Skulking in the Shadows

I often joke that I have to trick my body into getting pregnant, and then it punishes me for the next nine months. Fertility drugs make me suicidally depressed, unless I'm psychotically angry. Four weeks into both pregnancies I started violently throwing up and didn't stop until about four weeks after delivery. I also got gestational diabetes both times and had to take insulin with the toddler. With the baby I had Pregnancy Induced Hypertension, and both antenatal and postpartum depression. Oh, and my heart goes crazy, throwing in extra beats every so often, just for the fun of it. Never when they're doing an electrocardiogram, of course.

So, naturally, I feel terribly guilty about having children. Because you see, it doesn't matter what I've gone through to have these two beautiful little girls, it's not ever going to equal what some of my friends have had to go through, what some of them are still going through. Who cares what it was like being pregnant? At least I got pregnant, and I was even able to do it without resorting to IVF. A little Clomid (OK, a lot of Clomid), the right proportion of Metformin and voila! I'm pregnant. They've gotten me to ovulate three times. Three eggs, two pregnancies, one husband with supercharged fertility. I've got nothing to complain about.

I keep my mouth shut around other infertile women, though. It's like a club in some ways, with only one, very simple but very painful, membership requirement. I'm not hurting like that anymore, and I've seen how much my joy can hurt some people who are still in the middle of it all. So I don't leave any comments at any of the infertility blogs I read, and I quit the infertility support group I used to belong to. I have children now. I don't belong anymore. And I can't help feeling guilty that I've moved on when their pain is still so raw.