There are so many “10 things not to do…” “3 things that I hate…” posts about but sometimes I find their overt negativity a bit unnecessary. During a journey with infertility people will say many hurtful and upsetting things, there’s no way of avoiding it. As the one who’s struggling with infertility it’s important to remember that people aren’t being insensitive on purpose, they’re just completely stumped as to what to say. As the one who’s trying to support a friend or relative it can be really difficult to not put your foot in it or to know how to help. Here’s some of my experiences from my struggle with infertility.
“Just relax”
I said I was trying to tell this in a
positive way but I just couldn’t think of a way to turn this point around and
it’s one of the upsetting things I found I was told most often. “Just relax” –
there’s points over the last 3 years where I’ve felt like if one more person
tells me to relax I’m going to punch them in the face and then they’ll find out
exactly how relaxed I’m feeling. The ‘just relax’ advice is terrible for a
number of reasons.
Firstly, people who are having fertility
problems are stressed because they’re not getting pregnant, they’re not failing
to get pregnant because they’re stressed.
Yes perhaps stress can exacerbate or contribute to the problem and it
certainly doesn’t help but there are hundreds of thousands of people around the
world who are extremely stressed and are popping out babies at a rate of knots
so to dismiss it in this way is not helpful.
Secondly, when did anybody ever relax just
because somebody told them too, somebody saying ‘you should just relax’ or ‘it
happened for me when I stopped thinking about it’ etc etc doesn’t make you just
think ‘oh of course, I’ll stop worrying about it, I didn’t think of that, I was
only thinking about all my hopes and dreams of having a family crashing around
me, but now that you point out I need to relax problem solved. If someone you
know is stressed dealing with infertility issues find a practical way to help
them relax, take them on a night out, go on a spa day together, make them a cup
of tea, find them something to punch, most importantly just listen to them, nobody
ever relaxed because somebody told them too!
Thirdly, what I would hear when people said
to me ‘just relax’ was ‘it’s your fault’. I know this was never their intention
but that’s how it felt, and still feels, none the less. It felt like they were
saying that I was in this situation because I was such an uptight individual
that I’d got myself so worked up about things and caused these infertility
problems. This of course is nonsense but
this is how it feels when people say ‘we just didn’t think about it’ or ‘we just
stopped trying,’ the implication feels like ‘if you were just a more chilled
out individual like me it would happen for you'.
While these people obviously mean well while they’re telling me these
stories I’m thinking to myself “Of course you were relaxed, it only took you a couple
of months to get pregnant, I was relaxed back then!” I was completely content
and happy looking forward to a new little life. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that being
very stressed is not helpful to conceiving and it’s important to find
strategies to stay as relaxed as you can but the implication that the stress
was the original problem is generally
inaccurate, the fertility problems came first and stress naturally follows.
So if you’re worried about a friend who’s struggling with infertility rather than telling them to relax just be there for them, listen to them.
You don’t have to find a solution
Often some of the insensitive things people
inadvertently come out with are just for lack of knowing what to say. “You
wouldn’t want them anyway,” “You could just adopt”, “My friend was trying for 5
years and it just happened.” All of
these bits of advice are well meant but can be really difficult for a multitude
of reasons. What is important to
remember when talking to somebody about fertility problems is that you don’t
have to provide them with the answer.
They will find their answer but the process may be a very long,
difficult, grief stricken road and they don’t know what that answer will be yet
, how many obstacles they’ll have to overcome to get there or how many tears
they’ll have to cry to reach it. Hearing
other people’s stories of overcoming infertility is encouraging but what is
terrifying about infertility is the uncertainty, if somebody had told me I
would have my little girl but it would take 4 years I could have coped with
that, but for all that time I didn’t know if I would ever bare my own child and
that was terrifying. The fact that it worked out for others doesn’t change
that uncertainty because you still have no idea if it will work out for
you. So I know you’ll wish you could
find an answer for your friend but all you can do is be there and listen while
they find it for themselves. Include them in they want to be
When struggling with infertility I found I
felt very lonely and inadvertently excluded. Just as I was starting the IVF the
last couple of our close friends told us they were expecting. I felt that was it, they were the last ones
and it really hurt. I know many people will think that play dates,
lunches with Mummy friends, first birthday parties aren’t the height of
excitement but when that’s what all your friends are doing and that’s all you
want to be doing it really hurts. So try to include them in your play dates,
birthday parties and baby showers because being overlooked, even if for
seemingly good reasons, really hurts. At the same time appreciate that it may
well just be too painful for them to come. Explain that you want to invite and
include them and ask if they want you to carry on inviting them and if they do
just keep asking and hopefully they’ll find a way to cope.
Cope with their coping
People find different coping
mechanisms. When we’d been trying about
2 years we decided to get a dog, it was something we wanted to do anyway but
had been planning to wait until after children. Since that wasn’t happening we
decided to get a gorgeous little puppy. I can’t explain how much of a help this
was for me, it was a distraction, it got me out of the house, it gave me
something to pour my love into, when I was crying on the kitchen floor and Matt
wasn’t there to look after me she was there.
So if you have to put up with hundreds of dog photos or hear ‘hilarious’
cat stories just try and share their enthusiasm and understand how much it
helps them.
Try not to complain about your children to them too much
I’m not saying you can’t talk to them if
you’re having a tough time, of course you need support too for what you’re
going through as much as they need support for what they’re going through. I’m
more talking about the phrase “You wouldn’t want one anyway, mines being a
complete nightmare…” People struggling with infertility don’t think that their
life is going to be all sunshine and roses once/if they have a child, nor do
they think that when they have a baby they’ll go skipping through their whole
life without complaining about them. However even in your negative statements
about your children you’re reminding that person about a club that they’re
wondering if they’ll ever be part of. They don’t know if they’ll ever be a parent,
something they may well have dreamt of and looked forward to their whole life,
a whole world of ups and downs that at this time is closed off to them. So just bear in mind that hearing about the
difficulties of having children is not a remedy for infertility and may be just
a difficult to hear for those struggling with infertility as the positive
stories. They know there are challenges in being a parent but they desperatley want to experience them because they know how much they're worth it.
Bear with them if their actions seem a bit irrational
Sometimes it’s not always obvious what the
sensitive option is. For example I had a number of friends who became pregnant
while I was struggling and a few times I had texts saying “Can I just pop round
for a cup of tea.” These were from people who don’t just pop round for a cup of
tea so as soon as I got their message I knew what they were popping round to
say. I know they were trying to be
sensitive to my feelings and tell me when there weren’t other people around but
I found this really difficult. They’d come round and I’d have to sit there
waiting for them to tell me, then when they did, congratulate them, ask when
they were due etc. I found personally I would have preferred if they just told
me by text so I could deal with a process the information on my own, perhaps
have a bit of a cry then put myself back together again for next time I saw
them. The tricky thing with this is that
different people may not feel the same about this, they may prefer to be told
in person, they might prefer not to be singled out. This makes it difficult for
those who are trying to support someone with infertility as it may appear
they’re acting irrationally or getting upset with you when you were only trying
to help. So just bear with them, try to understand their irrationalities and
forgive them.
Just listen
The simplest point by far and
probably goes without saying. I was always quite open about my fertility
problems, that was the only way I could cope, many others aren’t, they find it
a very private and lonely experience. So if they have opened up to you it may
well have been extremely difficult for them so just take your time, listen and
show them love.
These are just a few of my own feelings and experiences and
I do appreciate that in relation to many others my infertility journey has been
quite short and straightforward, we were incredibly blessed that IVF worked for
us 1st time, so others may have very different experiences. If
anybody has any feedback or anything to add I’d be really interested to hear
what people think.
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