brooding

A friend recently attended dinner with several other friends at a new restaurant where the meal went from bad to weird.  Upon being presented with a particularly strange food combination he joked that the dish was some sort of health potion that would improve sperm count.  Another man at the table took exception to the comment (he and his wife had apparently been trying for a second baby for three years) and my friend apologized for the perceived insensitive remark to this man's personal issues.  24 hour later, the offended party still was steaming over the remark and send my friend a series of texts that ranged from enraged to sarcastic and insulting.  My friend apologized again though I told him that I felt his friend was insane.

I understand that for some people, having a "natural," biological child is greatly important.  I understand that to these people, the inability to produce that child leads to great strain.  I try to feel empathy but frankly, as someone whose life does not revolve around the need to see my progeny populating the earth, I am lacking and I know it.  During a conversation with a colleague who was discussing her aversion to pregnancy I suggested adoption and she responded with concern that she wouldn't love the child as much as her own [biological child].  She looked at me with surprise that I didn't understand while I looked at her in similar disbelief.

I was friends with a woman who had been unsuccessfully attempting IVF for several years.  Our group of mutual friends spent years supporting her and commiserating over her trials and failures.  The friendship eventually broke up after another friend became pregnant and we all received a ranting email over how the pregnant woman was rubbing the woman's face in her pregnancy by having the indecency to invite us all to her baby shower.  I heard through mutual friends that IVF woman and her husband are experiencing financial troubles but are continuing their (expensive) quest to have a biological child.  Yes, by her actions I understand that infertility is a dominating issue in her life but no, I don't get it.