Infertility is real and about 12 percent of women ages 15 to 44 struggle to conceive, according to the Centers for Disease Control. So for many of them, like Rhode Island school teacher Chelsey Kimmel, seeing April Fool’s jokes from women pretending to be pregnant is no laughing matter.
Kimmel told ABC news that she warned her social media followers on Instagram to think twice before sharing a pregnancy joke on April Fool’s Day.
It’s been 18 months since the 24-year old and her partner of five years have been trying to conceive successfully. They suffered a miscarriage last October and are due to start another round of in vitro fertilization in 10 days, ABC reports.
“I’ve known people for a long time who joke that they’re pregnant and this year it hit me that it does hurt,” Kimmel told ABC News. “I struggle with real posts of people I know and love when they really are pregnant, but when people make a joke [about it], women like me, who want more than anything in the world to be pregnant … it just really hits home. It can hurt.”
It didn’t stop people, including celebs like Gwen Stefani, from sharing a sonogram on her Instagram today with the caption, “It’s a girl.”
One commenter with the handle bankstonlife wrote about Stefani’s joke, “Respect lost, obviously the completely clueless people on here have never lost a child!! Joking about a pregnancy when soooo many have suffered a loss during pregnancy is insensitive!!!”
It’s very sensitive issue indeed. There were several others too leaving similar responses.
“There are a lot of emotions and energy we invest when facing fertility issues. Seeing people joke about being pregnant is deflating.” said Ellicott City, Maryland engineer Qiana Gabriel.
She said she told her husband that she planned to stay off of Facebook today after seeing five friends joke that they were pregnant.
Consider this your warning for next year folks.
photo: courtesy Ericka Chick photography
