Two Infertility Articles
NIAW and Mother’s Day always kick off a string of infertility-related pieces across the internet. Two recent ones that caught my eye: Glamour ran a piece by a woman explaining why she was finally speaking up about her five miscarriages. She writes: “Typing all of this is excruciating and honestly a bit surreal, like I’m talking about someone else’s life. But I think you should know the whole story.”
It is brutally honest. There was so much that I related to in its rawness:
Do you know how many times in four months—let alone four days, four hours even—a woman who wants to be pregnant counts the moments until she could possibly be pregnant again? Until she can start yet another round of IVF? The counting terrorized me. But it also made me feel oddly better, as though I was actually in control of something when my body was making it clear, miscarriage after miscarriage, that I wasn’t. Everything about the baby-making process is numbers.
Yes.
And then Lifehacker had a piece about supporting someone through infertility. Most of it was sound, standard advice. One piece that caught my eye was asking the person how often they wanted you to check in. They recommended texting on appointment days (that would have made me feel overwhelmed AND loved at the same time), but being frank in asking how to best talk about it at other times. Again, jump into the advice and see what you think.
4 comments
I like her closing: more empathy, less stigma.
Could be universally used.
This comment under the Lifehacker piece caught my eye, with the emphasis on those who go through the infertility but never conceive:
“Can I also add to not forget about them later? My wife and I just never conceived. Well, that’s not true… she did conceive and it almost killed her (ectopic pregnancy). It was a hard time but we got through it ok. It turns out my guys don’t swim so well and her remaining tubes are shaped weird, so it was always going to be a struggle (plus fertilization techniques were the longest of long shots…. not to mention damn near impossible to afford with active student loan payments, but that’s another issue).
For years we go nothing but advice… even the doctors kept pushing us towards this solution or that solution. We made our peace with not having kids. We’ve moved on. (although I’ve still never seen “Up!” because of the first 10 mins or so). But people keep re-framing our relationship relative to not having kids. One of my dearest friends still says stuff like, “Well you can afford X thing you just bought because you don’t have kids.” Or the doctors tells us about wondrous treatments they’ve got now. Or family members will suggest we’re less adult than others because we “decided” to not have kids. We get stuck with things like longer term care because we don’t have kids.
Some people have kids. Some don’t. They’re no different unless the only lens you see them through is “mommy” or “daddy”. If they have identities outside that, engage them on those identities. Yes, some people have the title “mommy” or “daddy”, but they’ve got other ones too. Don’t forget that.”
Sorry I meant to include this on the over-long comment above! I’m kind of torn about parents who go through admittedly horrendous infertility experiences, like this woman, but then wall-to-wall plaster their social media with cutesy photos of their children and their enviable(-seeming) Insta lifestyle – yes, they are educating people in bringing infertility to the fore and showing that conception is not always easy, but is an infertile woman going to want to look at all that? Maybe, I suppose it gives ‘hope’ to many. Despite her experiences and ivf credentials, and the infertility hashtags, “Mama Bird”‘s Instagram activity represents everything that made me feel sick with anxiety and lifestyle envy at age 36. It screams glam mummy with gorgeous kids. Argh: social media! It’s a tough one… Is it part of the reason why women tend to fall into camps and largely avoid one another online? – those who were infertile and went on to successfully conceive, and those who didn’t. Even though I feel settled as a non-mother, Instagram pages like hers still rattle me a bit…
I just feel: if you’re genuinely trying to get a message across and to highlight infertility, maybe tone it down just a bit? Or maybe I’m just cranky today! Solution is, of course, to simply avoid the weird world of social media! She seems like a nice woman anyway, and hopefully she’s an inspiration to others with similar infertility factors as those she had
I like the idea of asking how often you want someone to check in. Even a simple “thinking of you” on appointment days would feel supportive without any pressure of replying.