Transient empathy — here one minute, gone the next. The kind of inclusion you don’t realise you needed… until it’s taken away.

Transient Empathy…

What’s really hard about fertility struggles is this: people can empathise deeply with you — but only for as long as they’re still living in that pain themselves.

Then they get their happy ending, move to the “other side,” and suddenly you’re no longer in the club. You’re still carrying the weight, but the people who once stood beside you have stepped into a new chapter that you’re not part of.

Of course you’re happy for them. Of course you want to support them and cheer them on. But it still stings when you’re left behind in a space you never chose to be in. For a while, you shared a world — the fear, the uncertainty, the grief — and then, in an instant, you’re alone in it again.

It’s a bit like being a child on the playground: someone falls out with their best friend, so they come to you. You bond, you feel included, you feel seen. But the moment they make up with the friend they really want to be close to, you’re dropped, forgotten, left standing on your own.

That’s what transient empathy feels like. Not malicious, not intentional — just a reminder that their story moved forward, while yours stayed painfully still.