h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are, here and there about the internets, message-boards for the use of women who are trying to get pregnant and would like some support, reassurance and vent-space. I have, of late, been prowling them, clearly and obsessive-compulsive thing to do that I must stop at once. I could go on about the unnecessary medicalization of what should be a fairly natural and healthy process and about many (MANY MANY) women's extremely unrealistic expectations ('We've been having unprotected sex for 33 days now! Why aren't I pregnant!'). And we'll skip over the deeply, unhealthily weird effect all this seems to be having on a lot of women's sex-lives. What truly bugs me, what, in fact, is stopping from me joining in and chatting with these ladies, is the bile.

Look, ladies, I completely understand feeling sad and envious when someone or other you know gets pregnant or gives birth. Heck, a friend had a 10-pounder just yesterday (though I must say, any envy I felt there was subsumed entirely in the feeling of ten pounds? TEN pounds? Good God Almighty). I also understand the complicated and cross feeling you get when said sprogging aquaintance then tells you they hadn't been trying/ were using birth control/ didn't want more kids. And I know how annoying relations can be about the whole business. Indeedy. And most of you are quite legitimately venting and asking for reassurance.

But really, why do a few of you indulge (unchecked, indeed, even encouraged) in such vile bile and sputum? Directed towards innocently happy women innocently and happily being delighted with their own miracle? Why such rage at people who 'don't seem to appreciate their luck?' What, actually, IS lucky about having four kids already and not enough money or time or health to do it all again? What, precisely, should an 18-year-old at college be grateful FOR when her birth control fails? And here you are, seemingly intelligent women, so blinded by your own desire for a child that you lose all ability to understand or empathise with another person's utterly different circumstances.

Oh, I agree, people need a safe place to vent anger and loss. But I insist, there IS a very important difference between lamenting that every one else seems to have all the luck or the ironies of unwanted pregnancies just when you really want one, and downright hating people for daring to have a life and to carry on with it. As if the entire world revolved around your uterus. As if no one was allowed a baby until you'd had your turn. As if other people's children weren't the precious inheritance that would be your doctors, nurses, policemen, waiters, shop-assistants, home-helps, TV presenters, tax-payers damn it, that would keep you alive and well and amused in your old age whether you yourself every sprogged or not. There's venting, and there's stewing away in your own little hell. We are adults. We know some thoughts do not become us. While some thoughts are inevitable, that does not make them right. It certainly does not give us permission to wallow self-rightously in them.

Please, someone, tell me if I ever get like that.

You're far too self-aware ever to fall into the sad trap those women find themselves in.

errr....hug?

Yeh you seem to be stewing a bit...but, at the risk of losing an internet friendship and making you hurt more coz you know....it's good to stew and vent in any shape or form whether it's acknowledging how others react or your reaction to them...

The friend I was talking about had a very difficult time, and yet still babysat mine own...thro the years I watched her struggle with tests and I felt awkward and didn't know what to say...and she helped me to understand at least somewhat - her pains...altho I did struggle to know what to say...and so I was brutally blunt..it's the only way I knew/know how to be...in circumstances..and hope for the best...

In the end it turned out she had *stickyblood* and had to endure many months of heparin injections...and finally came thro....I admire her pain, endurance and down right stubborn doggedness not to give up...even when she said she had....

Again I find myself at loss to know what to say....and probably what I just shared didn't help an iota...because you already know your not alone.



How is the other part of the equation taking it?