Hi Alex,

I know how you feel. It's incredibly hard to deal with this at times. Just a little background on me so you will see that I really do understand. When I was married we ttc for 8.5 years. We had one short lived pg in that time (after 3 years of trying) and that was with the use of clomid. We had unexplained infertility. I now have a new partner and we have been ttc for almost 12 months & just had an early m/c.

I can't tell you how many friends and family have announced their pregnancies over all those years of me ttc..... endless amounts. And most of them got pregnant quickly and had no issues whatever throughout their pregnancies. I went through stages where I'd go to visit a newborn in hospital or when it had just got home and have to use every bit of strength within me to not cry in front of the new mum & dad. I'd get back to the car and burst into floods of tears. It just didn't seem fair.

My ex and I did used to get invited to our close friends kids birthday parties and I found them incredibly hard to deal with so maybe it might be better not to get invited to them. Sometimes we'd go but other times I just couldn't face them. These days my DF has a 4 yo daughter so there are kids birthdays galore to go to and somehow I have learnt to manage attending them. Maybe the fact that I'm now a stepmum has released the pressure a little.... I just don't know.

In my office right now there are two pregnant women. One who keeps to herself and the only way we knew she was pg was when she started to show and one who does nothing but talk about being pg - she told me she was pg even on like day 28 of her cycle - she hadn't even taken a test yet. She knows how hard I've tried over the years and I found this incredibly insensitive. Every day I have had to hear things about her being pg. Every now and then she'll say something like - it will be you next.... I'm sick of hearing it.

I'm now seeing pg women everywhere I go.... I feel pangs of jealousy whenever I see them. My DF reckons it's a good sign as I was seeing them everywhere the month that we got pg. I've also seen several newborns in shopping centres recently. I just feel it's a sign that I'm getting obsessed about the whole TTC thing.

I've been chatting in the ttc after m/c area but I think it might be time to move myself over into here. I just wasn't too sure if all my old ttc counts, but when I think about it, it most certainly does. I need to be among women who understand.

Keep your chin up, there's probably heaps of us feeling exactly the same as you do, you are not alone.