Welcome to IVF This, episode 149 IVF and Unapologetic

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you’re all doing so, so well today. 

This one is gonna be a short one because I want you to return to it, if it resonates for you, time and time again. 

I was skimming some Psychology Today articles, I get a weekly email summarizing some of their top articles and one caught my eye recently. The article is called “Regain Your Power By Silence” which talks about how women apologize more than men, of course this topic comes of zero surprise to anyone listening to this podcast, but what hit me and got me thinking about this episode is the line, “Women apologize even when nothing was done that requires an apology.” I read that over and over and over. And so I started thinking about how often I apologize. I created a note in my notes app and counted how many “I’m sorry’s” or some variation of that I did in ONE outing- this was a grocery store stop, then two other errands- I said “sorry” 8 times. 

Eight. In a three’ish hour span. And if you look at the research on this, I am well within the norm. Reasons I apologized? I thought I was in someone’s way, I asked a clarifying question at the pharmacy, someone bumped INTO ME. I started seeing it more and more on Social Media, so many women will say “I’m sorry for (how I look, I just woke up, the mess in my house, whatever). 

My flabber was gasted when I really started taking a look at my interaction from this vantage point. And then, because I always have you guys and what you’re going through, in the back of my mind, I thought back to when I was going through IVF, any of the times, and I likely apologized for missing work because of appointments, excusing myself to go to the bathroom so I could take medication, asking questions of the medical assistant, apologizing for CRYING because I was scared about an upcoming test or awaiting results, or because I was grieving. 

Now, when I was thinking about all of this, I was also thinking about the view I have for myself. I feel like I am a fairly if not very assertive person. I am well-read, educated, informed- and I still have this unconscious bias towards apologizing- most of the time for LITERALLY NOTHING. And it’s not our fault. There is an enormous emphasis on this from a social and cultural perspective. Over centuries, we have been socialized to do this, so it’s not going to go away quickly or easily, BUT I want to be less apologetic. Just overall. Nw, I know my husband listens to the podcast and might be balking at the idea that I am apologetic in general and to that I say, I love you and my charm is one of the many reasons you love me. 

But jokes aside, I want to be more aware of when I am apologizing, what I am apologizing for so I can become more discerning with my apologies. Not that I will never again apologize, because if the impact of something you do, not the intent you had when doing or not doing the thing, but the impact of that thing hurt someone, apologize. “I’m sorry” is always a connector of people, it’s always a softener of a situation. But the way we, women, apologize, it’s like we’re handing out leaflets on Madison Avenue or something. Just handing them out to everyone. And that’s unnecessary. It’s an unnecessary use of our time, our mental and emotional energy, and the only purpose it serves it to perpetuate that unconscious belief that our existence is an inconvenience- and that’s what I am done with. 

So here is a list of all the things that I am done apologizing for:

• Asking questions- especially when they pertain to me, my family members, our health, finances, etc

• Having an opinion- Lord knows. Have enough of those

• Not knowing exactly what I want or need, but knowing I want or need something

• Choosing to take care of myself

• Getting sick

• Things that excite me or that I’m really obsessed with and want to share in my excitement

• Saying “no” 

• Changing my mind about something

• My physical appearance

• What my home or car looks like

• Things that are not my responsibility or that are outside of my control

• FEELING emotions

• Crying for goodness sake

I think tears are as natural as breathing. And I don’t see any of us judging ourselves from breathing. Yet we act like showing emotion is such an embarrassing thing. And I want to be very respectful of people with other cultures or other social pressure. There are some groups of people with whom showing emotion is very often weaponized against them- black women and anger is the first to come to mind. Anger is a normal and natural emotion, yet the “angry black woman” trope has been weaponized for centuries. 

Women in general for centuries were labeled as “hysterical” for showing really any outward emotion. This is still prevalent in today’s society when emotional expressions like anger, frustration, tears, whatever as a “hormonal” issue. Like I’m done with this shit. 

So, I want to know from you. What are you done apologizing for? Think about how often you are apologizing and for what? Was it an intentional apology or was it a knee-jerk reflex?

Years of infertility and IVF has literally been the most challenging period of my life, and I’m sure it has been or is for most (if not all of you) as well. 

So why would we expect ourselves to apologize for trying to get through, navigate, traverse,  or grieve this experience? We would never let our best friend apologize for carrying a heavy load like this, why would we expect it of ourselves, or in some cases demand that of ourselves? Why do we hold ourselves to a standard of, yea, I’m going through this really terrifying, uncertain, highly demanding period of time but I need to do it with a smile and positivity or I am doing it wrong. 

Nope! You’re a fully fleshed out person who has been dealt a situation in which there are no guarantees and there is no book of procedures for how YOU, you as a person, should deal with everything. So, no, no more apologizing for being a human in a really hard situation!

You don’t have to be an asshole about things, but you also don’t have to apologize. 

Ok, that is what I have for you today my friends. I hope you have a great week and I’ll talk to ou soon!