Mockery

Just when I was about to be all normal and indifferent towards all of my TTC-related problem, a cousin announced the birth of her second daughter in the family Whatsapp on Friday and as you can guess the other cousin-mummies gushed excitedly, "Oh... I know the feeling! You must be over the moon!" 

Of course everyone knows "the feeling" of giving birth, right? Right? Except this one infertile-by-marriage cousin of yours hahaha! *this is my bitterness talking*

To top it all, the birth announcement came in just after the proud grandmother of the new baby forwarded the good-hearted message below (I'm sure the same has been circulating everywhere, not just in my family Whatsapp):

A lot of men think they doing women a favour by asking for her hand in marriage, but lets think about this : she changes her name, changes her home, leaves her family, moves in with you, builds a home with you, gets pregnant for you, pregnancy change her body, she gets fat, almost gives up in the labour room due to the unbearable pains of child birth, even the kids she delivers bear your name. Till the day she dies everything she does benefits you. So who is really doing who a favour? Dear men appreciate your wife today, it is not easy to be a woman.*Being a woman is priceless *

W - Wonderful MOTHER
O - Outstanding Friend
M - Marvelous Daughter
A - Adorable Sister
N - Nicest Gift To Men From God

complete with pesanan penaja : Kalau boleh buat semua tu kerana Allah senang masuk syurga.

So how did that make me feel? Of course, mendidih inside!

Mind you, it's my extended family group chat with 42 participants. I have four cousins who are about the same age as me - all have become mothers except myself. Of course the forwarded message is a general one but at the time of reading it, I could almost see the texts dancing up and down, mocking me. As you would have guessed, I replied:

"Saidatina Aisyah tak pernah melahirkan anak. Masuk syurga juga. Assiyah isteri Firaun, ibu angkat Nabi Musa A.S. juga begitu. Tinggi ketaqwaan kepada Allah. Firaun yang mandul tapi Assiyah tetap bersifat keibuan membela Musa A.S. dan berjaya pujuk Firaun untuk bela Musa A.S. Kalau hari ini, asal mandul je masyarakat akan salahkan perempuan."

That was when I think the aunt, along with several cousins got the message. However, as non-TTCians they advised me to be patient and believe in Allah's plan etc. Hahahaha as if we do not know any better.

I told them off back that it is not in their place to tell me what to do. As someone who has been in this battle for over three years, of course I know what to do. All I did was pointing out to them that it is not right to be over-glorifying the joy of motherhood when not everyone has the chance to experience it. I told them what to do on their part instead, that is to be more aware of infertility issues, as that is what is lacking in the society at the moment. As someone who is experiencing it, whether biologically or by marriage, of course we know what it takes to face the test, right? What we need is family support and not continuous isolation. No one replied after that LOL.

I have yet to visit my cousin's baby. Not intending to, not anytime soon. I told my mother the same. She told me to reconsider and visit them anyway but bring DH along. We'll see.

From this entry I think you can tell that I have been going on an emotional roller coaster ride. Not proud of myself. So I decided to just go on living as normal. Went to a friend's wedding on Saturday evening, spring cleaned the house, called my mother to have a chat, just tried my best to be normal but of course there is still that bugging feeling I do not know how to get rid of.

It is not helping that our blood test / semen analysis results from the Health Clinic have not been out yet. They asked us to call again sometime next week.

In the meantime, I have signed up to attend the TTC Breakthrough Programme organised by Jay and friends. Hopefully I can gather my spirit back with it. A soul tuning is going to do me some good. Aamiin.