Abby's "Struggle" with infertility

[Vex]

Did Brenda's reply get taken down? Because I can't see it.

[NurseNell]

Did Brenda's reply get taken down? Because I can't see it.

No, it's there. Abigail doesn't usually remove replies.

[Vex]

I double checked and it's definitely not there for me. Maybe because I'm not a follower or something? Thanks, Nell.

[Vex]

Thanks for the effort, but it's saying the page doesn't exist when I enter it as a functional link. Also when I clicked on the direct link. I even tried adding au to the URL since I'm in Aus and all blogspot addresses end in com.au, but no dice. I used ctrlF to search for Brenda's post amongst the comments but that didn't work either. It says there are 27 comments.

The kitten in your avatar is absolutely adorable, by the way. I've been meaning to tell you that.

[NurseNell]

I double checked and it's definitely not there for me. Maybe because I'm not a follower or something? Thanks, Nell.

Check your private messages.

[NurseNell]

The kitten in your avatar is absolutely adorable, by the way. I've been meaning to tell you that.

Thank you Vex, he is Cork, a feral kitten rescued this summer. He is a wonderful kitten. I'd never taken in a feral before and was a little leery but he has the sweetest disposition.

[Ex 2x2]

I double checked and it's definitely not there for me. Maybe because I'm not a follower or something? Thanks, Nell.

Hmm I'm not a follower either, and I can see it.

[desertvixen]

Some of what Brenda wrote:

I agree with everything you said in this post. However, I don't think that is what is happening in the responses to your secondary infertility post or your poverty posts for that matter. The "comparing of crosses" is not happening because you are sharing your struggles: it is happening because you are misappropriating terms.

You have every right to want a larger family and be sad when that is taking longer than you would like. You have every right to sometimes feel frustrated and panicked by your families financial situation, even when it comes from your own inexperience with financial management.

But the reality is you do not fit any medical definition, at any time of your life as recorded in this blog, as having secondary infertility. You are house poor and struggle with financial management, but you do not live in financial poverty.

When you claim these terms that don't apply to you, you come across as insincere. When people respond to that insincerity, you rage about being persecuted. Then you appear self-obsessed and not a martyr for Christ, but a martyr for you own pleasure.

Your crosses are real. Your pain is real. You don't need to inflate them, to use an inappropriate but dramatic term, to validate them. People will always respond negatively to what they perceive as inauthentic. Don't rend your garments, just wear the ones you have. That is enough for Jesus; it will be enough for your readers.

I am curious to see what sort of response Brenda's comments get...

[Coconut Flan]

Brenda's response is lovely. Such consideration and what a wonderful explanation.

[Dysfundamental]

Brenda seems to have a gift for speaking truth with compassion. I admire that, because I am myself usually pretty brusque and often unintentionally rude.

[NurseNell]

Brenda seems to have a gift for speaking truth with compassion. I admire that, because I am myself usually pretty brusque and often unintentionally rude.

Likewise here.

[boysmom]

Abigail did have infertility though it sounds like. Of course, saying 2007 - 2010 doesn't tell me a whole lot, how long was she breastfeeding? Was the time between pregnanciest 25 months or 47 months? Makes a dif. But 12 months of unprotected sex w/o pregnancy (and not lacational ammenorhea) is the definition of infertility. Of course, she's had 2 kids since then, so she's not suffering from it NOW, but I do understand why she'd worry as I'm sure she knows it doesn't get any easier with age. I get that she has a bunch of kids already and carries the CF gene (which I agree is very concerning) but it doesn't change the definition.

I have infertility too and always did. I have 4 kids now, but still had to deal with not being able to have a fifth, which I did want. So I could have blogged about my feelings, although that's not really my style. I did IVF to have all of my children, FYI. I don't really get offended by her blog, infertility is hard no matter how "easy" it is to ultimately conceive (or not conceive.) I feel very lucky in retrospect, but it was extremely hard going through it.

[boysmom]

I read back and she counted not only the time of breastfeeding (not sure how long she does that) but also the months of pregnancy as her time of infertility. Um, no, that does NOT count. So it took her probably 18 months to conceive, which is infertility, but not as dire as it sounds. I think she's thinking more about being 38, her odds are going down very quickly.

[TheLurkingFrumper]

From what I understand, she did have a pregnancy during those 18 months, but sadly miscarried the child at the end of the first trimester. While multiple miscarriages does qualify as infertility, one does not. As sad as it is, she still conceived twice during those 18 months, one just resulted in a baby to hold, the other did not. Thus, not infertile. She conceived once every 9 month when her cycle returned after breastfeeding.

edited to remove a double word

[boysmom]

I think she just realizes that she's aging and losing ferility. She calls it "infertility" to frame it a different way and to make herself look more sympathetic. My cousin had 7 kids by the age of 35 and wanted another (also Catholic.) She had a miscarriage or two, but no more children. I know she was sad about it, and it was technically infertility, but clearly of a different variety. Although, if she'd waited until 35 to TTC and never had a baby, we'd all consider her infertility very sad, so it's really just all in how it's looked at.

[bekkah]

The interesting thing about miscarriages that it protects against genetic defects. A woman's body goes through several checkpoints to see if the child would be viable out of the womb. Sometimes the best things are when the child spontaneously aborts because it is saving you from a lifetime of work and giving your child the best outcome.

I wonder if her miscarriages have been CF children and I think it is quite possible.

[lilah]

Did Brenda's reply get taken down? Because I can't see it.

Here it is. I'm impressed by her compassion and tact but utter truthiness.

Hi Abigail,

I have been thinking about a response to your post about secondary infertility very prayerfully over the last couple days and I am going to respond in context of your entire blog over the last couple of months.

When discussing your troubled relationship with your mother, you have mentioned how it has influenced your depression. You have also mentioned that because of your mother's influence you have a tendency toward narcissism, which you try to be aware of. I think you need to bring that awareness to your posts.

I agree with everything you said in this post. However, I don't think that is what is happening in the responses to your secondary infertility post or your poverty posts for that matter. The "comparing of crosses" is not happening because you are sharing your struggles: it is happening because you are misappropriating terms.

You have every right to want a larger family and be sad when that is taking longer than you would like. You have every right to sometimes feel frustrated and panicked by your families financial situation, even when it comes from your own inexperience with financial management.

But the reality is you do not fit any medical definition, at any time of your life as recorded in this blog, as having secondary infertility. You are house poor and struggle with financial management, but you do not live in financial poverty.

When you claim these terms that don't apply to you, you come across as insincere. When people respond to that insincerity, you rage about being persecuted. Then you appear self-obsessed and not a martyr for Christ, but a martyr for you own pleasure. Instead of someone just sharing their struggles, you become like the hypocrites in Matthew 6:16, "for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting." When you use these terms, you are disfiguring your face.

I don't believe you are insincere. I think you very much want to help people by sharing your own struggles, but I also think your self-identified tendency towards narcissism may be at play here. You don't have to be "in poverty" to have financial challenges; you don't have to have a medical condition to be sad you're not pregnant when you'd like to be. When you use these terms that don't apply, it causes readers to see you as self-aggrandizing, i.e. a drama queen.

This behavior calls into question your authenticity as a writer, a person, and damages any ministry you hope to do with your blog.

I know you are a busy mom with a large family and don't have hours to pour over the wording of each post, but I think if you were to let each post sit for 24 hours and then reread it before posting, you be able to better get your message across and reach more people. And when you read, ask yourself, is my tendency towards narcissism influencing this post?

Your crosses are real. Your pain is real. You don't need to inflate them, to use an inappropriate but dramatic term, to validate them. People will always respond negatively to what they perceive as inauthentic. Don't rend your garments, just wear the ones you have. That is enough for Jesus; it will be enough for your readers.

[Closed Womb]

I'm calling it right now. Abigail will call menopause "infertility."

[snarkykitty]

Well, yes, but the chances of Abigail having one kid without CF is 75%. The chances of her having one kid without CF AND then a second kid without CF is .75 x .75, or 56.25%, and so on and so forth with each additional child. Had your mother gone on to have 8 kids, it's statistically likely you would have a sibling with CF. Abigail has been lucky, but as always, statistics are not prescriptive, especially with genetics.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I didn't know that having 2 of the same mutation vs. different mutations would make a difference, although it makes sense to think of it that way.

No, each CHILD/PREGNANCY has a 25% chance of the baby having CF if both parents are carriers. It does not matter how many children they have. The odds don't accumulate. The "odds" start over for each child/pregnancy.

http://www.cff.org/AboutCF/Testing/Gene ... rrierTest/ - "Each child you have together has a 25 percent, or 1 in 4, chance of having CF."

[ILoveJellybeans]

I sort of get what you are talking about Slickcat, like that even though the odds stay the same with each child, statistically its unlikely to have 5 children that dont have CF (without any form of genetic testing).

Like rolling a dice, you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 every single time, but it would be incredibly unlikely for you to roll the same number 5 times in a row, even if the odds dont change, because its as likely for the other options to be chosen randomly. I remember us learning something like that in school, calculating the odds of a certain result when its repeated several times.

[snarkykitty]

The interesting thing about miscarriages that it protects against genetic defects. A woman's body goes through several checkpoints to see if the child would be viable out of the womb. Sometimes the best things are when the child spontaneously aborts because it is saving you from a lifetime of work and giving your child the best outcome.

I wonder if her miscarriages have been CF children and I think it is quite possible.

For the most part. people with CF do not exhibit any symptoms while in utero (see below), so I'm not sure that the idea that the body is trying to naturally get rid of a baby with CF makes much sense. CF is usually a progressive illness; most people with CF die due to damage of the lungs caused by chronic bacterial infections.

Aside from an echogenic bowel (in utero) that usually presents as Meconium Illeus (very thick, sticky first bowel movement that can lead to bowel obstruction), there really aren't many clinical manifestations before and at birth, so I'm not sure what the body would detect as a defect.

[chaotic life]

As Snarkykitty said, CF does not cause miscarriages. Also, as PPs showed, Abigail counts her "infertility" as a 3 year time frame. During that time frame, she was first breastfeeding and then had a miscarriage. She was also counting the nine months she was PREGNANT, and the only infertility pregnancy causes is the inability to have a second pregnancy on top of a first. So, she went 2 years and 3 months. However, it is completely common to not ovulate while breastfeeding. Since she doesn't have babies every 11-15 monts, Abigail clearly has some degree of lactational amenorrhea, and no doctor will diagnosis that as infertility. They will tell you to wean before they will treat you. She carried a miscarriage, even if she only carried for 6 weeks, it generally takes about four weeks for the body to recover. It can be normal, and some doctors will even tell you that you cannot do it, to wait three months before trying to get pregnant again. That's five months where she was NOT infertile. If she got even six months of lactational ammenorhea, that's 11-12 months of her lack of ovulation explained as NOT infertility. Assuming she *only* got six months of lactational ammenorrhea and her pattern of child spacing suggests otherwise, that's a maximum of nine months without ovulation, broken into two less periods of time around the miscarriage. That is NOT infertility, not by any medical definition.

I just don't see that she tends towards narcisstic. I think she is self-centered, straight up self-centered.

[bekkah]

For the most part. people with CF do not exhibit any symptoms while in utero (see below), so I'm not sure that the idea that the body is trying to naturally get rid of a baby with CF makes much sense. CF is usually a progressive illness; most people with CF die due to damage of the lungs caused by chronic bacterial infections.

Aside from an echogenic bowel (in utero) that usually presents as Meconium Illeus (very thick, sticky first bowel movement that can lead to bowel obstruction), there really aren't many clinical manifestations before and at birth, so I'm not sure what the body would detect as a defect.

What I am saying is that, its not that CF is detectable to us. It is chromosmal abnormalities that are the number 1 cause for miscarriages(spontaneous abortions) and the world of genetics that includes all genetic conditions. I am not saying it is CF only, I am just letting people know that if miscarriage occurs early(before 12 weeks) it is most likely because the baby has severe genetic defects.

There is no way to study what genetic defects it is at the moment. I just know what was talk about in my Genetics class.

[snarkykitty]

What I am saying is that, its not that CF is detectable to us. It is chromosmal abnormalities that are the number 1 cause for miscarriages(spontaneous abortions) and the world of genetics that includes all genetic conditions. I am not saying it is CF only, I am just letting people know that if miscarriage occurs early(before 12 weeks) it is most likely because the baby has severe genetic defects.

There is no way to study what genetic defects it is at the moment. I just know what was talk about in my Genetics class.

I'm sure that the week you spent on autosomal recessive genes was educational, but CF is not one of those "severe genetic defects" that the body would recognize as deleterious.

I'm not trying to split hairs, but your generalization is not valid. We don't have a lot of advocacy, so I make it my job to make sure that people have the right information when it comes to CF.

[dawbs]

*snip*

What I am saying is that, its not that CF is detectable to us. It is chromosmal abnormalities that are the number 1 cause for miscarriages(spontaneous abortions) and the world of genetics that includes all genetic conditions. I am not saying it is CF only, I am just letting people know that if miscarriage occurs early(before 12 weeks) it is most likely because the baby has severe genetic defects.

There is no way to study what genetic defects it is at the moment. I just know what was talk about in my Genetics class.

I may very well be preaching to the choir but...women who have suffered a miscarriage 1-usually already know that and 2-really don't need to hear that.

I've watched in horror when people say such things to women who have just lost a pregnancy and...it's rather like being in a funeral when someone goes up to the grieving spouse and says "well, Jesus needed him in heaven". It's just salt in a wound.