What do you say????

[Lindz]

Just wondering what you all say when people happily ask "When will you have a baby?"  or "Why haven't you had a baby?" or say "You're NEXT!" at baby showers when you already feel like hiding under a table in the fetal position.  

[pokeyAC]

I just say we're working on it.  Luckily I don't get that too often.  My family lives far away, and there is less pressure on lesbians to have kids.  I'm sorry you have to endure that over and over again.  It would be really annoying.

[planegreen]

I always say we are working on it too.  Or a simple "anytime!".  More often I get the questions followed by, you know you don't want your kids to be so far apart... Yes, I know, thank you.  I don't want them that far apart either!  Ugh, I really hate that one. 

[daurelia]

Oh wow, this is something I really am struggling with right now. Thank you for posting this, so I can vent :)

We get this a lot, because my husband and I have been together for 7 years (married for 4) and we always used to casually bring up "when we have kids..." with people. Now, we don't bring it up anymore. And now that we are both done with graduate school and stably employed, it's something that other people bring up with us, assuming (correctly) now is the time we are waiting for. 

There are actually some friends of ours that I've avoided for the last year because they incessantly ask.... and honestly, the two people I'm thinking of are women who quit their jobs to be SAHMs, and I'm not judgmental at all of their choices or their lives, but I think these two women have trouble relating to me without talking about having babies, whereas with my other friends we have plenty of other conversation topics.

For me, it depends on the person-- how close I am with them, how much I trust them to be empathetic, etc. Usually I cheerfully say "someday!" and change the subject. If it's someone I trust a little more, I might say "actually, we've been trying for the last year with little luck and are starting to get a bit worried." and then let the conversation go wherever it goes. It actually helps me to open up a bit about it sometimes. When I talk to people, I feel a little less nuts.

Both a good and bad thing: I'm 30 years old, originally from NYC and all my friends back home are just not in the baby-making stage of their lives yet (because culturally there women tend to wait longer). Where I live now I'm confronted with more baby-talk because in the midwest people start on that a bit earlier. But my girlfriends back home, it's not where their heads are at yet. This is a good thing because it means I can escape when I visit them and just party and not think about it. But it's also a bad thing because when I try to open up about what I'm going through, they don't seem to grasp how painful this is for me. They gloss over it, like, "you're still young, I mean, you're way ahead of us!" which makes me feel really not understood and alone.

Anyone experience anything similar to these experiences with others?

[Sourire]

I tell them the truth! "We've been trying for a while and it's not working, so now we are doing fertility treatments".

I am not ashamed of having fertility problems and see no reason to hide them or lie about them. People tend to be very kind and sympathetic when I tell them about what I'm going through, and almost everyone I've talked to about it knows someone else who has been through fertility treatments and wants to tell me that person's story, which I generally enjoy hearing. Also this response ensures that that person will never again ask me "when are you going to have kids"...

[Sourire]

Here's a great article about why we should be more open about infertility: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dina-roth-port/infertility-the-disease-w_b_819978.html

[Lindz]

Daurelia-I feel your pain girl. I  am 33 and an elementary school teacher.  I get it from other teachers (I work in a 99.9% female work place), parents (I want my child's teacher to know what it feels like to be a mom!), and even my students (How come you don't have your own kids?).  UGH!

If it's someone I've known a while and trust I tell them the truth....sometimes I shrug my shoulders, sometimes "we'll see" or "God willing."  It just gets to me.

I sort of got grumpy the other day when a person I barely know asked me (I've been married for 11 years and with my husband for 17 so it comes up almost daily!) and I was a b#*$ and said "I'm baron."  That wasn't right.  I know it.  But I was in one of those moods....I had my 27th month of bfn and I couldn't take it anymore.  I was feeling sorry for myself and I am sick and tired of EVERYONE AROUND ME ANNOUNCING PREGNANCIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Time for a glass of wine.....

L