Living in a "Parenting" Obsessed World

No doubt in our society we are inundated with "parenting" all around us. Pictures of friends' and families' kids on social media, advertising depicting families with children, diaper and other baby product commercials, conversations all around us revolving around topics and issues that more often than not, relate back to people's children and parenting. For those of us battling through infertility, at a time when it's the most difficult topic in our life, it seems to be the number one topic in everyone else's. Of course, not that this is a bad thing in any way, shape, or form for others, but for those of us struggling through infertility, it's just... different. Don't get me wrong, the last thing that I would ever want is for someone to feel uncomfortable, or even worse unable, to talk about their kids when they're around me, because that's definitely not the case - at all. My husband and I often try to have this conversation with our close friends who have children, to try and reassure them of this and let them know that the last thing we would ever want is for them to ever think twice (even for a split second) about sharing something with us related to one of their kids; because we love those little peanuts dearly. These actually are never the moments that bring us back to our infertility issues. Hearing about our friends' amazing "littles" aka: kids (for anyone who watches Odd Mom Out, ha) or pregnancies, actually fill us with joy, laughter, and excitement about what we have to look forward to one day. It's those random little moments that actually catch you off guard and send you reeling back face to face with your infertility. It's those moments that you least expect. The ones where your infertility struggles are actually the last thing on your mind for a brief moment, and then something happens that quickly takes you back to the reality of it all.

I distinctly remember the very first moment when this actually happened to me. It was this past fall when I was at a huge 3-day conference for work. Here I am sitting in this auditorium filled with hundreds of people during one of the break-out sessions, and the presenter paused for a moment and asked everyone to, "Raise your hand if you're a parent." His point was to use an analogy to parenting to make a connection to something he was presenting; but, at that very moment I was flooded with this rush of an awkward feeling. Granted, this awkwardness was most likely something only I realized... but nonetheless, it still felt uncomfortable. I just remember having this feeling of wanting to slink down in my seat, almost in shame, by being one of the only few people in the entire auditorium who not only didn't raise their hand, but couldn't raise their hand. It was this stark reminder that there was this entire "club" of people out there who were parents, and I didn't belong to it. It was the first time in my life that I actually felt ashamed at not being a parent, while so desperately wanting to be. In years past (before infertility became a constant in my life), the feeling would have never even registered. My world simply consisted of either not being married yet (therefore kids were still in the distant future) or still being a newlywed (so again, kids were still a bit in the future). However at this point, we had been TTC for over a year with no luck, and for the first time it was a moment when I so desperately wanted to belong to the "parent club," yet I was surrounded by the harsh reality that I wasn't able to be.

In a world when it seems the one thing almost everyone has in common is being a parent, it's hard to not only continue to be on the outskirts of this, but to constantly be faced with the uninvited (yet often unintentional) reminder that you just don't belong. Someday, I not only hope, but I know I will have my blessing of being initiated into "the club," but for now it simply continues to be an opportunity to build strength and practice true faith in whatever God has planned for our future... until we have our moment...