Am I a Bad Pregnant Friend?

After reading one of the other Conceive blogger’s posts, I was wondering, “am I being a bad pregnant friend?” I know all my friends on Facebook, and everyone else in our lives, knows that Doug and I struggled for years to get pregnant. But am I rubbing it in people’s faces now? I did announce my pregnancy on Facebook and Twitter, but I know people were waiting to know. Was this wrong?

Thinking back to before I was pregnant…Yes, it was hard seeing those announcements on Facebook, reading emails at work, but, you know what, it is part of life. When Doug made the mistake of telling me someone was pregnant I would get this sad upset face and he would say to me, “Susan, pregnancy is a happy event, you need to be happy for them.” I agree with him 100%, but at the same time I wanted to smack him for sharing news that would upset me. Each school year there were at least 2-3 co-workers pregnant, delivering the babies that I so desperately wanted. My family, my sister-in-law pregnant with twins, my sister pregnant right before my first IVF, and my whole family talking about more grandchildren at the Christmas table. These family events were never easy. Just thinking about all this makes the screen blurry. I have had my share of hurt but shouldn’t I be able to share my joy, too. As Doug said, “pregnancy is a happy event.”

The day I found out I was pregnant was the happiest day of my life and my smile was constant on my face. I knew I needed to tell my friends on Facebook because they were anxiously waiting the news too. I settled on, “We got good news today!!! We are finally pregnant!!!” I thought this was a good balance—we struggled and the reward was finally here.

This makes me think, are the infertile looking at pregnancy the wrong way? I know I did. I am not saying all IFers have issues with pregnant people and newborns but most of us do. Does is make a difference to you if someone struggled? Should it? I don’t know the answer to this question anymore.

Ultimately, I have rationalized it to myself…I have lived through the struggles and now it is time to live through the joys. Yes, I will share some things differently but our struggles make us stronger. It would have been nice to have gotten pregnant the first time or even been able to conceive a biological child but I am so grateful for my journey. Because without this journey I wouldn’t be the caring, understanding, excited, loving, new mommy-to-be that I am.