10 Things You Need to Know About Infertility

1. People wonder why no one talks about it. From my experience when I did talk about it to my close friends and family, they were supportive, but no one really understood. While I love everyone that was there for me, they never said what I needed to hear. Eventually, I just stopped talking about it and kept it to myself. No one wants to bring people down every time they talk, but it is all you can think about. It is just easier to push it down and not talk about it all.

2. Every pregnancy announcement, birth announcement, pregnancy progress pictures, etc. hurts. When you are going through infertility, it seems like EVERYONE is having babies.

3. We are happy for people that don’t struggle with infertility. It may make me sad every time I see a pregnancy announcement, but I am also so happy for that person. I don’t wish infertility on anyone, and I’m REALLY excited for anyone who has struggled and is able to eventually get pregnant. It just might take me a minute to process my own loss because every pregnancy is a reminder that I carry grief instead of a baby.

4. STOP saying, “You just need to relax” or “as soon as you stop trying, it will happen.” That’s most likely not true. Infertility is almost always a medical condition and has nothing to do with stress. Sometimes there is nothing couples can do to conceive naturally. And for others, there is nothing they can do to have biological children. Please, please stop telling us to relax. Also, for those who decide to adopt, do not say, “I bet as soon as you adopt, you will get pregnant.” Again, it is not that easy.

5. It is not always the woman. I know a lot of couples where it is the man who has the issue. Please be sensitive to the men as well. All they want is to give their wife a child. When they can’t do that, it devastates them.

6. The best thing you can do is listen and validate someone’s feelings. I started telling myself I shouldn’t feel this way. I felt selfish for being sad about other people’s pregnancies. I made myself believe that it was not that big of a deal, and I needed to just get over it. The best thing that ever happened was the first time I talked to someone who had been through the same thing. She validated everything I was feeling. I started owning up to my feelings, and it was the healthiest way for me to deal with it.

7. Infertility is isolating. Finding people who understand your loss is difficult and trying to process this alone is hard to do. I spent a year and a half trying to deal with it by myself. This was a mistake. When a couple is in the middle of it, they are trying to be happy in a world that moves on in spite of their loss. Infertility follows a natural grieving process as any other grief, but it may not have closure. They may question every decision they make and may live the rest of their days wondering “if” it will ever happen.

8. You cannot “fix” our hurt. Feelings must be felt and experienced, not fixed. Be there. Let us share our feelings. Be a shoulder. Check in and say you’re thinking of us. But trying to fix us does not work, it hurts, and it makes us question our own feelings. We can’t just “get over it,” or “have more faith,” or “just adopt.” Infertility is complicated and each couple faces very different decisions to make throughout the process. We need your love, not your input.

9. Everyone’s situation is different. If you know one couple who has dealt with infertility, you know one story of infertility. It is different for everyone. Take time to listen to someone’s story and their feelings. Do not tell them to do whatever your friend did. It is most likely not the same. Respect that everyone’s story is different, and everyone deals with infertility differently.

10. Last, it is a loss. While I never had the thing that I lost, it is a loss. Loss of your dreams. Loss of hope. Loss of yourself. Loss of faith. You can lose a lot in the process. Most women dream of having children, what their family will look like, names for their kids, etc. When that dream doesn’t happen, it is a loss. Everyone expects to lose people close to them throughout their lives. Whether you lose them from growing apart or death, people lose relationships. No one ever expects to lose a person they never met. No one is prepared to deal with that loss. It is brutal.