Abby's "Struggle" with infertility

[lilah]

Someone mentioned that she and her husband are CF carriers - do any of her children have CF?

ETA: it looks like none have it so far. And her lone post about it (abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2007/12/help-of-holy-innocents.html) is really bizarre.

I think Abby secretly wants to have a kid with a chronic, potentially fatal illness because it prove she's a total martyr. Don't Catholics have a major fetish for suffering = holiness? Never-mind she doesn't have the financial resources or emotional stability to handle the strain of having a severely ill child.

Edited by Pixydust to break link.

[NurseNell]

I think Abby secretly wants to have a kid with a chronic, potentially fatal illness because it prove she's a total martyr. Don't Catholics have a major fetish for suffering = holiness? Never-mind she doesn't have the financial resources or emotional stability to handle the strain of having a severely ill child.

No, we don't have a major fetish for suffering, although I can see why you might think that. We were raised being taught that when we suffer, as we all do at different times in life, it is good and holy to offer it up to God. It didn't mean we were expected to go looking for suffering but when it came our way it was to be offered up. Abigail, on the other hand, is one of those converts who wants to be more Catholic than the Pope so she looks for opportunities to suffer. :?

[MMS]

She has mentioned they are slowly pursuing adoption of a special needs child at this time.

[Arete]

She has mentioned they are slowly pursuing adoption of a special needs child at this time.

They have about as much chance of legally adopting a special needs child as I do of spontaneously becoming a natural blonde.

[burntnorton]

Not getting pregnant the instant you let your husband stick his member in your vagina is not infertility. And while a miscarriage is awful, but a single one between kids number two and three is not a marker of a problem carrying babies to term (which is a seperate problem from infertility anyway). That idiot never experienced infertility. No doctor would even have bothered doing a fertility work up on her. Two years between birthing one baby and getting pregnant with the next is pretty typical spacing even for people who don't use contraception. Hell, its the recommended minimum spacing. What a drama queen. :twisted:

[meda]

OH MY GOODNESS.

Oh my...

That is a special level of delusional, self absorbed asshole. I dont think daddy-pope or husband-jesus would approve at all.

[honeyinthesunshine]

In this post she totally reminds me of that woman (whose name escapes me) with the blog where she talked about burying and naming her tampons, naming her aunt's dead babies after the fact (aunt was on birth control, so she took this to mean LOTS of dead babies) and accusing a woman of murder because she sent her a hateful (in her mind) email and triggering a miscarriage...

IIRC, she was too crazy to snark and the police got involved at some point, but OMG she was the best kind of crazy.

[Jana814]

This woman got ISSUES!!

[myoung790]

This pisses me off. She wants infertility, well I'll give her infertility. Years of trying and being told there is nothing wrong with either of you. Hubby's sperm count is off the charts. 6 months on Clomid, 6 months on Metformin and Clomid. 2 IUI's. 4 fresh IVF cycles. Acupuncture for months, Chinese Herbs, 3 miscarriages. That sweetheart, is infertility, you ungrateful bitch.

All worth it now that I have 2 happy healthy almost 5 year old twin girls. :D

[happy atheist]

In this post she totally reminds me of that woman (whose name escapes me) with the blog where she talked about burying and naming her tampons, naming her aunt's dead babies after the fact (aunt was on birth control, so she took this to mean LOTS of dead babies) and accusing a woman of murder because she sent her a hateful (in her mind) email and triggering a miscarriage...

IIRC, she was too crazy to snark and the police got involved at some point, but OMG she was the best kind of crazy.

Frankie.

[darareaksmey]

Screw you, Abby. I will never be able to be pregnant. The year(s) of therapy and meds stunt the pain a bit. If you told me this in person (and I hope you never say this to an infertile person or post-menopausal woman), you might get a screaming fit, tears, a bitch slap, or just stone cold response from me. Or, maybe, I'd guilt you so hard you'd be a mushy puddle. A puddle that would remember for more than a minute that everyone hurts, but maybe, this is a bit much.

I've never told anyone how much this hurts. Thanks, Abby, that's a new experience.

I wish I could like your post eleventy times, Rita. Miss Abigail doesn't know from infertility and anyone who has ever suffered any degree of it could rightfully just walk up to her and spit in her eye.

All her kvetching is so self-righteous. Is that any way for a 3d degree blackbelt Carmelite to conduct herself?

[Boltingmadonna]

She really does seem kind of borderline Munchausen's. As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her famous father, "(S)he wants to be the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral." She wants to be the submissive Catholic wifey, and also the virgin bride of Christ. She wants to be the Mother of Many, and also to suffer from infertility. She wants Mary to be her mother and the Pope to be her father. She's willing to have a child that will suffer a lifetime of illness just to prove something about her own ability to be special. It's as if she's flailing around looking for some way to prove she's special, but nothing ever satisfies her for long. I feel sad for her because I think she needs help. But she's so involved with herself that she can"t see how she's hurting other people.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Guess what? The 3 yr gap between my oldest two was not voluntary - it took a year of trying to conceive, and I then had 2 miscarriages before my middle child was conceived.

I do not describe myself as having secondary infertility. I can stand back and see that I had three healthy babies in a span of 5 years, even if there were some issues along the way. Yes, I did wonder before my 2nd child was born if I would be able to have another child, but that question was answered. At most, I had a small, brief peek into the world of infertility, that would maybe give me a clue that full-blown primary or secondary infertility would be more painful than I could imagine. I have 2 close friends with secondary infertility, and there is absolutely no way that I could compare my story to theirs.

[Jinger Jar]

Frankly, I hope that Abigail and her husband don't have any more children until she successfully addresses her mental health issues. She can't effectively parent the ones she's got, and a bigger family is only going to add to her problems and stress level. Not to mention the fact that it would be utterly unfair to the children...

[honeyinthesunshine]

Frankie.

Frankie! I was just lurking then, but whatever happened to Frankie?

[MedSchoolMama]

Wow - this woman has a mind-blowing lack of perspective. While I can certainly relate to the idea of wanting to be pregnant so badly it hurts, one month without a positive pregnancy test after an 11 month period of lactational amenorrhea definitely does not merit a pity-party and a self-diagnosis of secondary fertility.

You don't get to count the months that were ovulation-free due to lactational amenorrhea towards your 'trying to conceive' time. LAM is Mother Nature's amazing gift to us to ensure that mommy gets time to recover and that the new baby gets the copious amounts of breastmilk it needs before the next pregnancy diminishes milk supply and eventually ushers in another little one who requires first dibs.

I am constantly anxious that when we start attempting to conceive our next child, we may have to struggle with another long and unexplained period of infertility. If Abby really meant to convey that same feeling of anxiety, she definitely could have found a better way to phrase it, IMO. But saying you have secondary infertility and that your 4th AND 5th successful pregnancies were miracles (which she does in her comments section) is a pretty silly way of assessing your situation and is pretty insensitive to her readers who truly are struggling with infertility.

[GeoBQn]

For a couple months, my grocery store kept bags of chocolate in the pad/tampon aisle. I couldn't decide if that was brilliant or insulting.

I was reading up on David Vetter, AKA "the boy in the plastic bubble." His parents (also Catholic) conceived him even after their eldest son died of SCID at 7 months old and they knew that any son they had would have a 50% chance of inheriting the same condition. I thought of Abigail reading that. Why would any parent take that risk? My husband and I are Ashkenazi Jews, and we are doubling up on birth control until we can get genetic testing and counseling. (My brother is a carrier for Gauchers, so that's a possibility with me, and my husband is a carrier for a condition that affects how much oxygen the blood can carry.)

[Zoom]

I was thinking this is a joke as I was reading. I had a small chuckle when she specifically mentioned the Trojan condoms as though they are something evil and abhorent. Another part of the chuckle came because I was thinking of the picture I saw in my FB feed last night. The picture was from the local Planned Parenthood site and it had a picture of a gray foil condom wrapper with a mini Darth Vader stating "I Will Not Be Your Father." Very clever and funny at the same time.

One of my all time favourite adds was found in the bathrooms at the student union when I was at uni. It was a picture of a condom and the tag line was "can protect you against so many things it should wear a cape and fly"

[Mela99]

She's a turd. No idea what infertility really means. You don't get to claim infertility after you've popped out five kids one right after the other.

Infertility is for those who can't get pregnant, and suffer years upon years of "fist punches to the heart"

[slickcat79]

They have about as much chance of legally adopting a special needs child as I do of spontaneously becoming a natural blonde.

I hope like hell that's true :pray:

Frankie.

Ohh, Franki. Franki was bananas.

The original saga.

Blisterine's brilliant parody on the loss of Maranatha Agape

[Black Aliss]

I've never been in a store which didn't have all the vagina stuff together. Pregnancy tests, condoms, lube, douches and tampons. Where has she been shopping?

Personally, I've never understood why they don't stock the chocolate and wine next to the "sanitary products". A lost marketing opportunity if ever there was one.

[salex]

In this post she totally reminds me of that woman (whose name escapes me) with the blog where she talked about burying and naming her tampons, naming her aunt's dead babies after the fact (aunt was on birth control, so she took this to mean LOTS of dead babies) and accusing a woman of murder because she sent her a hateful (in her mind) email and triggering a miscarriage...

IIRC, she was too crazy to snark and the police got involved at some point, but OMG she was the best kind of crazy.

Wow. It is amazing how much crazy has been hidden in the world, before free internet let it out in the open.

[Talitha Cumi]

Wait...this woman and her husband are CF carriers and they keep having children knowing that? WTF! CF is a TERMINAL illness.

I'm all for doing whatever, but I wouldn't have a child on purpose knowing that there's a high chance of CF or any other genetic disorder.

It's okay-- Jesus loves them and would never let that happen!

ETA: She WANTS it to happen? :shock:

[flyawaystray]

Apparently so! I don't know how their 5 children managed to escape it. The risk of a CF child is 25 percent, and a 25 percent chance of having a non-CF child. 50 percent after that is the chance of becoming a carrier. So statistically, one of those children should have already had it. So she's either been incredibly lucky (or not, according to Abby), or maybe she's lying about it.

[Ex 2x2]

She really does seem kind of borderline Munchausen's. As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her famous father, "(S)he wants to be the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral." She wants to be the submissive Catholic wifey, and also the virgin bride of Christ. She wants to be the Mother of Many, and also to suffer from infertility. She wants Mary to be her mother and the Pope to be her father. She's willing to have a child that will suffer a lifetime of illness just to prove something about her own ability to be special. It's as if she's flailing around looking for some way to prove she's special, but nothing ever satisfies her for long. I feel sad for her because I think she needs help. But she's so involved with herself that she can"t see how she's hurting other people.

Wow the bride at every wedding/corpse at every funeral is brilliant. And it definitely applies here!