u/MMke1130

Everytime I feel semi okay, I get slapped back down with another trigger. First it was nieces both announcing pregnancies. Then I decided it was a good idea to look up an ex best friend on social media who told me literally in her next breath after I told her we stopped trying that they were taking an IUD out and not preventing anymore recently giving birth. I try I really do. I try to see the silver lining. I imagine our retirement in a few years when my father joins my mother in the great beyond and I can fully break away and enjoy our lives, preferably with land and out of state away from the triggers. But no matter what I do or try to psych myself up with, the fact remains. We are barren. This will continue. And there's nothing we can do except try and manage the triggers as they come and work through them. This life is exhausting.

There are two pregnancies in my family now. The second one told me in a random parking lot after we finished lunch. Although I told everyone before this happened to text so I could process it in my own time and not deal with the news in person. But I digress. This may sound horrible but I have no interest in being an aunt. It feels like a consolation prize to me never growing up because I did not obtain the title of mother. Maybe if the people involved were more respectful of my needs I'd feel differently. But felt others could possibly relate and needed to let the thought out of my head without feeling like a horrible person.

I was wondering if anyone has moved out of state after becoming IFCF and your experience thus far? My husband and I are gravitating towards using a geographical boundary to exempt us from attending showers, holidays, birthday parties etc. All feedback (the good, the bad and the ugly) is welcomed.

Hello all,

I am looking for therapist recommendations, ones specifically who have went through what we have went through and made it out the other side. My current therapist is really good, but I did broach the subject of being infertile last session and she made the atypical "avoidance is not healthy, we have to accept this and be there if only for the baby" comments which I do not need right now. I am in the Midwest. Wisconsin to be exact.

In other news I feel myself isolating from my family. They haven't been supportive in the past and they will never understand what this is like. Already asking about holidays and hoping we can get past this. This isn't something you get past, this is a lifelong condition and I feel people want things the way they want them and don't respect what we can handle. We have never been close and putting myself through even more emotional trauma for people for optics seems counterproductive to me. They have kids and grandkids, my presence is not necessary anymore.

Anyways thanks for the recs and listening to my rant. I appreciate you all more than words can say.

I was doing okay. Its been two years since we walked away. I felt the wound was slowly scabbed over, I was doing all the things. Traveling, working out, trying to lean into all the possibilities of this life that was forced on me. Trying not to feel like I wasn't good enough, trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts that I was a child that never grew up due to my lifestyle and that was why I was sentenced to this fate, trying to accept and enjoy what I could.

Then I got the phone call today. My family delayed telling me, they were worried about my reaction and knew I already had a lot on my plate. They knew it would trigger me, although never to what extent because they all had children, but triggered all the same. My half sister is pregnant. She has two kids already. Two kids that my entire family had to subsidize their entire existence financially. Two kids that never saw a stable family and the product of a broken home, clawing their way out from the abyss. Two. And now there's another one. A different father of course. In his 20s, working a fast food job. Her working part time asking my terminally ill father for gas money. Neither having the common sense regarding the repercussions of their actions. But nonetheless. The thoughts came back. How that situation must be better than my husband and I. How whatever we would have done would have been worse. How no matter what I do, I will never be worthy. I will never be good enough. Everything I have been pushing and working through has come crashing down with one phone call. I know somehow I will come out of this. I will work through it and try to pull myself back up. But in this moment, I am struggling with the unfairness of it all. I don't know what I'm going to do moving forward. And the anger. The anger of these people who shouldn't even be considering children getting things handed to them. I have to protect myself, but also feel the pangs of guilt as the child had nothing to do with this. But who else will protect me if I don't? Has anyone else been in this situation? How have you dealt with it?