The incredibly unfortunate thing about infertility (other than not being able to conceive, of course) is how little people know about it outside of the community. 

I’ll be honest, when we first started really putting effort in, I didn’t know a damn thing about conceiving other than how to have sex. Ovulation? Basal body what? Cervical WHAT?!?!? Man, I don’t need all that…I’ll just have sex like everyone else does and we will have a baby in 9 months….right? 

Wrong.

3 years later I know more acronyms then I care to admit. 

We moved to Alaska recently to our new duty station and of course that means trying to make new friends since we will be here for a couple years. The awful thing about this is hearing all the same questions once it somehow always slips about when we will have kids. 

I’m semi comfortable talking about infertility to anyone, since I know how taboo a topic it seems to be, I like to try to “educate” people on it the best I can so they can sympathize and realize that this is a rising issue and it’s more common then people really know. 

It still hurts though. 
•”Maybe it’s just not the right time.”
“Just adopt.”
•”My brothers cousins friend had trouble making babies, they went on vacation and now they have twins!” 
•”Whatever you do don’t try! You’ll never get pregnant that way.”
•”No. Everyone can have babies, you must be doing something wrong.” 
•”Can’t you just do in vitro?”

•”Gosh I wish I couldn’t have kids, mine drive me nuts!”

•”I know exactly how you feel, it took us 6 months to get pregnant!”

I always commend myself of staying classy and not going completely ape shit on people who ask questions that to me sound heartless. I will hold it together and give educated responses as to estimated costs, to why everyone is different, to time lines… “Here let me pull out this pie chart and show you why you can’t just relax and get pregnant!” 
I sat in a bathroom at my husbands grandmothers house at Christmas and cried. I was wearing a thermal top from Old Navy that had “baby it’s cold outside” written on it and literally 5 different people asked if I was pregnant. I couldn’t do it, I sat in there and wondered why people don’t understand. I know we aren’t as open talking to his side as we do with mine but they know it’s been difficult. I felt exposed in front of his family that night when they would holler that question out and everyone would look at me as though I had a big announcement. My husband wasn’t any help, I sometimes don’t know if he knows how to approach the topic like I’ve had to learn to do. 
I don’t know if it’s easier to not talk about it, or to just talk about it. I don’t know. I feel like either way I’m going to be bothered by something. The awful questions or the internal battle of holding it in. 
XOXO