Reasons why Infertility Sucks 6: Putting your life on pause.

It's getting really obvious, now.

We have friends who are done having kids already. No more. And so they're moving on to the next phase of their lives, as parents.

They're buying the family homes, planning the family vacations. Getting the new careers that are family friendly. Buying the suitable family cars, getting the appropriately located family cottage.

And we're still stuck on pause. We can't move forward. With anything.

We can't remodel the spare room, because that room will be the nursery. But I can't turn it into a nursery yet either because hey - no baby. So it sits with its tired, leftover furniture, the closets filled with random odds and ends, because it as of yet has no purpose.

We can't book that dream vacation for next summer because who knows - we might be pregnant.

We still look for things to do Friday and Saturday nights, even though none of our friends are available anymore because they all have families.

We're stuck in this messed-up 30something limbo, wanting to badly to move forward to the next phase and just simply not being able to.

And it sucks.

Reason 5 Why Infertility Sucks: Because Fertiles Whine.

Somewhat related to previous reasons, and yet in a category on its own:

Whiny fertiles.

"I feel so faaaaaaaaaat!"

"I can't sleeeeeeep!"

"I'm not working while I'm home with my baby so we have no moneeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!"

Oh, just shut up.

Seriously. Shut up.

You have no idea whatsoever how lucky you are. You really haven't the foggiest.

They even whine about trying to get pregnant - as if they understood. "Well, it took us six months to conceive little Bradley FooFoo - so I totally get where you are."

No, you don't. No, you really fucking don't. Try six years, lady. Try barrels of pee on thousands of dollars worth of sticks. Try years of sex as a means to an end instead of sex as recreation. Try involving a football team worth of people in your fertility routine - and even better, try having exams in front of what feels like a football pitch filled with screaming freaks.

I get that you whine because you don't understand. And I wouldn't wish this on anybody. But when you do whine, I want to slap you, because you have no idea how minor, how inane your worries are. You really, really do not know, you cannot know, you have no frame of reference to know how minor those worries are, how much I would be able to put those worries and whines aside and simply say, yep, I am a whale, yep, I haven't had a good night's sleep in a year, yep, I'm broke, and I chose this. I pursued this. I did this to myself, on purpose, and I will take the bad with the good because this is what I wanted.

Because sweetheart, make no mistake:

I would stay up every single night even though my eyes would be falling out of my head.
I would live on kraft dinner and milk even though I craved a steak.
I would buy maternity clothes in XXXXL and wear them proudly.

If I had what you have.