Saturday 5 January 2008

The barren woman's hate list - item #2: smug tickertape things

By this I mean those wretched, bastard tickers that pregnant women and new mums insist on having at the end of every piece of email correspondence or forum post they submit.

Most of the tickers chart how many weeks pregnant its owner is, and are illustrated with insipid pictures of bunnies and butterflies and other such girly shite.

As the pregnancy progresses and the ticker owner's fervour grows, they can even be adorned with photos of the baby in the womb. Bah.

Even worse are the tickers charting how old the bloody baby is after the birth. My question to the women who use these is: Where do you plan to stop? It's all very well notifying your every last acquaintance that "My baby is 10 weeks and 2 days and 4 hours and 18 minutes and 42 precious cutesy seconds old", but what's the cut-off point? Can we look forward, in a few years' time, to alerts such as "My baby had his first wet dream today" or "My baby's divorce papers came in the post this morning"?

So here's my pledge to you all, my fledgling blog community: if I ever do manage to conceive a baby, I will never - mark this, EVER - create a ticker or anything similar with which to festoon this blog, my emails, or any other piece of correspondence I care to dispatch.

And while we're on the subject, I shall never send any round-robin emails containing graphic, too-much-information slideshows of my scan photos, the labour and birth, me breastfeeding or baby's first dump to every last contact in my address book either. That's a promise.

Any mums or pregnant ladies who may have stumbled on this bilious and rage-filled blog might also like to heed a bit of friendly advice. Before you send an email that includes a ticker, stop to think for just one second of any friends you have who are or may be trying for a baby. Just consider their feelings and delete the ticker in your messages to them - it won't kill you, and it'll have the double Brucie bonus of meaning they won't want to kill you either.

8 comments:

bellybeans3 said...

I'm sorry that you're having trouble conceiving, it must be really hard for you to see people around you having babies, and being happy with their pregnancies. I can understand that. But, the world doesn't stop turning, and people are entitled to shout from the rooftops if they're happy to be pregnant, maybe having gone through the very same experiences as yourself. The fact that you don't choose to use tickers is your personal choice, and maybe you should ask family and friends not to make a big deal of their pregnancies, or children, in front of you. (Although, I'm sure they aren't planning to tell you about their kids wet dreams anytime soon, I would hope). But I don't think it's fair for you to expect every pregnant woman to keep there joy to themselves, when you don't know their stories, how many they've lost, how long they've tried. Life goes on, and unfortunately, there will always be something which is personally upsetting to you, involving any situation. Deal with it, instead of trying to find someone to blame.
....now you'll be slaggin off people who give themselves nicknames to do with pregnancy.

Barrenblog said...

Cheers for your comment, I appreciate anyone reading my blog. It's intended mostly to give me somewhere to rant and vent my frustration about my situation, and a lot of the observations I make are intended humorously - after all, seeing the funny side of a desperate situation is one of the best ways to survive it. The post about tickers in particular is intended as a lighthearted rant so I'm sorry if you misinterpreted it.

However, I would say that just as pregnant women are, as you point out, rightly entitled to shout about their joy, then so am I entitled to speak frankly and honestly about my own frustration and hurt. You advise me to "deal with it" - that's exactly what venting about it is helping me to do.

Mutterings and Meanderings said...

BB3 - is that because you have three bellies, have had three sprogs or are expecting triplets? Do you have three lots of gestation tickertapes running along the bottom of your emails?

bellybeans3 said...

lol.... I was expecting twins, but they told me today that one has 'vanished', in quite a blase fashion. So now it's a singleton, plus the 2 boys I already have. And now you hate me........ :)

I do have a ticker, but only in the forums, and it is cancelled out in the TTC section when I chat to people.......

bellybeans3 said...

....mind you, I would prbably agree with 3 bellies too !!!!

Anonymous said...

As a woman who will never be able to have children I find comfort in your rants - just knowing that someone else feels the same way x

Anonymous said...

After you gently advised the smug fertiles not to use tickers to those who may/are trying to conceive.....Of course you would get 'life goes on...people entitled to shout from the rooftops if they are pregnant......proving that the fertile world have NO CLUE about what we infertiles go through. Shame on all of you...
Barren, keep up the good work and your honesty is fantastic. you are entitled to be bitter, but unfortunately we aren't allowed to shout out our anger of infertilty from the rooftops...

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