Parenting after infertility

Now, I am certainly no expert on parenting after fertility, but I am learning a little about parenting after infertility and I swear there has to be a difference. I am a bit neurotic as it is (it seems that all the infertiles I know are type A people to begin with), but I feel an added pressure not to screw my child up. I am already concerned about him inheriting my MTHFR gene and now I read that a dq alpha 4.1, 4.1 baby has a higher risk of having later autoimmune issues. I have only given him one vaccination (DTaP) and plan to wait until age 2 to do any more after reading more about MTHFR and vaccines. He had diarrhea for 10 days after that first shot at age 2.5 months.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest disadvantages to parenting after infertility is that the minute you complain about ANYTHING that new parents complain about, you are immediately told, "Remember, you asked for this, this is what you wanted so badly," which implies that you are not allowed to even struggle with being a new parent. To me, this is completely unjust. After everything infertiles go through to have a baby we are probably able to appreciate our good fortune more than someone who did not struggle, but how is it that we are expected not to struggle with the challenges of new parenthood? New parenthood for us may even be more challenging in some ways because of what infertility has done to us. My own father made the "this is what you asked for" comment the other day and I was very upset by this. Anyone who has not had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep per night for 6 months straight is probably going to be frustrated regardless of how long they tried to have that baby. Sheesh.

I guess the good thing about parenting after infertility is the extra patience and love I feel that I have for my child, particularly when I am woken up every night at 1 & 4 to feed him. I look at him in amazement every.single.minute.of.every.single.day. I don't mean that fertile parents don't love their children. I think it is possible, though, that they may not have the same level of appreciation for how amazing a new baby truly is. I don't think I would have been quite as patient if my little boy had just landed in my lap without such unfathomable effort.

Just really sayin' that parenting is not easy just because it is something I waited so long for. I am not upset that it is not easy. I didn't expect it to be, really. I just don't think it is fair that I have to be afraid of getting rude comments if I even so much as mention that I am tired...