When you’re deep in your grief—and even when you feel like you’re finally in a good place—it rears its ugly head:
The Baby Aisle.
Has it caught you unprepared? Did the sight of binkies, diapers, onesies, and teething toys bring on an epic meltdown?
Here’s your chance to vent.
Oh the cute baby clothes in target specifically all out in the open .. especially for little girls .. and their headbands/bows/clips .. gets me the most .. sigh — wish i could just move to a tropical isolated island on the beach, where there are no reminders of what i can’t have
I hate that they put it next to the Tampax and condom asle. Okay we GET it, THIS is what will happen if you forget a condom and miss a period and have even an ounce of fertility. But I just want to buy my tampons and leave, no need to rub in the fact that I don’t need birth control EVER.
Ugh yes I find this so hard!! The worst for me are the seasonal things that have memories attached… this year I saw a Mom and a little girl picking out her box of valentine’s to give to her classmates. The little girl was so excited. I went home and cried. I used to love doing that every year myself when I was young, it’s just so hard to believe I will never get to make that memory with my own son or daughter.
Same here .. also whenever I see my friends post about crafts activities they do with their children .. i remember loving crafts as a kids and now i dont know if i’ll ever be able to relive that memory again .. sigh it hurts seeing them
I totally agree, Almira. All of those wonderful childhood memories now have this tinge of sadness knowing we will never be on the other side of things as the parent. It does hurt. Sending you hugs
My whine is about another topic and somehow related…
Friends who already know I am in the process of healing, that I still cry because I am unable to conceive and after I told them many, many times that I am not ready yet and that I am in the process of accepting my life without a child, they say: can you help me prepare a baby shower for ….., we can get this and that at… for the party …. ???
That happened to me last Saturday. No wonder I am super stress out and have anxiety.
Prayers for all of us !!!
So sorry Analia – I want to scream at your friends for you and give you a big hug. Don’t feel pushed into anything – they will quickly recover from anything you are not able to “help out with”.
Thank you Jane !!
I was pushed into doing my friends baby shower too .. it was an awful thing .. i wish i would’ve said .. “i would love to help out but just caught up with so many things ” and by so many things, i mean coping with my infertility .. people cause me so much stress too .. hang in there .. wish we can all vacation somewhere peaceful to get away for all this!
Yay !!! Vacation !!! Thank you so much Almira !!
Oh, yes. When I was pregnant (19 years ago now!!), a sign went up in the office tower concourse across the street from mine that a Baby Gap store would be opening soon. I loved Baby Gap & I was SO happy I would be able to shop there for my own baby girl. So you can imagine what a kick in the gut it was when I returned to work, post-stillbirth, and walked by the now-open store. It was YEARS before I was able to go in there. I am better about going into children’s stores these days, but sometimes still the cuteness & the sadness overwhelms me & I have to leave.
I try to avoid the baby section in stores as much as I can. I look the other way when I pass Gymboree in the mall because I bought cute outfits from them for my twins before losing them. But felt like a total kick to the gut the other day finding out a close friend was pg thanks to Pinterest.
I try to avoid it in the stores and I’m usually pretty good at it, though it does mean taking the long route to the electronics section and the pet products at Target. What I can’t seem to avoid are the advertisements that pop up when you least expect them. I’m pretty sure there is something wrong with the algorithms if a person who searches infertility and childlessness topics gets these ads for diapers, children’s clothes and kid’s activities. Not sure how they make that connection. On FB you can tell it to shop showing those types of ads (which really only seems to stop the ads from that particular company and not the other ones like it). It asks for your reason. I believe there is a choice that is something like, “this doesn’t apply to me” but, depending on my mood that day, I sometimes skip it and click the box that says something like, “It’s offensive”. Maybe that’s too much but I would have no problem defending that if anyone ever asked.
I’ve marked the it’s offensive box a few times, depending on how I’m feeling that day.
Me too!
This is SO hard. I still love shopping for my nieces and nephews at Christmas time and for birthdays, it’s those times when I am in Target just shopping for myself or picking up groceries… and I pass the baby clothes. I try not to but I always get choked up.
Also, it’s an unrelated topic but I have found that since my miscarriage in January I have had to “unfollow” some friends on Facebook (not “unfriend”, just unfollow) They are wonderful friends and family and I love them, but I’m just not ready to see all of the pictures of their beautiful kids and happy families at Birthday parties and family gatherings. It’s still too raw for me. And I can tell that some of them are offended that I don’t “like” all of their pictures. I love them, I love their kids. I just need time. Is that so hard to understand?
Besides my daughter never conceiving, seeing grandparents playing with grandkids Ill never have, gets me every time
I shop mostly at Walmart. Which is the spot that mother’s with multiple kids flock.
My guts seriouly “wrench up” when I see those aisles .Especially the, “Pooh” car seats, strollers and white bassinets. They all just peircre me, I just want to scream.
The sad part about it is, I want to look at the items. But my heart wouldn’t allow or survive it.
Ugh. I just long for a baby girl still. My baby would look so pretty and festive. This year’s Summer clothing really kills me inside. They got these barefoot baby(girl)sandals, with pearl strings, and a flower in the middle.. (Sigh) So adorable.
God! why can”t I just have my baby. Why wad I choosen for this childless life. It”s not frugging fair at all.
I wish i had a baby girl too .. it hurts so bad!!!
I definitely thought I was okay with the baby section at Target (apparently Target is a trigger for a lot of us!) until my stepdaughter recently had her first baby, a preemie, so I went to go buy preemie clothes since she didn’t have any. I walked back to the baby section and started to browse through the infant boys’ clothes rack and bam! my nervous stomach kicked in and I had to rush to the bathroom (sorry if that’s TMI). It was a shock! I really did think that I was okay with that part of this journey, at least. Also, since then I’ve tried to look online for preemie clothes and every single time, I have to close my browser and move on to something else. I hate this! I really WANT to be able to buy things for the little guy but it is just too hard.
I think most people who have never been through this don’t understand. It’s the rare bird who does, and I find they’ve usually gone through a major loss of some kind themselves so they understand grief.
Yup I always look the other way when passing buy the kids section at target. Like many of you I wanted a baby girl so bad.. I’m especially triggered by cute dresses and all the frilly pink stuff. I even turn away when passing by moms with kids, I’m too jealous. I’ve unfollowed at least 100 people with kids on Facebook and flat out refuse to go somewhere if I think it will be triggering for me. I need to protect myself since the rest of do society won’t.
Lisa, I am so with you on..”turning away when passing moms”. Its just too upsetting. I usually pre-screen the area for strollers approaching, if I see one I avoid that area completely. Going shopping has really become a full-time job, I hate it has the be that way. But Its true we need to protect ourselves, who else will.
I don’t get affected by those things anymore. But this one tv ad that really broke me down. It’s about this mother and her son, and mother was afraid of heights and they went to zip lining together. The mother closed her eyes in fear and when she opened them, she saw the happiness in her son’s face, then the song goes “when I see you smile, I can face the world…”
I have fear of heights and until now there were times I could not face it and you know the rest of how I’m feeling.
Last night, my significant other and I had a night off work together, and decided to get a hotel room with a jacuzzi in it. Naturally, we both wanted to put bubble bath in it, and so we went to the grocery store to get some.
I knew it’d be in the bath aisle, with all the soaps and shampoos, because it’s a store I’m familiar with. Theres one small children’s section of that, which I can bear.
He figured it’d be in the general baby section, which is massive. I was so adamant that it wouldn’t be. By the time we were passing the baby section, I was admittedly being a huge bitch about it. Luckily, he buckled and let me beeline to the toiletries.
I wouldn’t have been able to handle walking into the baby section.