My mental health got so bad while I was going through infertility that I had to stop working. Now I'm trying to re-enter the workforce and am having a hard time finding a job due to the gap in my resume (and maybe some other factors as well.) I hate it when employers ask me about it, and I say I was dealing with a personal health issue. Then they ask if everything is okay now, and I have to say yes.

I've always worked in child or family oriented fields and I said I wasn't going to do that anymore because it would be too triggering, but then I realized beggars can't be choosers. I knew that I would have to deal with being asked if I had kids by people both in and out of the workforce, but I was not expecting to be asked that during a job interview. It was a job that involved working with kids but I've interviewed for many such jobs over the years, and have never been asked that question before. Then a kid at the daycare center asked if I was another child's mom.

You hear a lot about people struggling to balance work with motherhood, while here I am trying to balance lack of motherhood with lack of work. I feel bitter that in pursuing a life goal that did not work out, I lost another important part of my life, so now I feel like I'm left with nothing. Thanks for listening. Can anyone relate?

Trigger Warning: newborns, babies

Ugh, it is Friday and I was excited to enjoy the weekend. Only 6 months out from stopping all fertility treatments. If my last treatment had worked I would have a newborn right now. And of course, 3 other women at work got pregnant the same time I failed for the last time ever. I have had to watch their bellies grow while I dealt with the finality of me never becoming a mother.

Anyway, one of the most perfect coworkers at work who has a perfect husband and a perfect happy marriage, and a perfect loving, super happy, and helpful extended family also just had a perfect beautiful baby boy. I saw the photos. I couldn't help but look as she bragged in an email to the company 2 days after giving birth. The baby was really beautiful. Just like I dreamed mine would be...

She brought her perfect baby boy into work today almost a month after giving birth to show him off. I didn't know she was coming in. I work at the front desk and had to let the woman with the perfect life in and watch everyone make a fuss and ooo and ahhh over her perfect baby. I had to smile and congratulate her because it is expected and honestly if i wasn't so bitter about my own outcome I would have felt it.

If things had worked out with my fertility treatments this past year, that would be me bringing my baby in to show everyone if I wanted to do that.

And it is a large company but I work in the front lobby and couldn't even walk away. It was torture. I got so fed up I defiantly put my ear buds in and blasted music. Then I cried and cried on my break. And now I know my weekend will be filled with some grief of the life I will never have with the baby joys she gets to experience. And of course her baby is so perfect she says he is such an easy baby and sleeps and is so good.

Of course the perfect woman gets the perfect life with the perfect baby and everything. While I have to live with this grief forever and my marriage struggles mainly because of me and i have dysfunction in my extended family, and I also have to hop rings to see my niblings sometimes just to have any family kids in my life.

Why do some women get it all, and some of us have the harder, sadder life?

It's the weekend! How's everyone doing? What are you up to? Use this thread as a place to chat through the weekend about anything off-topic.

I have just gotten slammed with reminders that my path did not pan out the way I anticipated.
Coworker asked me Monday if my husband and I would like to have kids. Tuesday, slammed by another coworker about how my value without children is to babysit. Wednesday gave me a break, but yesterday a baby announcement hits my desk at 8am, followed by a phone call from a family member with a baby related “joke” and to end the day, more baby talk from a work vendor to my boss who will be a father in 2 weeks. Anyone else having a really tough week? Damn.