I Know That Everyone Knows

I don't think I am necessarily paranoid.

I just know - in my heart of hearts - that people know I am dealing with IF... even without us verbally sharing it.

After over 4 years of marriage, remembering our vows during our wedding to happily accept and welcome children to our family, and after telling people that we "absolutely want kids someday", it sucks that so many people in our lives know that we want to raise children. It sucks because we are so private about our IF journey. We aren't sharing with family or most of our friends, and although I sometimes think about sharing our struggles with a few more select people, we're just not there yet. We probably won't ever be, and we're both okay with taking the private road.

I wish that some people didn't already subconsciously know about our struggles - even without us sharing anything with them. Either their intuition is amazing, or they are making complete assumptions... right or wrong.

People look at us differently. If they don't ask, they undoubtedly wonder and give us "the look" when conversations turn to strollers, Baby Einstein, and burp cloths. Even my wonderful Mr. D, who lovingly really doesn't notice much with regards to how other people are perceiving us, has started to pick up on the subtle signs that I've noticed for years.

This weekend was another crappy situation in our IF journey. After Mr. D's birthday celebration, we had a wedding on Saturday night. The seating chart was predetermined. And what do you know... Mr. D and I were sat at the singles-and-dating-or-maybe-even-engaged table. Our actual friends were sat at the isn't-it-great-to-be-parents table. After dinner, our friends came over to our table to chat, with visible looks of "I'm-so-sorry-it-must-be-so-hard-for-you-to-be-here-and-not-with-our-group." I also received the question from the women/mothers:

"So, are you guys planning on having children?"

I answered with the generic, typical answer, as they all nodded their heads and told me - like I already didn't know - how wonderful it is to be a mom, but how great it is that Mr. D and I are taking our time.

What I wanted to say is:

"I know all of you know - please just stop making me feel worse and don't ask anymore questions, damn it."

But instead, I had the privilege of lying:

"Oh, I bet it is just wonderful to welcome children to your family! Mr. D and I have just been so focused on our careers and travel... maybe someday we'll be blessed with children. Who knows!"

I hate IF.