No, you're a dink!

We had friends over for lunch yesterday...a nice lazy Sunday. They have a 14-15 month old daughter who is a cutie-pie :) Anyway, we got to talking about rent and cost of living and stuff like that and how our previous apartment was very expensive and the father (my friend) says "but you guys are dinks". I said "what? what's a dink" and made a joke about how I've always been a dink thinking of all the times my older brother called me a dink! He said "double income no kids". Check out wikis explanation for DINKY.

I'm not saying he was being insensitive although I felt bad and a little pathetic for a moment there and gave IM a little look intended to convey our entire complicated situation. My friend's point by calling us DINKs is that we can afford high rent or certain extravagances which got me thinking a little bit. I am well aware of the enormous expense of kids--and in a lot ways "little" kids are worse...day care (for people like us) blah blah blah. But DINK generally refers to people who are childless by choice--or these days it has started to refer to gay couples sans kids which imo is not good for them either since they do fertility treatments and adopt...but I digress. As we've probably documented enough on this blog, infertility treatments are very very very expensive. We have been lucky for a number of reasons and have been able to "afford" it by a combo of luck, charity, and being smart. Many people though take out 2nd mortgages on their houses, sell 2nd cars, take out huge loans, finance it through clinics, etc etc etc. But, all in all, off the top of my head, over the last 5-6 years of treatments we have spent close to $100,000....definitely over $50,000...and we are looking at another $30,000 or so to adopt a SINGLE child...a sibling costs another $30,000. That's not chump change or trivial. My friends can add a sibling for free and WITHOUT a background check! Besides, the money they spend toward their daughter is the purest form of investment. They are taking care of her...investing in her future! Our money went down the toilet--almost literally.

Sometimes I feel like I give this particular friend slightly too much...what's the word?...I'm too understanding of his lack of sensitivity. Parents of young kids are generally self-absorbed in a strange way b/c they aren't SELF-absorbed as much as absorbed in their child. But, they basically expect that everybody else is equally absorbed in their child. So usually I give the benefit of the doubt b/c I'm not surprised that he would look at the surface of my life and think "without this little kid and all her expenses we could eat out more...fix the dent on the car...buy an Xbox..."...I don't know, whatever :) However, then I think: come on, man, pull your head out of your ass, do you really think we are childfree on purpose right now, what do you think we are waiting for, we're your age, we pretty obviously want kids, maybe we're having trouble, maybe we're in treatment? At the end of the day, though, I think it just takes experience. Without someone in your life--a friend or a family member--experiencing infertility, it takes a LOT to be sensitive to our situation. This is basically why it can feel so lonely out here.