Seeing Red(book)

It's been awhile since I last talked at length about infertility or a fertility-related topic. The tone of my blog has changed dramatically since I got pregnant, and while not all of the changes have been intentional, I have periodically wondered if it's appropriate for me to continue blogging about infertility given my audience (almost exclusively family and friends) and my pregnancy. I confess to self-censoring to a degree because I didn't know myself what I wanted to be--a mommy-to-be blogger or a former infertile blogger. I can't say that I've completely answered that question, but I hope to start to address it in the next weeks/months.

That said, there have been certain...controversies lately in a rather prominent part of the IF blogging world that have really struck a chord with me. In brief, Redbook hired Julia, one of my favorite infertility bloggers to write about her experiences as part of a new "Trying to Get Pregnant: The Infertility Diaries" blog they launched on their website. Julia, already the mother of one son, got pregnant with twins shortly after starting the new blog, but due to many past miscarriages she is far being from "out of the woods". Also hired was a Redbook staffer named Lili who was absent from the blog for the first few months of its existence. Redbook offered no explanation for Lili's absence other than to say that she would be back "in a few weeks."

Then, last week Lili wrote her first post which, among other things, gave the reason why she had yet to contribute to the blog. After five years of fertility treatments, she was just returning from maternity leave after having twins. Immediately, comments flooded in from readers who took offense not only to the overall tone of her post (which, in my opinion, reflected her status as an inexperienced blogger who had not given enough thought to her intended audience not a genuine insensitivity to the feelings of infertile readers) but to the fact that both of Redbook's infertility bloggers were parents. A handful of nasty personal comments were made about Lili that were completely uncalled for, but most of the comments urged Redbook to re-think their panel of bloggers and, at a minimum, add a new blogger who is currently undergoing treatments for primary infertility.

Neither Redbook nor Lili responded for several days, leaving the impression that they either had no idea how to handle a reader revolt or that they simply didn't care about the pain they had caused to many of their readers. Either way, it's not exactly the kind of impression they probably wanted to leave. Finally, a Redbook editor addressed the comments in a post today that essentially dismissed what readers were saying and declared the subject closed permanently.

For what it's worth, I do not believe that blame for this situation should be laid solely at Lili's feet. She has simply been the scapegoat for Redbook's egregious lack of foresight and empathy. In fact, I feel quite a bit of sympathy for her since I'm also no longer considered a member of the IF club by many of the women I grew to know and care about during the roughly two years it took us to get pregnant. Those of us who have "turned the corner" as it were still deal with many of the emotional ramifications of infertility even though we have gotten pregnant, and it's not easy to suddenly feel excluded from IF's tight-knit support network when that happens.

The thing is, a positive pregnancy test (or even an almost full-term pregnancy) doesn't heal the wounds infertility causes. It doesn't erase the days and nights I spent hurting, doesn't repair the friendships I lost during those years, and it doesn't negate the experiences I had in getting to this point. The truth is, I still feel uncomfortable talking about my pregnancy with those who don't know our story. I don't like having to smile and nod when hearing stories about other women's "oops" pregnancies. It makes me angry to see Nicole Richie (who is, in my opinion, the last woman on earth who should probably be a parent) on the cover of US Weekly declaring "I'm Pregnant!". I am thankful for this pregnancy every day, and I know that my experiences in getting here will make me a more thoughtful and grateful parent than I probably would have been if we had been able to conceive easily. I'm still hurting, though. That pain might go away someday, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't. It's part of who I am now. I alluded to this in my post about my baby shower last month, but didn't write extensively on the topic since I was still trying to figure out my reaction for myself.

I suppose that in the end, nothing about infertility is fair or easy. What angers me most about the Redbook situation is that instead of directing anger at the editors who did not bother to consider the feelings of their readers or their bloggers, we have once again directed it at one of our own who is doubtless still dealing with the emotional toll infertility takes.