Watch Your Words

So recently, my husband had a very interesting "interaction" with a co-worker. This is a co-worker who isn't aware of our infertility struggles (some of his other co-workers are).

It all started the day after my husband had to leave work early in order for us to go to one of our infertility appoints - specifically, the one where we had the 2 hour training on all the nitty gritty of how to give the self-injections that we'll be starting in a couple weeks (that is unless of course this happen to be our "lucky" month... yup, I still never give up hope).

Anyways, back to the story...

So the day that my husband had to leave work early, I was actually at his school with him in the morning, since I had a team who wanted to observe his math instruction (we're both educators), and then my husband took the afternoon off so that we could go to our appointment together. Well apparently, this co-work of his (we'll call her Brittany) noticed that my husband had taken the afternoon off, and also knew that I was there in the morning. So the next day when she saw him, she decided that is was a good idea to go up and say, "Hey, did you play hooky with your wife yesterday? I saw that she was here in the morning and then I saw that you left in the afternoon."

Caught off-guard by her apparently random comment and question, my husband simply replied, "No, we actually had a doctor's appointment to go to." Brittany then said, "Oh ok... well, you should have played hooky - that would have been fun."  Umm, ok, well thanks for the unsolicited advice??

Then, this Brittany chick proceeded to cross the line... An invisible line, might I add, that she had no idea she was crossing, but nonetheless.

She apparently felt the need to give my husband an earful at that moment about how he should really take the opportunity to play hooky with his wife more often because we don't have any kids yet. And how we're "SOOOO lucky" that we don't have any kids yet. And how it must be nice to just do whatever we want, whenever we want, because we don't have any kids yet. And how she wishes she could go back to the days when she didn't have any kids.  And how we really should appreciate this time in our lives when we don't have any kids, because it goes down hill once you do. And how she's so jealous of us because we don't have any kids yet. And... well, I'm sure you get the picture at this point.

If I were there I would have counted how many times she used the damn phrase: "Don't have any kids yet." Really? We didn't notice, but thanks for so blatantly pointing that out.

Also, thanks for helping us realize "how lucky" we are that we don't have any kids... yet. Oh, and for ironically finding the perfect moment and time and person to vent to about how much you apparently dislike having kids. Yea, awesome.

I felt bad for my husband when he came home and told me that story... And then felt infuriated that he had to deal with that, especially coming off the the whirlwind of just getting an over-load of information the day before about how his wife will shortly begin to drug herself with self-injections, just for the sheer hope that we can "have kids."

Really, Brittany?... The last thing my husband (and me later that evening) wanted to hear from someone who's opinion was not asked for, was how horrible your life apparently is because you have kids - and how "awesome" ours apparently is because we don't. Yea, thanks for offering those thoughts to the infertile couple.

Brittany, poor Brittany... she had no idea what she had set herself up for, and I'm sure she meant no harm. But honestly, please be more thoughtful about your words and your decision to just so openly share - no wait, project - your opinion on someone else.

To Brittany... I hope you can find a moment of clarity in your ever so difficult life and take a second to step back and appreciate the beautiful children God has blessed you with and allowed you to have in your life. I'm sure there are plenty of moments filled with frustration, exhaustion, and plain old defeat, but truly you have a blessing - actually multiple blessings - that so many of us continue to dream of, hope for, pray for, get poked, prodded, and drugged for, spend exorbitant amounts of money for, and spend so many moments each day simply longing for.

I'm sure being a parent isn't always rainbows and sunshine, but it's truly a blessing... and I vow to never allow myself to forget that when my opportunity arrives.

Until then, I can only pray for parents like Brittany (and her children) who seemed to have lost sight of that - or even more unfortunately, maybe never even realized it in the first place.