Arrrrrrrgh! conversation

Wow, I have been a really bad blogger lately. And I've even had some things to blog about, but I just haven't been in the mood.

I completed my 5 days of Clomid over the weekend, and I'm already coming up to my CD12 ultrasound tomorrow! I started OPKs today (CD11), to avoid almost missing the egg like I did last month. I can't believe it's already CD11. Time goes much quicker when I'm not obsessing about TTC all the time due to being busy with other stuff (work, mostly).

The big annoyance was a conversation over the weekend with my aunt, C. It was really horrible. I should preface this by saying that I have never talked to my aunt about TTC or our IF issues. I should also mention that she was over at our house, along with my parents, sister, and grandfather, for a family dinner in honor of my birthday.

Anyway, C, S (hubby), and I were in the kitchen, and C brought up a newspaper article that she had seen the day before. The article talked about the outsourcing of surrogacy to women in India. Americans are going there and paying several thousand dollars to hire a gestational surrogate. I said, "Yes, I read about that a few weeks ago."

My aunt then expressed her repugnance for the idea. I said, "Well, I don't think it's disgusting. The women in India already have children of their own, and it's a way for them to make more money than they could earn 10 years, and helps them provide for their family." Maybe you agree with me, or maybe not, but this was where the conversation took a turn for the worse.

My aunt then says, "Well, if people can't have children on their own, I don't think that they should. God is trying to tell them something."

I was so shocked and angry at that point that I said, "I completely disagree with you and I think you should know that Scott and I are having problems. So you are basically saying that you don't think that we should be parents. You are saying that a lot of wonderful children that I know should have never been born."

The thing that really bothered me is that my aunt didn't even really apologize. She did say something like, "well I'll make an exception for you guys, but I still don't think it's right. People should adopt..." ARGH! Not that I'm against adoption, but I think that it is wrong to tell people what choice they should make when they are trying to build their family.

Why couldn't she just realize that she had put her foot in her mouth and say, "Wow, I'm really sorry. I had no idea that you were going through this." ? Instead, she proceeded to ask me, "Do you know what the problem is?" To which I said, "Yes, we know, but I'm not going to discuss it with you." Next, she tried to shift the focus to "those rich people" and her theory that most of the women in the article were probably going to India for a surrogate because they didn't want to go through the pain or disfigurement of pregnancy. I told her that I disagreed with her and that any of my "friends" who are going through infertility (referring to you guys!) would probably do just about anything to be able to be pregnant with their own child.

My aunt doesn't understand any of this, though. She is 51 years old, never married, and has no children. I think she vaguely wanted children, but not strongly enough to do anything about it, and she treats her dogs as children.

Needless to say, this put a bit of a damper on the rest of my birthday celebration. Luckily my parents, grandfather, and sister were not in the room at the time. S was standing there, but he really didn't say a word during the entire conversation. I think he was just letting me deal with it since it is my clueless family member. I've had a few days to let this percolate, and now I'm back to feeling vaguely sorry for my aunt and her lonely life. I've made her sound horrible, but she really does care about me and I'm sure she wishes me the best. I think she just let the conversation get out of hand and didn't know how to really apologize, and turned defensive instead. Argh.

I don't plan on telling her any specifics about IUIs or IVF. I'm afraid that she will pry it out of my mom, though. On Monday, I basically told my mom, "If you tell her my private information, I'm going to stop telling you anything." So, hopefully she won't. It's not the end of the world if she does know, but if I ever tell her, I want it to be on my terms.

I have a whole 'nother entry's worth of stuff to blog about. Last Monday we met with Dr G to talk about our next steps (namely, IVF)!! But I'll have to save that for another day, 'cause it's getting late. Check back late Friday (2/1/08) for a CD12 ultrasound report!