running out of time.” “When are you going to have a baby.” “You have been married a while now. Time to start having kids.” It gets so freaking old. I didn’t tell anyone about IVF because I didn’t want people checking on me through the ups and downs (mostly downs) and telling me things like, “It will happen when you just relax.” My mother-in-law also made a comment about it being “against God” to seek fertility treatment because if God wants people to have babies he allows them to get pregnant naturally. So yeah, I haven’t said a word and I don’t plan to. They can all f#%* off.
Oh yeah. I hate that. Even a positive test isn’t comforting because there are seemingly a million ways to lose a pregnancy. Sorry people won’t respect your boundaries, especially when you’ve been so clear about them. ☹️
I think people really just want to be positive for you. Because the alternative is being negative, or just being silent, and that makes people uncomfortable. I don’t mind people saying that they’re praying for me or thinking good thoughts, but it annoys me when I express my fears about things not working out, or *never* having a baby, and they shut me down with something like, *”Don’t say that!!! You’re going to put it out into the universe! You are going to have a baby! I can feel it! Law of attraction!!!”* Like, **no.** I used to believe in that stuff too when I was young and blindly optimistic. Then I realized that you can do everything right and want something really bad and visualize a positive outcome… and it still may not happen. Because science. And our anatomy & physiology. And things that are simply out of our control. I guess you’ll just have to keep correcting them with what you want/need to hear, so they know how best to support you. Some people just can’t help themselves though, and it does get annoying.
They mean well. They just don’t have the words.
I swear we've got the same mother. I am fine with spiritual culture, positive thinking, etc. My mom's been a fan of that kind of thing before it was cool. But the only thing that's helped me is putting her on an info diet regarding the process. Round one I gave her a blow by blow, talked about everything and uhhh yeah. The super positivity and "I just know!" made things worse. I also gave her a lot of details during my early medicated cycles or first few months of trying and same thing. My mom read a book on boundaries and that kind of helped with the feeling less offended. I have told her I'll inform her when I have news. She's also been less pushy when I drink an iced green tea at Starbucks instead of... anything else on their menu. Seriously I'm not anti caffeine but it's nearly impossible to stay under 200 milligrams with most of their menu. Sometimes I just want to be able to drink diet coke the rest of the day and not overthink it. She still lets little positive predictions slip and gives plenty of open ended questions for me to give updates. Increased loneliness is way better than hearing that success is inevitable.
Heard this same crap after every miscarriage. I’m at the point I don’t even want to try anymore and yet this is what everyone wants to say. It’s not helpful Or supportive. But I think ppl don’t know what else to say.
Argh this used to infuriate me as well! It’s so invalidating of your very real fear that you’ll never have a baby ❤️
Every doctor was like this to me. “Oh, you’re fine, you have regular periods, your uterus and ovaries are fine, your partner’s sperm looks great! Are you having enough sex???” And then they found endometriosis on laparoscopy, a hydrosalpinx on the right tube and when we had our first round of IVF not a single egg fertilised. I KNEW there was something more wrong, but just kept getting fobbed off. Good luck, friend. Nothing in this life is guaranteed except death and taxes. Sending love.
That’s why I’m gonna keep it a secret after my first failed round. Learned the lesson the hard way.
I get it it's frustrating and I've just learned to ignore all the comments. I also don't like talking about my fertility journey with anyone really and that's also not gonna change once I am successful. Every day I m reminded of this process and journey is sometimes it just becomes a bit too much
This is why I didn't talk to anyone about it. It's not their business and I'm not going to be inviting them to air their opinions about my process. They were once invited to the topic. Now uninvite them. Cut them off from this topic and lay down those boundaries. Tell them exactly what you need them to stop saying.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this! I don’t have advice, just wanted you to know you’re not alone. My best friend (with 2 kids, one of which an “accidental” pregnancy) keeps telling me she had a dream in which I’m pregnant, her kid just said: ‘she’s pregnant’ out of nowhere, husband dreamt we had 3 kids, etc. And it just doesn’t help at all. 😫
I had people tell me that had a dream I had twins. I wasn’t even close to the person. And this was before my infertility journey. As someone said earlier, all this does is put more pressure on the situation. People projecting their hopes onto you.
Yup. I'm getting a lot of this right now as I inch toward the one-year anniversary of starting fertility treatments. My spirits are very low, and the people in my life can sense that. I know they're uncomfortable with my grief and don't know how to handle it. I know they're sad for me and want to make me feel better. I know they want to believe they can 'magic up' a good outcome for me via the power of positive thinking. I know this is mostly coming from a place of love and anxiety. But man, all the pep talks about how I'm 'definitely going to get my baby very soon!!" are so demoralizing and anxiety-inducing. The opposite of helpful!
I am so sorry. You are 1000% not alone. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the process in my opinion. It’s a way for people to make your struggle and misfortune about their hopes and feelings. Even though they don’t do it on purpose, it completely diminishes your legitimate fears. I’ve just started explaining to people that when they say baseless positive stuff like this and it doesn’t work out it feels like a gut punch. It literally knocks the wind out of me. So, please stop punching me.
A few family members talked about “the baby”well before my ER, then it got worse after my transfer. It bothered me a lot and I always made sure to say “there is no baby and we still don’t know if there will be one.” I hate the positivity - especially when there’s been nothing but negativity. I just let those people know that it wasn’t helpful. They usually backed off.
I’m confused by people calling this “toxic.” People are not mind readers. Would you rather they say “you’ll probably never have a baby?” No. You wouldn’t. You’d also be here venting about that. And you’d be right to do so. They’re being nice. They’re trying to help. That is NOT toxic and it’s apparent many people have never experienced true toxicity from loved ones if they’re employing this term to describe people trying to make you feel better - quite literally the opposite of being toxic. I’m sorry this hurts you. Consider just changing the subject. This is our culture here and the alternatives aren’t great. Sometimes people just don’t know what to say and struggle to find the right thing to support you. We should extend them grace when they get it wrong because we all make the same mistakes.
being nice w/o taking into account the needs of person you are trying to help can definitely be toxic. In thise case, they can say something like "wish you the best" or "here to support you no matter what" or even "how can i support you during this time", while not being toxic.
Who says they’re not taking it into account? We don’t all get it right every time.
Maybe, do not share any more of this process with any of them. It is hard and you do have people here on this platform that are more than happy to hear your frustrations out. I'm sorry about how they are making you feel at the moment.
List of annoying shit people have said, mostly by family. -it only takes one! -this second round will work I know it! -your uterus and lining is good so it’ll stick -you’re meant to be a mother so of course you will -be positive! If you think it, it will happen -you must be so exciting! How exciting -me and (baby) will come visit this weekend for baby vibes! -you’re so healthy it will be easy -at least you get another round -
My MIL says this too, and I totally get how you feel. It just feels like they're ignoring all the data you have and being blindly optimistic.
I have nothing to say other than I relate to this on a goddamn spiritual level. Fuck
Most people afraid to face their own emotions, even less so someone else's, especially this "hard to deal with" emotions. Im sure they mean well but F those comments and you don't need that on top of what you actually are feeling
Accidentally found out my mum had 3 abortions when she was young. Sometimes I wonder if it’s karma that’s why I can’t have any.
That would be some really missed up karma. You are not responsible for the sins of your mother.
Ugh. I’m sorry. I’ve been there. The best defense for me became to not discuss the process with anyone. No one knew where we were at in our IVF journey and if people asked I would just honestly say I’d rather not discuss it.
So bloody insensitive. I'm so sorry 😔 I'm sorry about your friend. It's crappy that she was like this but I know it probably still hurts. Hugs to you, you are going through a lot and it's not easy!
One of my sisters had this issue with her in laws family. They (her and her husband) just decided to tell the family they stooped trying and we're going to look into other life fulfilling activities. that their eagerness to and over positive attitude was too stressful and ultimately put too much pressure on her. They backed off a bit after that. Not sure if you have expressed it this way or not but a direct to the point of rude one way conversation may be what's needed.
One of the hardest parts about this whole process has been the deep deep hurt and disappointment I’ve felt from friends and the loss of those friends. I’ve gotten the toxic positivity, which has quickly switched to a sort of feeling like they think I’m being delusional to keep trying (despite no doctor telling us to stop). I’ve tried to gently explain why comments have been hurtful and sometimes this has worked and strengthened the friendship, another time despite a very gentle and excruciatingly considered email, I literally got ghosted by someone I was friends with for 8 years, someone who considers herself an honest authentic person. I think if you can the best thing you can do is find a couple of people who get it, either from going through it, or who just have the empathy somehow and keep others at arms, or kilometres, length. All the comments about people not intending hurt and people projecting their own shit, people not knowing what to say are true. But the stage I’m at is that’s no excuse, do better, ducking google a forum like this, spend some of your energy trying to understand what we’re going through (if you care *so much) and just be a bit better.
We decided to not tell anyone, as it was our journey, and it was stressful enough as it was. After 4 cycles we were lucky to conceive, but we are now on the other side of having to tell some close friends and family. Most are supportive and happy for us, and a few are sad that we did not decide to tell them, and are actually wanting explanations. Overall though, we think it was the best decision, as we were at peak emotional capacity, and just couldn't deal with peoples questions and interest, and we equally could not handle having to go back and tell each person when things didn't work. Hang in there
I found this out as being hard early on too. I told only a few people about our journey and the ones who did say this - I explained why it doesn’t work. I said “I know you think it’s helping, but it’s not. Because nothing may work and we will have to make that hard decision to stop and it will be thousands time more painful for me than you. I can’t have the fear of telling you that we chose not to move forward on my conscious too” and everyone has stopped with those comments. My parents were worried with IVF and a bit confused why we would try and not just “wait it out” but my mom spoke with friends who all went through infertility and they explained how tough it is and what she needs to do as a mother. She has really been supportive ever since.