“Just relax!”

Yeah. I think if babies were made simply by relaxing, we’d all be pregnant by now. We’re all trying massages and acupuncture and meditation and long baths and treating ourselves. Trying to conceive is not relaxing. The stress of it makes us stressed and then we’re stressed because we’re stressed and that means we’ll have trouble and that’s stressful and…

 

“Read this book!”

This can actually sometimes be helpful, especially if someone is new to the process, but don’t assume immediately that we aren’t researching how to make this happen. Believe me, we’re all extremely obsessed with knowledge. Google any word and ‘ttc’ and you’ll find forums and question boards of women talking about things. We’re all talking about things.

 

“Book a holiday!”

If we book a holiday once a month we’re going to go broke. Thanks but yeah, nope.

 

“Don’t worry about it, my cousin just stopped trying and it happened!”

Yeah okay. I have cycles between 33-47 days long, so if I stop “worrying about it”, I’ll miss my opportunity altogether. If we ‘stop trying’ I’ll spend months wondering how I could have improved my chances that particular cycle. Believe me, we need to track. And all these anecdotes? Thanks but no thanks.

 

“Have you tried tracking your cycle?”

Er. No shit.

 

“It’ll happen!”

Like. No. I know you have the best of intentions but at cycle 10 I can’t hear this shit anymore. Maybe it won’t happen. I have to live with that in my head most of the time, so the glossing over it is really frustrating.

 

“Just adopt!”

This one drives me crazy. Have you any idea how hard it is to adopt? How expensive it is to adopt? Just stop.

 

“Why haven’t you guys had kids yet? Aren’t you going to have kids?”

Maybe we’ve been trying a long time and this is a really personal and insensitive question? (It’s also kinda hard to answer!)

 

“You’re getting a bit old, I hope it happens soon!”

Well thanks! I wasn’t worrying about this already at all!

 

“Are you putting your legs in the air?”

Studies show- no wait. What the hell? This is a weird question.

 

“Maybe you just need to pray more about it. God provides in his own time.”

Yeah, God has heard from me about this, thanks. I think I’ll leave it up to us.

 

I hope some of you can relate to these, and maybe a few of you will realise that some of this is unhelpful? I know people have the best of intentions but if one more person tells me to “just relax”…