You can't be envious and happy at the same time

Bitterness runs in my family.


My grandmother has been bitter for as long as I've been alive. My mother has been bitter since the divorce. The women in my family seem to hold on to wrongdoings, stew on them until they decay every part of their identity. I don't want to be them. My biggest fear is to resemble them and infertility is definitely sending me down that path.

I had a long cry today because I don't like myself. Or, to clarify, I don't like what infertility has made me. For example:

• I am absolutely incapable of feeling joy for fertiles
• I don't find other people's children cute anymore. Not even a little bit
• If you are pregnant, I will avoid talking to you
• I glare at parents with loud children all the time

This isn't me. Vicky is was an incredibly caring person who found joy and beauty in everything.


I have a friend who is pregnant. She has been supportive of me in regards infertility in the past- the only person IRL to truly sympathise. She had to wait 6 years for her first child. I felt we might become true friends, after all she was someone who could get it. Then, she got pregnant unexpectedly. I couldn't congratulate her. She posts weekly updates about the pregnancy on facebook- I finally posted a comment on one such comment at week 32. It's taken me that many updates to say a single word. I was actually proud of myself for saying something. Of course, the post right after mine was by a super fertile woman complaining about not having any time to herself and how pregnant woman is going to have her hands soooo full. *sigh*


T understands. I see him glare at unfit parents, I see the envy in his eyes when he sees a pregnant woman, I see his positive attitude deflate when he has to answer the damn question about when we're having kids. Before this, T could brush off anything.


I've never truly felt envy before these last few years. Not people with lots of money, insanely beautiful people, people in perfect relationships (before I met T, that is). None of it mattered, I just accepted my situation. However crappy things were- and boy, they were- I had faith they would improve. Why, pray tell, is this so different? This envy is actually painful. I feel it eating my insides, it's a constant ache, it flares up at the smallest things. I am exhausted by it.


I know almost every infertile couple can relate, but where does it stop? How can you move on? How the hell do you say "what happens, happens" and reach true acceptance? That place seems far away from me these days, it has slipped well beyond my grasp.


Vicky xx