“Why, God? Why did you bless her with a healthy child, and not me?”
This is a prayer I prayed countless times in the darkest part of my infertility.
Very quickly the feelings of jealousy began to set in. At the beginning of trying to conceive, I would notice pregnant bellies and smile, thinking to myself “That will be me soon!”.
After a year of not being able to get pregnant, I would see pregnant bellies and feel like the wind got knocked out of me.
“When will that be me? Will it ever be me? Why does she have what I want?”
If the pregnant woman had multiple children already the wistful feelings began to take a darker turn.
“She already has kids, this isn’t fair! Why does she get another one when I don’t even have one yet!”
I felt as if there were a limited supply of babies and she had taken more than her fair share, which was obviously irrational.
Can you relate to these dark thoughts?
While I don’t believe every infertile woman struggles with this, I believe a lot do.
When I was experiencing it myself, it was something very painful to admit. I never spoke it aloud to anyone because I knew the feelings weren’t right and I was ashamed of them.
Yet I continued to indulge them for way longer than I should.
Because I didn’t tell anyone about these dark thoughts, I was able to bring them out in my worst moments. Right after getting my period, when I felt my worst, I may even scroll through Instagram or Facebook and visit the profile pages of women with lots of children and berate myself.
“Why can’t I be more like her? What does she have that I don’t? It must be because she is healthier, or a nicer person…”
Why did I do this? I knew it was unhealthy and it ended up making me feel worse, not better.
Yet I did get a momentary thrill while I was indulging in self-pity.
“Oh look at poor me, suffering terribly while all these women don’t know how good they have it!”
I was the heroine of my own personal tragedy, profoundly afflicted and misunderstood. All my terrible feelings were justified by my lot in life, and I had the perfect excuse to avoid social situations that made me uncomfortable or to indulge in unhealthy habits like binge-watching TV shows, online shopping, and overeating.
The Weight of Infertility
Now I don’t want to be overly harsh here, not to myself nor to anybody reading this who may be in a similar headspace.
Infertility is tragic. In studies done on women going through infertility, their stress levels are as high as women who are facing life-threatening illnesses or who have had loved ones die.
Infertility is a loss and should be mourned as such. It is the loss of the family you expected to have. It is the loss of normal bodily function.
I am not saying that infertility is something trivial because it’s not.
It is necessary to mourn the loss of a normal and easy path to pregnancy. There will be days were all you can do is cry. There will be days where you may need to just take it easy on the couch or RSVP no to an event. It is okay to set boundaries and to protect yourself emotionally.
However, it is not okay to make assumptions or pass judgment on other women. It is not okay to indulge in jealousy or bitterness.
Let’s be real. There may be some sort of perverse pleasure momentarily in throwing a personal pity party, but entertaining such negative thoughts and feelings will not make you feel better in the long run, it will make you feel worse.
You did nothing to deserve your infertility, just as the super-fertile did nothing to earn or deserve their fertility. Unfortunately, this was the hand you were dealt and it is no one’s fault. Not yours, nor the super-fertile. She did not take your baby. There is not a limited supply of babies.
Solutions
I am not a therapist, but I will share here some tips that worked for me, as well as solutions my own therapist recommended to me.
- Allow Yourself to Mourn
Oddly enough, I think one of the reasons I dwelled in jealousy or envy was because I was not allowing myself to mourn my infertility.
The petty emotions of jealousy or envy were less painful than acknowledging the heavy weight of grief.
For me, personally, I needed to accept my diagnosis of infertility and needed time and space to grieve the loss. This included time spent alone, time spent decompressing with my husband, and time spent journaling, praying, or engaging in other meditative activities.
Once I had finally reached a place of acceptance I was better at identifying and making space for my complicated emotions.
For example, when I was faced with an unexpected pregnancy announcement I could feel happy for the mom-to-be, and sad for myself. I could recognize those two emotions and honor them without resorting to anger or jealousy.
- Don’t be a Martyr
When you are going through the grieving process, I believe it’s okay to protect yourself emotionally from situations that bring up a lot of negative feelings.
For me, I made it a practice to RSVP no to baby showers, as well as kindly decline invitations to attend or volunteer at heavily kid-centric activities.
Yes, it would have been great if I had been emotionally mature enough to attend such events, but I knew I was still grieving, and events like this would be extremely triggering.
I did not want to risk attending someone’s baby shower and it being so upsetting to me that I could potentially cry. I did not want to distract the mom-to-be by being miserable.
So during my infertility treatments, I made it a practice to RSVP no to baby showers, but I would buy something off the registry and send it to them along with a kind note.
Whatever your triggers are, come up with a game plan on how you will respond when confronted with it. Having a plan ahead of time makes it a little easier to react at the moment without getting too emotional about it.
- Speak Truth Over Yourself
Avoid the trap of comparing your life to others. When you find yourself thinking bitter or negative thoughts, counter those lies with the truth.
For example:
Lie: “Her life is so perfect. Why does she get everything she wants?”
Truth: “I have no idea what her life is really like or what she’s been through to get to where she is. Her happiness doesn’t take anything away from me.”
Lie: “I bet she has the family she wants because she’s a better person than I am.”
Truth: “Nobody can earn a baby, and she does not deserve a baby any more than I do. It’s not her fault that I am going through this struggle.”
- Take Advantage of Your Childfree Status
I do believe children are a blessing, however, they are also expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to travel with.
While I’m sure there are many things you are looking forward to doing with your children, there have to be some things you want to do now that would be difficult to do with children.
Whether that’s traveling, learning a new hobby, changing careers, or just having some alone time with your spouse, plan something to do that takes advantage of your current child-free status.
This will help distract you from your infertility as well as just ensure you are making the most of the time you and your spouse have now with no kids.
- Get Off of Social Media
If you’re struggling with comparison, bitterness, or jealousy in any form, social media is about the worst place you can go.
Scrolling through Instagram, Facebook or Tic Tok barrages your brain with a series of random images and videos to which you have no context.
The carefully curated images on an Instagram profile are designed to be purely aesthetic. You have no idea what came before or after. You have no idea what is outside the frame.
I myself have staged photos for social media by literally pushing a counterfull of mess all the way to one side to make it look like my kitchen is clean.
Stop comparing your everyday life to someone else’s highlight reel. Even if your life is going absolutely great, you will end up logging off feeling terrible about yourself.
If you absolutely need to use social media for work then unfollow any account that triggers you and don’t engage in any mindless scrolling.
Was this helpful?
Maybe you don’t have this problem. That’s great! I only speak to people who have struggled with this issue like I have.
I did eventually get away from this problem, but I believe I allowed myself to dwell in bitterness for too long. In the end, I did not want to live that way. Even if God never blessed me with children, I wanted to be able to live my life to the fullest.
To me, that meant not comparing my life to others or living in constant pain because someone else had children and I didn’t.
Did you find these tips helpful? What things helped you overcome jealousy in your life?