I could write a book

I've had a very "what not to say if you're thinking of saying something to infertiles" few weeks. It's like my whole family read the book and decided "eh, what do they know." So there was the lovely, sweet relative who said "just relax." Then, we were at my mother's.

A little background: my mother has never, not once, expressed any interest in our infertility issues. She has never, not once, said anything remotely resembling, "this must be so hard for you" or "I hope this cycle works for you" or even, "is there anything I can do for you?" She has, two months after our last cycle failed, said something to the effect of, weren't you guys doing a cycle? What happened?

A tower of support, as you can see. My parents did give us a little money during our first cycle, however, that was already planned as a birthday present anyway. Don't get me wrong, I was grateful for every single penny. It's just that it wasn't initially intended as help for our cycle.

So, with this information in hand, Hubby and I were visiting my parents, standing in their kitchen talking much about nothing, when Mum pipes up, "I think you guys should look into adopting when you get to Israel."

WTF????

A) Last I looked, there is a 6-year wait for infants.
B) When we get to Israel, we will be living off our savings and a wee bit of assistance from the government until we get out of ulpan and get jobs.
C) Adoption is freakin' expensive (although to be fair, I haven't checked costs in Israel, but I would assume they would be comparable)
D) We're freakin' old. Okay, not that old, but we're definitely not in the "great candidates" age range. (I just checked - in Israel, you have to be under 40 to adopt. That puts us right out of the running.)
E) What makes her think we even want to adopt?

I politely pointed out these things while chanting "kibbud av v'em. kibbud av v'em*." in my head to keep me from totally losing it. She just kept repeating herself, so finally I said, trying to unclench my teeth, "sure. We'll look into it."

That was capped by an evening with my cousin and her kids. I was saying how cute her baby boy is - a real charmer - and she said, "ya want him? You can have him." Now, I've never discussed our infertility with her, and she's never asked why we don't have kids. So she wasn't doing the infertility "have one of mine." But still, why do parents do that? What if I said, "Omigosh! Really? I'd love to take him!" Even if I wasn't dealing with infertility, and had been able to have a child, y'know, that other** way, I would never say that. I would be inclined to say, "yeah, he's a handful, but I love him." or some such. I might even threaten under my breath to feed fictional child to the lions, but I would never offer to give my kid away.

The only chapter missing these past few weeks has been the, "maybe G-d doesn't mean for you to have children." But that's okay, I've been supplying that one myself.

* Honour your father and mother. The Fifth Commandment.

** Apparently, having sex just for fun (just for fun!) has been known to get women pg.

Labels: infertility

posted by projgen @ 21:51