Is everyone pregnant?

I used to think I'm not the jealous type. Lately I've noticed that when people announce their engagements, I mentally calculate and assume they, too, will be parents before us. It's a terrible habit I need to cut out but I noticed that I do it automatically.

One person I'm friends with on Facebook was known for complaining about her dating life and how she wasn't getting anywhere with all the losers she was dating. Those rant posts would come up on my newsfeed regularly for nearly three or four years. Then she got married and nearly instantaneously the rants turned to frustrated parenting posts. Unfollow.

There's another couple who got married a week after us and got pregnant on their wedding night. They now have four children and post frequent sweet family photos. Unfollow.

Two of the four other childless couples in my friend circle on fb have succeeded in having healthy pregnancies and are now parents. The third one got pregnant and kept it quiet on social media, trying to be sensitive to others still struggling, but someone else spilled the beans on her wall so now it's out. The forth couple is struggling with multiple losses and I know they've gone through IVF and PGD -- I hope that some of that Facebook baby dust is contagious and that they get their miracle baby soon. I noticed that the IVF awareness articles bother me as much as the family pictures. I don't want it to be relevant to me, I don't want to be different. Unfollow.

I have a friend who got divorced a year after I got married. She focused on school and career and in the meantime her ex got married and had a kid. I know her childlessness is different than mine, but I also know it hurts her to think what her life could have been like today had things worked out differently. She's dating someone seriously now (almost 7 years later) and I'm already doing the math in my head...

There's no way to Unfollow people in real life. You can only avoid it to a degree. Can't avoid it at the grocery store. Can't avoid it at work. Can't avoid it at shul where the preg ratio is probably 1:3 of healthy female adults.

So... if you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Working on it ;)