'You're lucky it's not twins"

It's something i've heard over the last few months, more than once.

As i've got large enough to show, people ask questions, they're so excited about a pregnancy, everyone loves a baby, and they say well meaning things. B and I decided we were going to be open about having IVF, so if it fits the conversation, we tell people. There is still a stigma around IVF for some folks, and we felt we wanted to be part of the solution, maybe one day we could even be the voice to talk to (that we never had) for another couple going through what we've gone through. Admittedly I think we're only this way because we're coming closer and closer to success, but we had so much support from the internet through blogs we knew we wanted to write one, and we had so little verbal support from those who had gone through what we were going through, we want to be there for friends who may need to just talk over a procedure, result or bad day.

"You're lucky it's not twins" is something that has often come out when people hear we're just expecting one. Usually followed by a story about a friend who did IVF who had twins and 'what a nightmare'. I smile, I know it's well meaning and I know people just don't know, but sometimes I wish I could just say that actually, we'd love to, and would do anything to be holding our twins right now. It would be great to be in the position to not even consider having IVF again, going through the pain and ups and downs again, but at the moment we haven't ruled it out, because both of us would have loved two children. If we go for it again, given our success rate, we'd probably chose again to put two embryos back in, as in our case the chances are higher that we'd end up with one baby - but there is a chance we'd end up with two and have three children total. Would we be thrilled, yes, is it our ideal, not really, for many reasons we feel two is a good number. We really would have loved twins the first time round.

It's amazing how much you learn through this process, learn the ups and the downs, what can be sensitive that no-one would ever have guessed. It's certainly up'ed my empathy and made me think more about what I say to pregnant women.

Another one that has gotten me a few times is "I know exactly how you feel", because in reality, you don't, everyone feels very differently, and unless you've gone through exactly the same procedure, loss or pain or whatever it is, you can't even really say "I know what you're going through" either without it stinging the other person. In reality it's discarding their pain, invalidating it, like it doesn't matter, because you had your own pain you dealt with, doesn't mean it's anything like another persons, no matter what the circumstances. I know i'll never say those words to anyone again, though we know they were meant in comfort, they really hurt to the core at the time.