Here’s the last of my reposts for National Infer­til­ity Aware­ness Week. I’m espe­cially proud of this one for some rea­son. Per­haps because this post forced me to stand up to the igno­rance of infer­til­ity … Any­way, to see the orig­i­nal post, click here.

*****

Dear Curi­ous,

Thank you for your com­ment on my pre­vi­ous post. As always, I wel­come any responses to what I write. To me, any response means that I’m effec­tively get­ting my words out into the world.

My last post did not mean to belit­tle Can­cer as a dis­ease. And yes, I real­ize that I was a bit over the top and melo­dra­matic at the end. I truly debated as to whether or not I should respond to you. But then I thought that I should really prac­tice what I preach.

And what I’ve been preach­ing lately is that it’s bet­ter to edu­cate oth­ers about Infer­til­ity than per­pet­u­at­ing a myth.

In this case, it’s the myth that Infer­til­ity is not a dis­ease, but rather just a “con­di­tion” that is a result of a “badly dealt hand” in life.

Or as Mar­garet Wente’s edi­to­r­ial in The Globe and The Mail indi­cates, “Many things in life are deeply unfair, and infer­til­ity is just one of them … … [In the] mean­time, record num­bers of peo­ple are embrac­ing child­less­ness out of choice. It seems that one person’s deep unfair­ness is another’s blessed liberation.”

So, as an RN Case Man­ager … who has not only taken care of many Can­cer patients at the hos­pi­tal and has fol­lowed up with them on an ongo­ing basis after they’ve returned to their homes … let me take the oppor­tu­nity here to dis­pell this myth.

1. Let’s first get our def­i­n­i­tions straight.

Con­di­tion: a usu­ally defec­tive state of health (from Merriam-​​Webster Online Dictionary)

Dis­ease: a con­di­tion of the liv­ing ani­mal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs nor­mal func­tion­ing and is typ­i­cally man­i­fested by dis­tin­guish­ing signs and symp­toms (from Merriam-​​Webster Online Dictionary)

Can­cer: a term used for dis­eases in which abnor­mal cells divide with­out con­trol and are able to invade other tis­sues (from the National Can­cer Insti­tute website)

Dia­betes: a group of dis­eases char­ac­ter­ized by high blood glu­cose lev­els that result from defects in the body’s abil­ity to pro­duce and/​or use insulin (from the Amer­i­can Dia­betes Asso­ci­a­tion website)

Infer­til­ity: a dis­ease of the repro­duc­tive sys­tem defined by the fail­ure to achieve a clin­i­cal preg­nancy after 12 months or more of reg­u­lar unpro­tected sex­ual inter­course (as defined by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, as stated by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety for Repro­duc­tive Med­i­cine website).

2. Now, let’s dis­cuss the dif­fer­ence between a con­di­tion and a disease.

Many dis­eases started out as a being known as a “con­di­tion.” Dia­betes was a “sugar con­di­tion.” Asthma was a “breath­ing con­di­tion.” It’s not until sci­ence began to do more research to deter­mine the rea­son for its abnor­mal pat­terns in func­tion­ing that a con­di­tion came to be called a disease.

To me, this is why giv­ing voice to Infer­til­ity and edu­cat­ing the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion is extremely impor­tant: so that more research can be done to dis­cover how to effec­tively and con­sis­tently treat Infer­til­ity. And when I mean “con­sis­tently,” I mean that there should be a spe­cific path­way (or guide­line to fol­low) for treat­ment of Infer­til­ity. Much like there are stan­dards of prac­tice for treat­ment of the var­i­ous types of Cancer.

3. Now let me dis­cuss why I think all dis­eases aren’t fatal, as you’ve indicated.

Eczema isn’t fatal. Scle­ro­derma isn’t fatal. Dia­betes isn’t even fatal. What’s fatal is what hap­pens if appro­pri­ate treat­ment is not car­ried out. That’s when other health con­di­tions (or comor­bidi­ties) can add to the com­pli­ca­tions involv­ing the disease.

Going back to Dia­betes: If a Diabetic’s blood sugar isn’t con­trolled prop­erly, then this could lead to dia­betic nephropa­thy – or kid­ney dis­ease. This is caused by the kid­neys work­ing over­time to fil­ter out pro­tein from the body. Con­tin­ued over­work­ing can cause kid­ney fail­ure which could, again if untreated could cause tox­i­c­ity in the body, ulti­mately lead­ing to death. But would a pathol­o­gist con­sider dia­betes as the cause of death in a sit­u­a­tion like this? Likely no; it would most likely be kid­ney fail­ure as a com­pli­ca­tion from Diabetes.

Now, sub­sti­tute dia­betes in this sit­u­a­tion with, let’s say … pan­cre­atic can­cer. Again, pan­cre­atic can­cer could more likely be the com­pli­ca­tion in a fatal sit­u­a­tion such as this.

4. So now let me talk about why I think com­pli­ca­tions from Infer­til­ity can be fatal.

First there’s the idea of an abnor­mal repro­duc­tive sys­tem; which, like most dis­eases, could be caused from a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent sources. In this case, it’s dur­ing any part of the repro­duc­tive cycle. But just for sh*ts and gig­gles … let’s say that — in deter­min­ing the cause for Infer­til­ity — the woman dis­cov­ers that she has Ovar­ian Can­cer. Or we find out that the man has Tes­tic­u­lar Can­cer. Then I could log­i­cally assume (as you’ve pointed out) that Infer­til­ity can be related to Can­cer (or vice versa, for that mat­ter) and any com­pli­ca­tions that result from Can­cer can be fatal.

Or … how about this? Let’s say, in the quest to have a child, a woman who has put her body at risk to become preg­nant is sud­denly more at risk dur­ing her preg­nancy because of Pre-​​ecclampsia. And sud­denly it becomes evi­dent that a choice needs to be made as to whether to save the woman or her baby? I know women who have trag­i­cally been through this. And I hope, some­time in your life that you might have some empa­thy for them …

5. And finally, speak­ing of sym­pa­thy … I must point out that sym­pa­thy for my Infer­til­ity is not what I’m ask­ing from you … or from anyone.

What I really want is empa­thy. And that would mean that I’d want the under­stand­ing from oth­ers that Infer­til­ity is a dis­ease and it deserves to be rec­og­nize. It’s not some­thing to be swept under the rug or ignored.

And quite frankly, I would hope that a per­son with Can­cer would also want empa­thy rather than sym­pa­thy. For me, some­one who is sym­pa­thetic can only “feel” pity and sor­row for someone’s mis­for­tune. While a per­son who is empa­thetic has the abil­ity to rec­og­nize, com­pre­hend, per­ceive and directly feel the emo­tion of another. Seri­ously. I’d rather have some­one rec­og­nize and com­pre­hend how dif­fi­cult it is to be in my sit­u­a­tion than to just sim­ply say (per­haps in their head), “Too bad, so sad.”

So here’s one last set of definitions.

Sym­pa­thy: the feel­ing or men­tal state brought about by such sen­si­tiv­ity (from Merriam-​​Webster Online Dictionary)

Empa­thy: the action of under­stand­ing, being aware of, being sen­si­tive to, and vic­ar­i­ously expe­ri­enc­ing the feel­ings, thoughts, and expe­ri­ence of another of either the past or present with­out hav­ing the feel­ings, thoughts, and expe­ri­ence fully com­mu­ni­cated in an objec­tively explicit man­ner (from Merriam-​​Webster Online Dictionary)

So hope­fully you now have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of why I wrote my last post.

I’m not ask­ing for more recog­ni­tion than what Can­cer, with its mul­ti­tude of com­mu­nity sup­port, already has. I’m just sim­ply ask­ing for recog­ni­tion.

And finally … just so you know. I am a sur­vivor of Infer­til­ity … not because one of my par­ents suf­fered from Infer­til­ity (because my Mom did ) … and not because I ended up hav­ing chil­dren (because I didn’t) … I con­sider myself a sur­vivor because I was able to sus­tain years of treat­ment for Infer­til­ity and came out the other end of a ver­rry long tun­nel with my dig­nity (rel­a­tively) intact.

Best of luck in wher­ever your life takes you,
Emily

For National Infer­til­ity Aware­ness Week, I’ve been repost­ing some sig­nif­i­cant and rel­e­vant posts to this year’s theme: Don’t Ignore Infer­til­ity. Here’s the orig­i­nal link to this post.

*****

I am a Sur­vivor of Infertility.

It sounds rather silly, given that I have noth­ing vis­i­ble to show for the years I’ve been diag­nosed with this dis­ease. (Well, except for the added weight gain from all the med­ica­tions … but that’s beside the point.) But it’s the truth.

It may sound strange to the aver­age per­son that Infer­til­ity is con­sid­ered a dis­ease. After all, most peo­ple are rather inclined to think that it’s a “con­di­tion” rather than a dis­ease. There’s even been debate that Infer­til­ity is con­sid­ered a “lifestyle choice.” But we’ll get back to that one later.

Much like Can­cer is a dis­ease (an abnor­mal growth of cells which pro­lif­er­ate in an uncon­trolled man­ner), so is Infer­til­ity. And I can even have the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion def­i­n­i­tion to back me up.

And much like a Can­cer patient who has suc­cess­fully com­pleted treat­ment for their dis­ease, I can also say that I am a survivor.

*****

I know, I know … I’ve made mul­ti­ple com­par­isons of Infer­til­ity to Can­cer in pre­vi­ous posts. And just so you know, it’s not as if this com­par­i­son hasn’t been made by other Infer­til­ity blog­gers and/​or other health care providers in Repro­duc­tive Health in the past.

Believe me, as an RN who has taken care of her fair share of Can­cer patients, it’s not one that I do lightly. I do so, only to show­case the lack of sup­port and edu­ca­tion that Infer­til­ity receives when com­pared to Cancer.

If you’re like most peo­ple, the news of a fam­ily or friend recently diag­nosed with Can­cer will trig­ger a sense of empa­thy for that indi­vid­ual and their fam­ily. For me, it’s always been an imme­di­ate “That’s hor­ri­ble!” or “How sad” state­ment when receiv­ing the news. Then, the next time I see the indi­vid­ual or one of their fam­ily mem­bers, I might briefly ask them how they’re doing and how their treat­ment is com­ing along. And I’d make it a point to ask how they’re cop­ing with every­thing. I do so know­ing that I’m offer­ing them an oppor­tu­nity to let out some of those dif­fi­cult emo­tions that come along when­ever some­one is going through a stress­ful situation.

For me, that’ how *I* like to offer my sup­port. But oth­ers could likely offer to send a card, call the per­son, and/​or offer to run some errands for them. And yet oth­ers will offer their unso­licited advice about how their “third cousin” beat by “sniff­ing glue” (or some­thing just as odd). Either way, Can­cer elic­its that feel­ing of want­ing to help a per­son out because … “G*d for­bid, if some­thing like that hap­pened to me, I’d hope some­one would do the same.”

Now, take this same sit­u­a­tion, but sub­sti­tute Can­cer with Infer­til­ity. What imme­di­ate emo­tion would that dis­ease trig­ger? Would you feel empa­thy for the woman? Would you feel more empa­thy for the woman, than the man (if that’s the case), per­haps think­ing that Infer­til­ity is strictly her diagon­sis? Would you send them a card?**

And the next time you see that per­son or cou­ple, would you ask how they were doing? And how they’re cop­ing with the dis­ease? Would you ask them what kind of treat­ment they’re receiv­ing? Would you offer to run errands for them, know­ing that their lives have been tied to a spe­cific minute-​​by-​​minute, hour-​​by-​​hour time sched­ule? Would you offer them unso­licited advice on how they should “just adopt” or “just relax”?

Okay, so I’m guess­ing that most peo­ple would answer “No” to those ques­tions. Except maybe for that last one; because — believe me — I still get lots of incred­i­bly insen­si­tive “a$$vice” thrown at us on a daily basis. (Of which my response to those Infer­tiles who also deal with this sit­u­a­tion … this is the per­fect oppor­tu­nity to edu­cate oth­ers out there about how Infer­til­ity is a com­pli­cated dis­ease with mul­ti­ple lay­ers of emo­tional strug­gles that can’t sim­ply be “fixed” by just relax­ing or adopting.)

Any­hoo …

As I said, I’m guess­ing that most peo­ple would answer “No.” And the rea­son is because Infer­til­ity is some­thing that no one really wants to openly talk about. It’s the pink ele­phant in the mid­dle of the room that peo­ple speak through it (rather than directly at it or about it). Even those indi­vid­u­als or cou­ples who are diag­nosed with it find it incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to share. As stated in the recent SELF Mag­a­zine arti­cle, “Infer­til­ity is where breast can­cer was in the 1970’s — com­pletely in the closet.”

So this is where I, once again, empha­size that talk­ing directly about Infer­til­ity is impor­tant. Giv­ing Infer­til­ity a voice is essen­tial. Edu­cat­ing oth­ers about Infer­til­ity is crit­i­cal.

Why is this nec­es­sary? Because one brave and edu­cated voice can spur a thou­sand other brave souls to tell their Infer­til­ity sto­ries. And those coura­geous voices can turn around and edu­cate their fam­ily and friends about the dis­ease. And those fam­ily and friends can then tell their friends, and so on and so on … there­fore cre­at­ing a net­work of sup­port.

And from there, maybe … just maybe, Infer­til­ity can receive the recog­ni­tion as a dis­ease that it needs. Maybe then, Infer­til­ity will elicit an empa­thy sim­i­lar to that of Cancer.

*****

One last thing, and then I’ll wrap this up.

Yes, I do under­stand that Can­cer is a “life or death” sit­u­a­tion; and that receiv­ing treat­ment deter­mines whether or not a per­son sur­vives. But let me ask you this? Isn’t Infer­til­ity a “life or death” sit­u­a­tion when it comes to a child’s life? Isn’t receiv­ing treat­ment for Infer­til­ity also deter­mine whether or not a child survives?

For those affected by Can­cer (whether as an indi­vid­ual, or a fam­ily mem­ber of the indi­vid­ual), the life of a loved one is on the line. For those affected by Infer­til­ity, the life of their child … not to men­tion their indi­vid­ual liveli­hood to sus­tain life through their own genes … is on the line.

And finally … for my “Liv­ing Child-​​free after Infer­til­ity” self, let me throw one more thing your way. What kind of sad­ness do you feel for a per­son with Can­cer who has decided to stop treat­ments? A per­son who knows that his/​her options are severely limited?

Would you respect the choice that he or she made; know­ing that they gave con­sid­er­able thought about their deci­sion? Would you still respect their deci­sion even though it might not be one that’s nec­es­sar­ily “conventional”?

Now … once again, sub­sti­tute Can­cer with Infertility.

Can you see now why Infer­til­ity is not a “lifestyle choice”? (Told you I’d get back to it … )

I don’t mean to come off as sound­ing like I can’t get “past” my own infer­til­ity (like Andie would think of me; as evi­denced by her response to Pam’s Feb­ru­ary arti­cle in Fer​til​ityAu​thor​ity​.com). I don’t mean to sound as if any non-​​Infertile who reads this is an “igno­rant fool” who doesn’t know me or my problems.

I sim­ply write these feel­ings — these thoughts of mine — so that maybe … just maybe, a per­son (or two) can learn from them.

*****

My name is Emily … and I’m an Infer­til­ity Survivor.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

** Seri­ously, though … Have you ever seen a greet­ing card for Infer­til­ity? I think Hall­mark needs to get right on this. Pronto.

In honor of NIAW, I’ve been repost­ing old blog posts to make sure that infer­til­ity is not ignored. Here’s the orig­i­nal link to the post.

*****

The first time I ever took a home preg­nancy test (HPT) was on the morn­ing of first wed­ding anniver­sary. Hubby & I had only recently decided that we were ready to start the next phase in our lives together. Plus, Aunt Flo had been miss­ing for over a week by then, so I fig­ured it was time.

I won’t lie … I also thought that the prospect of pre­sent­ing pos­i­tive “pee stick” as an anniver­sary gift would have made our first wed­ding anniver­sary together all that more memorable.

But when the test came back neg­a­tive, I threw the stick away and climbed back into bed to cud­dle with Hubby who was still sound asleep. And yes, I was dis­ap­pointed … but at that time in our lives, Infer­til­ity was just a dis­tant diag­no­sis, which was … in no way, related to me.

I’ve never told any­one this story before because until today, it wasn’t some­thing that I con­sid­ered very rel­e­vant to my life as an “Infertile.”

Hubby had been privy to this story, because later that day he hap­pened upon the open HPT pack­age in the trash and won­dered why I took one. But oth­er­wise, no one else in our lives had a clue that we were even “actively try­ing” at the time.

It was some­thing that Hubby & I, as a young mar­ried cou­ple, wanted to keep to ourselves.

*****

It’s only nat­ural that most cou­ples wish to keep their deci­sions on family-​​planning a secret. Okay … maybe not so much a secret, but more of a dis­cus­sion that hap­pens strictly between the couple.

After all, it really should be no one’s busi­ness to know what’s going on in a couple’s sex life. Right?

But what hap­pens when love and mar­riage don’t auto­mat­i­cally lead to the prover­bial baby car­riage? And what if months — nay, years go by with­out hav­ing any­thing to show but a garbage full of neg­a­tive preg­nancy test?

What if you had spent thou­sands of dol­lars for an infer­til­ity diag­no­sis and work-​​up? And then turned around and spent even more money on try­ing to “fix” the med­ical prob­lems so that you could pro­duce a bio­log­i­cal child of your own?

Should a cou­ple still keep their family-​​building plans and the infer­til­ity diag­no­sis a secret?

What if you and your spouse had to con­tin­u­ously be poked by var­i­ous nee­dles and prod­ded by var­i­ous health pro­fes­sion­als, month after month, just to deter­mine when the opti­mal time was to repro­duce? To go home and have a romp in the bed­room (stress-​​free, of course)? To col­lect a man spec­i­men in the com­fort of a ster­ile clinic? To have to sit nice and pretty in those G*d-awful stir­rups? Only to be dis­ap­pointed month after month …

Would it still be inap­pro­pri­ate for a cou­ple to talk about how infer­til­ity has affected their lives?

What if you or your spouse were done pur­su­ing the med­ical route of infer­til­ity and decided to adopt? What if you spent an addi­tional thou­sands of dol­lars in order to be scru­ti­nized by adop­tion agen­cies, local and fed­eral gov­ern­ment offi­cials? Just so these agen­cies can deter­mine if you were “wor­thy” enough to be parents?

What if the Birth Mom/​Family decided to change their minds at the last minute? Or what if the coun­try you decided to pur­sue an inter­na­tional adop­tion decided to close their doors on all adoptions?

Would now be a good time to talk to loved ones about infertility?

And finally, what if you and your spouse thought­fully and thor­oughly con­sid­ered all your other options to build your fam­ily … and after years of dis­ap­point­ment and heartache, decided that liv­ing child-​​free was your best path in life?

Would it be okay for the cou­ple to com­fort­ably dis­cuss this deci­sion with any ran­dom stranger who asks if the cou­ple has any kids?

These are dif­fi­cult ques­tions to answer. I know; as I’ve had to dis­sect each indi­vid­ual ques­tion with a fine-​​tooth comb. I’ve had to deter­mine how each answer would affect the rest of my life and my rela­tion­ships with those I’ve felt close to at one time or another.

The truth is, each per­son … each cou­ple and/​or the fam­ily & friends that are affected by this couple’s infer­til­ity … will have dif­fer­ent answers. That’s because each person’s jour­ney through infer­til­ity can be dif­fer­ent than the per­son stand­ing next to him or her. Even if they were sit­ting next to each other at an Infer­til­ity Specialist’s office.

*****

I find it sad that soci­ety deems “family-​​building” dis­cus­sions as a pri­vate issue amongst infer­tile couples.

Okay, let me reword that last state­ment: I find it dis­ap­point­ing that soci­ety deems “fam­ily build­ing” dis­cus­sions as inap­pro­pri­ate when it comes to Infertility.

While I do think that there are cer­tain dis­cus­sions and deci­sions that should be left pri­vate amongst the infer­tile cou­ple, I do think that other con­ver­sa­tions should be okay to dis­cuss with other peo­ple … other fam­ily mem­bers and friends and other infer­tile couples.

Because if any­thing, Infer­tiles can be the worse when it comes to openly talk­ing about their expe­ri­ences and emo­tions when it comes to build­ing their family.

There’s an arti­cle in SELF Magazine’s August issue that out­lines this exact issue.

This arti­cle (aptly titled “This Woman Has A Secret”) found that a recent sur­vey indi­cates that 61% of infer­til­ity patients hide their strug­gle to get preg­nant from friends and family.

And see­ing that 1 in 8 Amer­i­can cou­ples expe­ri­ence infer­til­ity … well, yeah. That’s a lot of peo­ple that aren’t talk­ing about the heady emo­tions that can be asso­ci­ated with the inabil­ity to reproduce.

Along with those ques­tions I pre­vi­ously posed, other com­mon con­cerns that an infer­tile cou­ple can expe­ri­ence include the fear that their life will be eter­nally empty. Or the sense that the cou­ple is dam­aged or broken.

Both amplify the shame already incurred by the cou­ple; as they likely feel dif­fer­ent from being dif­fer­ent than other “nor­mally repro­duc­ing” fam­ily and friends.

Both make the cou­ple more embar­rassed to talk about these strug­gles and asso­ci­ated emo­tions with their loved ones.

*****

It’s a dif­fi­cult thing … want­ing to talk about a person’s (or couple’s) indi­vid­ual jour­ney through infer­til­ity. It’s ten-​​times more dif­fi­cult, given the shame that’s asso­ci­ated with infertility.

As the SELF arti­cle points out, it gets even more exhaust­ing when an infer­tile couple:

… become slaves of their monthly cycle; often unable to leave town even for a week­end get­away due to daily mon­i­tor­ing for hor­mone lev­els and egg counts. When month after month a cou­ple fails to get preg­nant, their lives stall and the ques­tion of whether or not their fam­ily will expand looms over deci­sions about the car they buy, the house they live in, the clothes they purchase.

And this, along with many other rea­sons, is why many infer­tile cou­ples choose to keep their “family-​​building” strug­gles a secret. Why they con­tinue with the façade that “family-​​building” dis­cus­sions should remain per­sonal, as soci­ety dictates.

*****

After years of keep­ing my strug­gle a secret … of bury­ing the emo­tions I’ve felt for so long … I believe that it is extremely impor­tant to talk about these issues. And I think it’s impor­tant for an indi­vid­ual to find their own out­let or sup­port systems.

But first and fore­most, I think it’s very impor­tant to keep an open com­mu­ni­ca­tion with your Spouse/​SO. Because if there is any­one else who should know what you’re going through, it should be the per­son who is trav­el­ing down the infer­til­ity jour­ney with you.

For Hubby & I, it’s a path that we took together, hand-​​in-​​hand. We made it a point to talk about each of our con­cerns openly and hon­estly (yes, even the scary parts) so that we knew where we both were at emo­tion­ally. And if one per­son was even slightly ahead of the other per­son, we’d make an effort to “wait” until both of us were both “on board” before mak­ing any major deci­sions. There was no push­ing or prod­ding; there was patience and under­stand­ing that both of us dealt with our issues in very unique manners.

If any­thing … that was my sav­ing grace in our jour­ney together. Hubby was my rock — my torch, so to speak, light­ing my way through the dark­ness. And I hope that he can say the same thing for me as well.

*****

As for other sup­port sys­tems out­side of the cou­ple … It’s dif­fi­cult to find sup­port out there. I know; I’ve tried.

I’ve sought sup­port amongst my loved ones; my friends. But it’s hon­estly hard for them to com­pletely under­stand what it’s like, unless they’re walk­ing in your shoes, your path.

But after years (and years) of deal­ing with Infer­til­ity, I’ve finally learned to turn this expe­ri­ence around by edu­cat­ing oth­ers about my jour­ney. And I did this by debunk­ing state­ments (like “just relax”) and myths (like “just adopt and you’ll get preg­nant”) when­ever they would sur­face in those inevitable conversations.

This is because I believe that the more an Infer­tile per­son openly dis­cusses their expe­ri­ences, the more that the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion will under­stand and learn to empathize with the Infer­til­ity community.

I hope that this is a les­son that other Infer­tile cou­ples can learn from my own expe­ri­ence: Talk openly about it now, so that oth­ers can be more empa­thetic to the Infer­til­ity path.

*****

I’ve also tried to find sup­port in an Infer­til­ity Sup­port Group.

For me, that was not my cup of tea. My expe­ri­ence mim­ic­ked how another per­son in the SELF arti­cle so aptly stated, “Every­one gets up and tells their suc­cess sto­ries. Infer­til­ity treat­ment isn’t always about success.”

But … that may not be the case for every sup­port group. So please … you should still seek out an Infer­til­ity sup­port group before pass­ing any judg­ment. It just may just be the per­fect out­let for you.

*****

Finally, (and only after a major cat­a­strophic life event) I tried some indi­vid­ual coun­sel­ing. And that planted the seed that allowed me to talk about my Infer­til­ity and the emo­tions that came with those struggles.

My advice for an Infer­tile per­son try­ing to find the right ther­a­pist? Talk to your Infer­til­ity Spe­cial­ist and ask for a rec­om­men­da­tion. If you’re not cur­rently see­ing a spe­cial­ist; call one in your area and ask. Chances are, the Front Desk staff or the RN in the office will be more than will­ing to give you a rec­om­men­da­tion. If not, check out RESOLVE’s web­site for a list of pro­fes­sion­als in the area.

*****

There’s one more out­let for sup­port that I want to point out. And this out­let, I must say, has been the most ther­a­peu­tic for me.

After much encour­age­ment from my ther­a­pist, I sought out sup­port from online com­mu­ni­ties. I started out by read­ing mes­sage boards and even­tu­ally sought out per­sonal blogs. From there, I stum­bled onto Mel’s list and found an entire blo­gos­phere of peo­ple that I sud­denly felt I could relate to.

Sud­denly I wanted to share my story. I wanted oth­ers to know what *I* had gone through in my jour­ney. And, because there wasn’t enough rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the Asian-​​American/​Filipino-​​American com­mu­nity, I wanted to let those Infer­tile individuals/​couples know that they weren’t alone.

And, as the Asian-​​American cul­ture typ­i­cally simul­ta­ne­ously praises Moth­er­hood and yet frowns upon dis­cus­sions lead­ing up to Moth­er­hood, *I* wanted to have an out­let for where I can point other fam­ily mem­bers and friends to read when the inevitable, “What? You don’t want kids?” ques­tions came up.

The sup­port I’ve received from the three years I’ve now been writ­ing on this blog have been over­whelm­ing. Not only have I met the most incred­i­ble peo­ple who get me (and under­stand my wacky sense of humor), but I’ve found sup­port in old friends and fam­ily that I might never have found any other way.

So yes … if any­thing, I encour­age writ­ing a blog as an out­let for your Infer­til­ity issues. I encour­age you to write about your strug­gles, your emo­tions … your biggest fears and worst night­mares and post it for the world to see. I encour­age you to be hon­est, as well.

But most impor­tantly, I encour­age adver­tis­ing it to your friends and fam­ily. Because we all know that keep­ing secrets from your loved ones (whether big or small) can ulti­mately be frus­trat­ing and tir­ing for all involved.

So why not let the secret out?

*****

I write this to let other Infer­tile cou­ples know that they do not have to suf­fer through these strug­gles alone.

I write this to encour­age other Infer­tiles to talk about their expe­ri­ences to others.

And I write this to ensure that those now-​​parents – those who suf­fered through Infer­til­ity on their way to par­ent­hood – con­tinue to share their strug­gles of Infer­til­ity … regard­less of how busy their lives may be, now that they have children.**

I write this to make sure that Infer­til­ity no longer remains a secret.

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Related Posts:

A brief his­tory of Emily’s Infer­til­ity Journey

When Emily decided enough was enough

Why Emily blogs for Infer­tile Asian/​Filipino-​​Americans

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** This was the only beef I had about the SELF arti­cle. For all that it said about the impor­tance of “let­ting the secret out,” the last sen­tence in the arti­cle is what soured me the most:

Work­ing behind the scenes [of sup­port­ing the Infer­til­ity com­mu­nity] is one option, but [Lisa] says, ‘I’m sure my vol­un­teer efforts will be for schools or parks. Once I have twins, I’ll have a lot less free time.”

Hind­sight is always ²⁰⁄₂₀

You are missed every sin­gle day.

And just a reminder … this week is National Infer­til­ity Aware­ness Week:

I have to admit. I’ve had lit­tle time to blog lately. Plus there really hasn’t been any excit­ing news or any­thing wor­thy I’ve felt I’ve needed to say. Which is what makes “step­ping out” of my blog silence this week espe­cially important.

Yes peo­ple, it is National Infer­til­ity Aware­ness Week (NIAW) again. This year the theme is “Don’t Ignore Infertility.”

I’ve writ­ten about my infer­til­ity jour­ney so many times that it feels like I’m a bro­ken record. And since I haven’t had time to write … I think the best way I can cel­e­brate this week is to re-​​post some of my older posts that fol­low this year’s theme.

I hope you enjoy these “oldies but goodies” …

So here’s my first one … Iron­i­cally one writ­ten back in 2010 when RESOLVE began their cam­paign to stop infer­til­ity unaware­ness. (Orig­i­nal link can be found here.)

******

If you have a moment, please watch the video below and then click over to the RESOLVE web­site to read about what you can do to raise aware­ness about Infertility.

Here you should be able to find the link to the SELF Mag­a­zine arti­cle that I talked about in my pre­vi­ous post.

As a per­son who is liv­ing Child-​​Free after Infer­til­ity, I think it’s extremely impor­tant for both the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion and the Infer­til­ity Com­mu­nity to be aware that Infer­til­ity is a dis­ease that can­not be sim­ply “cured” by Assisted Repro­duc­tive Ther­apy (ART), preg­nancy or adoption.

Infer­til­ity is a dis­ease that affects the liveli­hood of 1 in 8 Amer­i­can cou­ples. And most of all, not all Infer­til­ity sto­ries are are suc­cess stories.

Regard­less, I believe that every Infer­tile — includ­ing for­mer Infer­tiles (those who have now become parents) — should voice their strug­gles (or past strug­gles) to oth­ers. The only way for Infer­til­ity to have a VOICE is to speak about it, loudly & proudly.

We should not be ashamed of what we’ve been through. We should no longer hold our strug­gles and emo­tional pain internally.

We should no longer keep our Infer­til­ity a secret …

So while you’re on the RESOLVE web­site, I also encour­age you to take the pledge.

*****

And now a mes­sage from the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of RESOLVE