It's no secret that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
I call it the four Fs - Family, Fun, Football and Food!
There's nothing else you need to do but to be grateful for all that you have and enjoy all that you have.
Being my favorite holiday, in the past, it meant that I would partake in the evening before Thanksgiving ritual of partying your ass off!
Yes, that is what you did...you went out Wednesday night, met all of your friends at the bar, got ridiculously drunk and the next day on Thanksgiving you were thankful you had all that food and drink to get you through the day...and you rejoiced! Whooooooo!
And there was this one memorable Thanksgiving Eve when Sio puked in my sock drawer because he was so wasted he actually believed he was in the bathroom.
Classy right! (What a bunch of idiots!)
Fun right!! ( I am being sarcastic here!)
At Christmas that year, every gift I opened was a pack of socks...well at least my family has a sense of humor. And I am thankful for that! And for them...
And as I celebrated my favorite holiday and being grateful, to be honest I would get mad at the "complainers" on Thanksgiving.
I remember one year a friend of mine was spending too much time wallowing in what she didn't have and I ended up getting on my soapbox and giving her the "Be grateful speech".
You know the speech! You get it all the time as an Infertile.
"It could be worse"
"Be thankful for what you have"
All that crap that just pisses me off now!
The worthless platitudes of trying to "put things into perspective" instead of acknowledging ones pain..
Something I really don't do anymore...getting on my soapbox or giving the "Life could be worse...be thankful...you could be starving with one leg" crappy speech that does nothing...
I think that's why this post pisses me off so much!!
THANKFUL, GRATEFUL, ABUNDANT.
Really to be honest I was just going to let it go...I have my own gratitude for what I have...I am thankful everyday not just one day of the year but for some reason this brings out the: "Are you fucking kidding me!" in me...
This shit is only spoken by someone pregnant!
It's kinda worse than a fertile telling you to relax!
To me it doesn't make any sense to be thankful for something that is still hurting so many others.
It's like saying you are thankful that a mass shooting happened because you survived and you are a better person now.
What about all those that didn't survive?
It makes no sense...you might be thankful you survived but to be thankful for the event or the disease???
Could you imagine writing a post about being thankful for the shooting at the Batman movie because it made you a better person??
WTF!
Maybe write that you are thankful that this experience didn't destroy you, that this experience has showed you your strength...
I just find it so insulting, disrespectful and demeaning to those who haven't survived...
It's like being thankful for war!
I could go on and on...
And then she says: "I wouldn't take it back"...what a load of crap.
What a selfish, self important statement!
I would take it back in a heartbeat! Why! Because if I could make it so there wasn't such a thing as Infertility...
If I could make it so no one had to suffer like this...you're damn right I would take it back!
And not indulge in my "Look at me....I made it through...I am such a better person now..."
"Oh and I'm fucking pregnant!"
What a sanctimonious post that could only be written by someone who is no longer struggling...
Because guess what...if you were still Infertile I can guarantee you this:
You wouldn't be thankful for it!
If you were still Infertile, yes, you would be still be talking about all the things you are grateful for like the post she quotes that she wrote the year before and guess what Infertility isn't one of them!
Oh in that post a year ago I didn't read any "I am thankful for my Infertility" bullshit...why because you were still Infertile!!
"I wish I could reach through my screen and time and tell November 2011 Keiko: “It’ll be different next year..."
Hmmm...really!!
How touching...how heartfelt...what self stroking CRAP!!
Hey I wish I could reach through time and space and tell the me of a year ago...the me who just had a D&C a few days before Thanksgiving...I wish I could shake her and tell her: "Wake the fuck up!! It's not going to happen! You are going to spend the next year trying cycle after cycle and failing! Get ready for this abundant, gratifying time in your life!!"
Whatever! Still a bunch of fucking crap! Hurtful, self important, sanctimonious crap that is DEFINITELY NOT Infertility's Voice!
I guess that's why this post doesn't piss me off...
giving thanks
Thank you Katie for acknowledging the heartache and struggle and not being like "I got mine so everyone be grateful!"
This is truly the Infertility Voice!!
And I will raise my Infertility Voice and say yes, I am thankful. I am thankful for the beautiful life that I have, my family, my friends... I am thankful that I am a strong person who is learning and changing everyday from the struggles that I face...I am thankful that I have learned a level of compassion that I didn't know existed....I am thankful I haven't jumped off a bridge yet...but I will never be thankful for something that causes so much pain.
I am thankful that Infertility has taught me enough about pain, suffering and loss to never be thankful for Infertility...I'll let that sink in for a moment!
*Note - I just even want to point out the titles on both posts...The Infertility Voice (yeah right!) the post is all caps..."Look at me"...from If to when...all lowercase...humble...respectful, caring and compassionate.
I had seen Keiko's post pop up in my feed, but I had no intention of reading it. Until now.
ReplyDeleteI get what you - and Chickenpig - are saying about it. It's so much easier to be thankful for a horrible thing when you're on the other side of it. But when you're living it? Yeah, not so much. And I know that if I had experienced the loss of a pregnancy - or multiple pregnancies - I would never find a way to feel gratitude about going through that hell.
It's a tricky thing, though, because I have to say that there are aspects of my journey that I *am* grateful for, and that gratitude came before my pregnancy. I'm grateful that I'm no longer ignorant about infertility and how devastating it is, and I'm grateful that I've gotten to know so many amazing women along the way. But I also know that infertility damn near killed me. There were many days where I didn't want to go on because it was so painful. So...I don't know. Can one be grateful and ungrateful about something at the same time?
To be grateful for what you've learned and how you processed it is one thing but to say you are grateful for the cause...something that destroys so many...hurtful to those it's still destroying...
ReplyDeleteThat's true.
ReplyDeleteMy mother is a cancer survivor. I know she's grateful she came through it and for all of the love and support she received, and I think it gave her a greater appreciation for life, but I know that she will never be grateful that she got cancer in the first place.
Ugh, I read the first two lines of that post and clicked the "close" button. Whatevs. I am not grateful for one damn thing this process has brought me. I already knew I was stronger than hell before this. I already knew my true friends had my back. I already knew I was independent. I already knew how horrible IF was (having worked in that field for 8 years) and I already knew that suffering existed in the world and was visited upon those who least "deserved" it.
ReplyDeleteAm I supposed to look at IF like it's my graduate or doctorate degree in "Being a Survivor"? If and when I ever get to hold my baby in my arms I will be grateful for that fact. The time between then and what I've been through since? Not feeling all that grateful and never will.
I agree that I find the second post much easier to handle. I know that I will never be grateful for this experience. I am grateful for having the chance to pursue my donor embryos when I knew there were no other doors open to me (though occasionally I think my aunt had it easier back in the day when there were no options- she just had to accept- something I still struggle with on a daily basis).
ReplyDeleteYour anger is justified. A post like that would understandably sting but when posted on a blog called The Infertility Voice? A double whammy
ReplyDeleteI can kind of get where both schools of thought I'm seeing here are coming from.
ReplyDeleteI'm infertile. I have no idea when my happy ending will come, if it will ever come.
There are times I've only angry that I've been made to go through all of this, that I've lost 3 babies while everybody else gets married and procreates easily and the self-pity that ensures from these times makes me feel like I've been run over by a truck. I HATE feeling like that. Its adding insult to injury. Then there is the rest of the time where I can look at everything else I've been through and say, well, atleast this experience has made me aware of my own strength and so its not wholly negative, and its been a teaching experience beyond anything I could have imagined.
That is when I feel normal and mostly ok with life, as opposed to a train wreck, so I get Keiko's post(because I automatically think that way, 70 % of the time), and I also get your response to it, because I'm that way the remainder.
Though I will say, right now, I can't comprehend not taking it all back if such a thing were possible. If I could rewrite this story, I sure as hell would. Learning experience or not, I'd rather be shallower and sillier and less aware of my latent strengths, if it meant that my first baby was here with me.
I guess what irks the crap out of me is that is revelation of being thankful for her infertility comes now that she's pregnant...really don't think that would be the case if she was still struggle or never ends up becoming a mother...
DeleteWow, I see how that was hard to read ... Sorry you ended up reading it.
ReplyDelete