The Fertile's Club 'aka The Military'

I used to hate going to parties at Blue’s work.  He’s in the military and so it’s a given that there will always be gobs of babies and pregnant women.  For the record they are always nice and I always get to snuggle babies, but even before we started trying I just never felt like I fit in…

I’ve always wondered if maybe I just didn’t have anything in common with his coworkers and their families or if it really was because we didn’t have kids. 

It was because we didn’t have kids.

When I went to the first party post-pregnancy it was not what I expected at all.  Not only were all the women asking me how I was feeling and giving baby advice, the men were too!  Guys I had literally never even talked to before were saying congratulations and touching my belly. 

It was like I suddenly went from being the junior-high outcast to one of the popular kids over night.  I smiled through the whole party and relished in my new found membership to The Fertile’s Club.

I didn’t let myself dwell on how I felt about it all until Blue and I were driving home… Then I wasn’t sure I was so happy about suddenly ‘fitting in’…  I was mad that I was right all those years about why I didn’t fit in.  By enjoying it I felt like I was burying my infertile past and moving on, which I promised not to do.

Blue, as always, was slow to say anything but when he did it was wise, “they just didn’t know how to start a conversation with you before.”  Then there was silence while he let me ponder his wise words.

I think he was right.  Most of these couple’s entire lives revolve around their families, they have to move every few years and the one thing that is constant is their family.  Most of the women are stay at home moms to help accommodate the military dynamic and probably can’t remember back to a life before they had kids. 

I get it.  That’s why we go through the heartache of infertility, isn’t it?  It’s why we don’t just give up and move on to a life with out children, because we hope someday that our families will be the center of our whole lives.  Some people have an easier time with that transition than we’ve had and I guess I can’t fault them for that.