Get yourself some inspirational quotes and start posting them.

Success is getting up just 1 more time after falling. Is an example and will help you stay positive.

Just because you are going through a rough time doesn't mean the world has to know

I agree with the above post in so much as no one needs to know if you don't want them too. I bet if you did reach out, you'd probably be shocked at the support (albeit sometimes awkward) you'd receive from people.

After over a year ttc, DH and I had a series of serious conversations about needing to reach out and talk about our IF. This lead to us telling our families and close friends. For us, this helped immensely because we no longer receive the questions "when are you guys going to try?" Etc.

I've never had a Facebook account, but DH has. Interestingly, he just deleted his account because "too many losers were getting what I desperately want."

Good luck to you

I've told a few of my friends and most of our families. I will post things that have to do with my journey that those who know my situation will understand, and those who don't will just not know what i'm talking about. But when you do that, be prepared for some nosey people to ask questions. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide what you want others to know. I keep debating if I want to just tell people so they all know! But then i don't want everybody in my business when i have procedures, and they're bugging me to know if it worked, and if it doesn't, that's just a million more reminders!

I have a friend who keeps a blog on blogspot about her life. She only makes it visible to people she trusts and people she wants to know about her struggles with IF. She links it to those people on FB. It's helped her immensely.

If you want to, you can create a group on facebook. Here are the privacy options you can choose from.

Privacy:

Open
Anyone can see the group, who's in it, and what members post..


Closed
Anyone can see the group and who's in it. Only members see posts..


Secret
Only members see the group, who's in it, and what members post.

If you really want to tell some people, create the group and choose option 3.

Thanks everyone for your ideas they're actually really helpful! I am in two minds, Like Nellysgirl says I just want people to know so they can stop saying dumb things but that probably wont work anyway. I love the facebook group idea tho. Also the blog idea it very cool too
I will have a think!

Hi Nedico, I should have replied earlier!!

So I use facebook, but have created groups. I have the

"Close friends" group which is awesome. I post things on facebook only to them. It's a special feature. I also have a "family" group, again I post things to them only and it helps. I used to post stuff to everyone and I agree, it can be hard because 1. too many people see it and 2. you don't want to look like a hypocondriack (sp?).

So now I try and post many other things, and the last week I posted to "Close friends" only that I had 7 days to go until surgery. I heard some great responses back and it made me feel good. It even got me a lunch invitation from a friend I hadn't seen recently.

Facebook is there to work with you, there are lots of privacy settings that are vERY helpful.

When my endo issues started, I did post all the time "yup, back still hurts" or "just saw doc" and it was probably a little too much. Family probably want to know though, so I would feel comfortable posting that to family only.

Definitely check out the circles. Here's how to do it:
1. go to a friend's profile
2. click on the icon that says "Friends"
3. choose "Close Friends" or create a new group.

Hope this helps!!

Just wanted to revive this, because I need a few seconds of bitching about Facebook - my friend (the one who's really dredged up my negative feelings since she's gotten pregnant) has this long, long status message (with a bajillion replies) about how sad she is that she's going to have to give up her old days of dressing all cute and adorable, and "how do moms deal?" etc. I want to throttle her! YOU GET TO BE A MOTHER! F**K YOU! YOU DON'T GET PITY! I'd pull my teeth out of my damn head with a pliers to have what you have, and you're bitching about clothes. I really, really want to kick something....

I live a great distance from my family/friends as well, so can relate to not wanting to give up the connection that FB gives you. We started a blog many years ago, when we moved, and have it password protected so only those who we want to see it can. Then we share only as much/little as we feel comfortable about our lives. The blog has allowed us to share things with people who don't have FB as well. We keep it updated with our vacations, and whatever else is going on with us, it's not just a IF blog.

The other ladies gave some good advice as to how to manage your FB feed. I stumbled across an app recently that some people find controversial, but it has helped me. Go to the website - unbaby.me - and download it for either firefox or chrome. How it works is that it replaces pictures that have certain key words tagged or captioned (such as baby, birth, first birthday, etc) and replaces those pictures with pictures of your choice (you can type in any key word when downloading the app, and can change it later). It only works in your news feed. If you want to go to someones page, then you will see the pictures they actually posted. It also does not replace profile pictures, so you will still see the little square of their profile in the news feed. However, it helps on those days that I really don't want to see the friend who complains about her kids, yet is constantly posting pictures of them, 100 pictures she posted that day. I can scroll past them and not even realize I missed something. Because of that, I can go on FB once a week, or even more (I used to go on there once a month at the most because I'd have a breakdown when I did!)

Its crazy how facebook can get us ay??
I have freinds though who know perfectly well what I am going through and still say things I cant believe.
In fact sometimes it seems like the closer I am to someone the worse it is, maybe I expect too much??
My best freind has two BEAUTIFUL boys who I love to bits and when I talk about my struggles she brings it back to how much she understands what I'm going through...........seriously!!
1) because she tried for a grand total of like 5 months for her 2nd boy and 2) because she would like a third child but her husband doesnt!! She hopes she can convince him!!

I have to really fight everything in myself to not scream at her!

@whimsical, have you seen this site? http://www.stfuparentsblog.com/
It appears others are also very annoyed by over sharing too. I think this ite is a great place for us to laugh at all of the grief they are putting us through!!!

Thank you all for this string of posts. Today is my first day in the group and honestly, Facebook has been one of the primary catalysts for my decision to seek support. Sadly, I had to block a couple of people just so that I wouldn't be so agitated with their thoughtless posts. Although I miss some of their less irritating posts, mosts days I'm glad I did it.

It definately can be a killer! But I try and remind myself that most of them dont know my plight!, its the ones that do that really piss you off!!

I agree with looking at FB and seeing all the pictures of the ultrasounds and "look what my kid did today" and "I will never have another child" post followed by "I'm pregnant!!!!". Think though for a minute of those posts and what the people that are posting them are going through. I am working on patience. I have been told for the past 2 years "due to your age (i'm 35 not ready to put my body in the ground yet I get talked to like I'm the Crypt) if you don't get pregnant within the next 2 months it will never happen. But don't worry and stay calm" How are you going to tell me something like that yet tell me to "stay calm". When people post on FB they are only thinking of themselves and want to share their happiness with others. It is VERY hard but it takes a LOTTTTTTTTTT of PATIENCE to be able to be happy for them. As far as the negative posts I usually ignore them. I am in the process of learning patience and that "things are as they should be". It pains me to see pictures of other people's baby's especially the ones I KNOW don't deserve them. I used to get angry but that doesn't solve anything it just makes ME angry and they feel nothing. That anger then puts my cycle off and makes it IMPOSSIBLE to figure out when to get pregnant. I also realize the need for people to express their feelings good OR bad. I am learning to have patience and my quote is "things are as they should be and you will get what you want if you are patient and show others patience and forgiveness". It's a Buddhist philosophy but, at least to me, is calming in the mean time.

fb can really boil your blood...we have been trying for years to conceive and i can't stand the comments i have seen...for ex, i wish they could do plastic surgery as soon as it comes out, i don't want to be fat...are you serious? first of all this is a child you are talking about, not an it...i could care less if i had an ugly stretch mark filled belly afterwards, i just want a baby....I had blocked tubes, i blew the catheter for the hsg out 3x..last year i had my tubes unblocked via surgery, everything flowed smooth with the hsg..i still haven't been able to get pregnant..time to look at ivf, i'm not getting any younger..it really grinds my gears when i see people who get pregnant regularly and they don't take proper care of their children.....i could go on and on..i understand how you feel