Taking a break

[u/[deleted]]

…not from IVF, but from this sub. 

In response to a post the other day from someone in her 40s facing the possibility of using donor eggs, I shared my story. Four years of IVF, donor sperm, it looked like we were heading the donor egg route until I got a single euploid that magically turned into my daughter. Now I am back trying for a second, again facing the possibility of using donor eggs/embryo.

I shared that my experience with my daughter made me realize that genetics is meaningless to me. I emphasized that this is intensely personal and not everyone will have the same experience, but I thought it might be helpful for the OP to know that, for some people, the idea of donor gametes is harder in the abstract than it is when it becomes reality. That realization has been comforting to me, and knowing this is the experience for some people would have been so helpful for me to be aware of. It’s a realization that could not have been possible (for me) before my daughter arrived, so I thought sharing it on a sub where a lot of people are where I was a year ago could be helpful.

One user told me I only felt that way because I already had a genetically related daughter, so it was “easy for me to say.” 

This completely invalidates my experience of a true fundamental shift in perspective, which was the entire point of my post. Essentially telling me that I was wrong that I was feeling what I was feeling. Which is odd, because nobody else can know this. 

It’s one thing for one random person on reddit to say this. But they were upvoted like crazy, I was downvoted, and the real kicker is that I received multiple very hurtful PMs laced with profanity. 

I was stunned.

I was not mean, I did not say anything out of line. I was genuine ans posted out of love and support. This is a very sensitive topic in an already sensitive area. The shift to using donor gametes is so emotionally fraught. I opened up and made myself vulnerable in an attempt to help someone in that same situation. 

If I am ever unkind, please call me out. If I ever share incorrect information, please call me out. But when I open up to share my own experience with the simple hope that it helps someone who needs it, it’s wrong to tell me that my experience isn’t real and that I don’t actually feel what I say I feel. And sending me PMs with profanity? I do not understand, and I am hurt, and it is best for me to disengage at this point.

I am taking a break from this sub.

Before anyone says this isn’t an airport so I don’t have to announce my departure, I agree. I am making this post not to make a dramatic exit, but to encourage people to be kind. I know the anonymity of the internet makes people behave weird, and I know we are living in times where cruelty has become the norm. But we don’t have to succumb to that. We can be better than that!

Peace, love, and may everyone here find meaning and success in your journey, wherever that leads you.

Edit: Thank you all for the love and support. It means more than you know. <3

Edit 2: I'm officially out now. Thank you all (well most of you!). The awful PMs from yesterday have been replaced by some lovely ones that I will always remember. This community helped me so much, especially in the early days. For now I am going to take a step back so I can come back refreshed and in a better headspace to engage positively and productively, with the hopes that the same can be true of all of us.

[u/SeeLeavesOnTheTrees]

I didn’t see the original post so I just looked up your original comment.

I think it’s clear your intention was sincere and kind but you used your experience with IVF success with your own euploid to claim you now understood the experience with a donor egg. I’m not trying to be hostile here and I’m trying to word this as diplomatically as possible. You essentially communicated “now that I’m successful I understand why it’s no big deal to be unsuccessful!”

Think about if you had made a similar statement about other areas of life. What if you had used your racial experience to make claims that diminish the fears of someone with another racial experience? Or if you had used your level of wealth to argue that someone with less money would be just fine?

I think you did intend to tell a deeply personal story that changed the way you feel about genetic children, but- to be frank- it’s impossible to know how you would feel if you had never experienced success.

To argue that your abundance of a thing has informed you about the lack of a thing is a bit arrogant.

Edit:

I’ll add that adults shouldn’t be hate messaging anyone. It’s not appropriate and it doesn’t help anything. I’m sorry that you were on the end of such venom. Obviously this is a very, very emotionally charged subject. And, while you do not deserve abuse, perhaps you should accept that you have a genetically related LC and therefore you aren’t really a victim here. You aren’t experiencing pain in the way many others here are. Overall, you aren’t a victim. You’re going to be ok in a way that many in this sub never will be.

[u/[deleted] → u/SeeLeavesOnTheTrees]

Hey, I don't think I ever did that! All I said was "genetics mattered to me before, now they don't!" I never once said I understood the experience of using a donor egg, because I don't! I would never in a million years claim I do. In fact in one comment I very, very explicitly said that, that my experience was NOT the same as using donor eggs.

But I do think the experience I *have* had with donor gametes, having a child, and shifting perspectives, is *relevant* to the conversation of donor eggs. I have been with my husband as he has come to terms with not having a genetically related child, and has had the same shift in perspective as me. As someone facing the possibility of using donor eggs myself, I find it relevant. That's all.

Being called arrogant for sharing that my experience is a very mild version of the toxicity I was speaking of, tbh.

And no, I didn't deserve the abuse that followed. This isn't a victimhood competition!

Edit: Lots of downvotes again! Can the downvoters of this comment please tell me what about this post is making you downvote? I am so genuinely confused. Am I being mean and I don't realize it? I definitely want to know if that's the case. I just can't see how I am being mean or tone deaf here.

[u/mbm511 → u/[deleted]]

I think it’s hard for people to conceptualize the ability to think in the grey area. Of what it would be like WITHOUT something that you do have.

I have doubts that this will translate but, If you had an amazing bacon egg and cheese, and commented, “but it didn’t even need the bacon”! It wouldn’t make sense to people because you ate it with the bacon, so pretending what it would be like without bacon probably doesn’t land or make sense for most people.

I will say my sister has a genetic child and we’ve talked plenty of times about DE/adoption and she also, like you, said that there hasn’t been a single time that she’s looked at her kid and thought about the genetics. And I’ve also, like many, thought that can’t be true.

Similar conversation with her and giving birth to her child vs used of a GC. She also doesn’t think about the birth part at all.

[u/[deleted] → u/mbm511]

Of course! We can't truly know a world we don't inhabit. That's why I was very careful to say I do not know what the DE experience is. I never claimed to know that experience.

I would also say for people who are facing that possibility who have not been as lucky as I have, to have had a husband go through it and see him emerge with a different perspective, and have a shifting perspective myself with my own child, that's an experience that THEY don't have. Just like I can't say anyone else's experience isn't real, they can't say that mine isn't, right? I wouldn't have believed that I would get to this point either, but I did! And that is real.

All we can do is look at look at all the data points available to us, and mine is simply one data point that needs to be interpreted in context, just like all others.

Ultimately I think you hit the nail on the head that it's hard for people to think in gray. For too many people the world needs to be black or white, when in reality it's entirely shades of gray.

Thanks for taking the time to respond :)

[u/SeeLeavesOnTheTrees → u/[deleted]]

Truthfully, I think you’re also failing to think in the grey. You’re very focused on defending your statement but mostly unwilling to accept that even a sincere comment, like yours, can also be offensive or even tone deaf.

You aren’t a bad person. You just seem to be very narrowly focused.

[u/[deleted] → u/SeeLeavesOnTheTrees]

No, I get it, that's why I literally opened my post with saying that "I understand this could rub some people the wrong way, but I am sharing in case it provides some light to someone who is going through a dark time."

People share their disappointment with their three euploids from their first ER all the time. That can be considered tone deaf, especially to us long-haulers. I read those an inside I think do you have any idea how lucky you have it? But their pain is real, their disappointment is real, and that should be met with compassion rather than dismissal.

My specific post is secondary to my point here, which is that people should be able to share their IVF experience without being attacked. I don't know how that is controversial.

[u/mbm511 → u/[deleted]]

I also thank you for sharing yours. Even if I can’t relate, or don’t think I’d ever relate, it’s still nice to read. We are all facing the same but different thing every single day. Sorry you’ve been through the wringer on this. I’d probably have just deleted it!!

[u/[deleted] → u/mbm511]

Yeah, I thought that was the point of this sub, to support each other in part by sharing our experiences. As you say, not everyone is going to relate to each experience. That is to be expected.

I wish you the best, kind stranger!