Revelations

I did it. I finally told my mother that Al and I have for the past 5 years been unable to get pregnant and are in the process of choosing an RE for testing and treatment. I did not give her any details. It went well. I am shocked at how well it went. How calm my voice was. What she said in response. Which was that my parents tried for 2.5 years to conceive me. That she finally saw a doctor who "blew carbon dioxide up inside me." That she had collapsed fallopian tubes (probably from endo but she didn't know it at the time). She implied that the carbon dioxide was used to actually correct the problem. . . a procedure which sounds a bit unlikely to me and to which I can not seem to find any reference via Dr. Google. Whatever the treatment was, it did the trick and she was pregnant with me very shortly after. Of course this news was all very surprising to me. I knew she had had a miscarriage when I was in junior high and a hysterectomy when I was in high school but I had no idea that she had ever had trouble getting pregnant.

I was all prepared to send her a link to Tertia's excellent advice on how to be a good friend to an infertile, but no dreaded assvice was offered so I am keeping it to myself for now. If anything, she seemed a bit unimpressed. Maybe it was because I was pretending to be all calm and okay with it. Maybe it's because of her own experience with a simple and effective intervention. I don't know. She did undermine my belief that I present a carefully cultivated disinterest in reproduction by saying, "I assumed you were having problems." Logic being, otherwise we would have kids by now. Ouch. (Although she did very kindly add, "I think you would both be very good parents.")

Anyway, it feels so good for this not to be a secret anymore. I know that I am not ready to share the news far and wide, but we have to start telling the people who are important to us. Al's parents are next. I think I will leave that to him.

It was, of course, my sister's news of the morning that prompted me to finally break down and tell my mom about all this. Not that I revealed her news; I would never do that. It's just that, when my parents hear that my sister is pregnant, I want them to (hopefully) understand that this will not be the happiest news for me, and that it might be painful.

And just to clarify that (although I doubt I need to) . . . I do not begrudge my sister a pregnancy, a baby, a family. It just feels so unfair. She is younger, has been married only a short while and has not had the easiest time, was definitely not trying (and in fact is a bit freaked out). So of course, she is the one to go first. I really wanted to have the first grandchild. It may seem silly, but I was the first grandchild on both sides of my family and I always have felt like I have a special relationship with my grandparents because of this. I wanted my child to have the same thing, at least with my parents as Al has much older siblings and his parents already have four grandchildren.

Sigh.