Perhaps one of the most difficult things for friends or family of an infertile person to understand is the wide variance of moods that they might encounter in their infertile friend or family member. How is it that one day they seem perfectly fine and and can chat about so and so's new baby and the following time you see them, they are a vulnerable hyper-sensitised mess in front of whom you must censor your every utterance for fear of offending or upsetting them?
Us infertile women are sometimes perceived as uptight, neurotic, kill-joys, depressive basketcases etc. and if I were not one of them I would probably not have a lot of time for them. I would think, "ok - you can't have a baby, but it is not the end of the world, so adopt and get over it..." If only it were that easy and there was not so much grief anchoring you to the bottom of the sea.
I once tried to explain it to one of my oldest girlfriends, who was no doubt perplexed by my emotional reaction to an email (I was trying to explain to her why it upset me so much when she sent me a scan of her pregnancy ultrasound):
"I have been having a particularly bad week - a girlfriend who was staying at our home whilst I was injecting for IVF no. 5 just included me on a group email birth announcement with a photo of her newborn baby girl and that made me cry and cry- so I wrote to her and told her I thought it was insensitive to do that when she knew DH and I had just had our 5th failed IVF cycle and that we had previously lost 3 pregnancies- she wrote back to me to say sorry she had 'hurt my feelings' but obviously still just didn't get it - it was like she was saying, I am sorry you are emotional and unreasonable and that she could not or would not say sorry for being thoughtless or insenstive. She could have sent a personal email to me telling me her news and not included the photograph - which was so raw....
Just so you are aware, DH and I are both hypersensitive at this stage - we have no hope left of ever having our own genetic child, so we are in as bad a place as we can be really.... the ultrasound picture [you sent] .........struck at me in a painful way because I had seen two of my babies heartbeats in the first ultrasounds (and felt the excitement that you were trying to convey to me) and then on the second visit they were dead, so the ultrasound was the way that their deaths was broken to us. I still feel sick when I see pregnant women being ultrasounded on TV for documentaries etc. .....
No matter how much someone else has struggled to conceive (and how happy you are for them because of that fact) it still hurts to always feel like the failure and also to be mourning your babies that were never born. ....DH's and my family have expressed their anger/frustration with us by saying they never know what will upset or offend us and that they feel like they cannot do or say anything right. The best answer to this is to say; infertile couples will have good and bad periods or even days - some days, couples are just about to enter a new IVF cycle and feel full of hope and expectation so that when they hold a baby or congratulate a couple they genuinely feel happy and excited and tell themselves 'this will be us soon'. But then things don't work out on the next cycle and you both feel angry and full of despair. Every smug photo or birth announcement or insensitive comment stings. It is always hard for us to hold a newborn baby or see photos or deal with announcements, but somedays it is easier or harder, depending on what is going on in our, seemingly, neverending journey to become parents. "
I have been upset by my sister posting photos of her pregnant friends on her Facebook site (she does portrait photography from time to time and has done alot of pregnant mothers/new born sessions), by group birth announcements attaching photos of new borns and euphoric looking mothers in the radiant hours post birth (such raw arrows, these photos are...), by pregnant friends and newborn mothers complaining how tired they are or how 'lucky' DH and I are to have so much spare time to ourselves and not to have to worry about babysitters.
After many years of battling miscarriage and infertility, I have to give family and friends credit and say for the most part they are very supportive and sensitive; those that still make painful statements in front of us for the most part, are either not part of our loyal circle of friends/family or emotionally retarded and/or really don't care about us at all.
I offer the following advice:
- don't make a face to face pregnancy announcement - send a text or email so a couple have time to process the news and can congratulate the expectant couple in their own time
- do ask an infertile couple to things like birthday parties and christenings (not asking increases feelings of isolation and being excluded from 'normal life'), give them plenty of notice but don't expect them to attend or be offended if the couple feel they are not up to it that day - they could be having a bad day and want to insulate themselves - let the couple know it is ok they don't attend
- don't email photos of newborns or give infertile couples birth announcements with photos of newborns or drop around to an infertile couple's house unannounced with a newborn baby. Even where couples with a new baby have had to struggle themselves to conceive that baby, it is still painful for the infertile couple, left behind yet again, to witness such a pregnancy/birth. A couple who was once one of them, has crossed over and become part of the lucky gang.
- don't complain about your pregnancy, babies or children or how tired you are in front of infertile couples - remember a woman may have to inject 40 needles for two weeks just for a 5% chance of becoming pregnant (leaving aside miscarriage risk) on IVF. You can complain about day to day childrearing/challenges to your other fertile friends. Don't expect your infertile friends who are desperate and would do anything to become parents to sympathise with you.
Example of Bad Days
Just so you are aware, DH and I are both hypersensitive at this stage - we have no hope left of ever having our own genetic child, so we are in as bad a place as we can be really.... the ultrasound picture [you sent] .........struck at me in a painful way because I had seen two of my babies heartbeats in the first ultrasounds (and felt the excitement that you were trying to convey to me) and then on the second visit they were dead, so the ultrasound was the way that their deaths was broken to us. I still feel sick when I see pregnant women being ultrasounded on TV for documentaries etc. .....
No matter how much someone else has struggled to conceive (and how happy you are for them because of that fact) it still hurts to always feel like the failure and also to be mourning your babies that were never born. ....DH's and my family have expressed their anger/frustration with us by saying they never know what will upset or offend us and that they feel like they cannot do or say anything right. The best answer to this is to say; infertile couples will have good and bad periods or even days - some days, couples are just about to enter a new IVF cycle and feel full of hope and expectation so that when they hold a baby or congratulate a couple they genuinely feel happy and excited and tell themselves 'this will be us soon'. But then things don't work out on the next cycle and you both feel angry and full of despair. Every smug photo or birth announcement or insensitive comment stings. It is always hard for us to hold a newborn baby or see photos or deal with announcements, but somedays it is easier or harder, depending on what is going on in our, seemingly, neverending journey to become parents. "
I have been upset by my sister posting photos of her pregnant friends on her Facebook site (she does portrait photography from time to time and has done alot of pregnant mothers/new born sessions), by group birth announcements attaching photos of new borns and euphoric looking mothers in the radiant hours post birth (such raw arrows, these photos are...), by pregnant friends and newborn mothers complaining how tired they are or how 'lucky' DH and I are to have so much spare time to ourselves and not to have to worry about babysitters.
After many years of battling miscarriage and infertility, I have to give family and friends credit and say for the most part they are very supportive and sensitive; those that still make painful statements in front of us for the most part, are either not part of our loyal circle of friends/family or emotionally retarded and/or really don't care about us at all.
I offer the following advice:
- don't make a face to face pregnancy announcement - send a text or email so a couple have time to process the news and can congratulate the expectant couple in their own time
- do ask an infertile couple to things like birthday parties and christenings (not asking increases feelings of isolation and being excluded from 'normal life'), give them plenty of notice but don't expect them to attend or be offended if the couple feel they are not up to it that day - they could be having a bad day and want to insulate themselves - let the couple know it is ok they don't attend
- don't email photos of newborns or give infertile couples birth announcements with photos of newborns or drop around to an infertile couple's house unannounced with a newborn baby. Even where couples with a new baby have had to struggle themselves to conceive that baby, it is still painful for the infertile couple, left behind yet again, to witness such a pregnancy/birth. A couple who was once one of them, has crossed over and become part of the lucky gang.
- don't complain about your pregnancy, babies or children or how tired you are in front of infertile couples - remember a woman may have to inject 40 needles for two weeks just for a 5% chance of becoming pregnant (leaving aside miscarriage risk) on IVF. You can complain about day to day childrearing/challenges to your other fertile friends. Don't expect your infertile friends who are desperate and would do anything to become parents to sympathise with you.
Example of Bad Days
The day I compulsively read of Sydney woman, Kelli Lane, being found guilty of murdering her newborn daughter, Tegan Lane...see http://www.smh.com.au/national/keli-lanes-problem-child-20101213-18vhu.html She kept falling pregnant over and over and adopted two of her babies but was found guilty of murdering a third. I puzzle over the lengths I have gone to just to get pregnant and wonder how she could kill her own child. I don't judge her; really - I don't. I understand that infanticide is a complex and tragic area. It is just the unfairness that strikes at me. Why did she have to go through all that stress, trauma, the ruination of her life and she never wanted a baby.....when I so desperately do?
Another day I was going to a client meeting at Inchicore in Dublin and the taxi I was in on route stopped at a red light on the main street. A young mother was abusively yelling obscenities at her young child on the pavement, whilst the car idled waiting for the lights to turn green; the child must not have been any old than 24 months. He had made a break for freedom, dashed away from her and incurred her invective. It was not just me that felt the cruelty and pain of the abuse she was hurling at her little boy. The taxi driver muttered under his breath; I made out the words, "disgrace" and "jaysus, only a little child....". I felt an overwhelming desire to hurl open the door, pull the little boy inside and steal him away from a lifetime of misery. But I stared ahead. The lights turned green and I went on to my client meeting.
Another hard day; receiving news from Australia after being offered to parent a child of a friend of a friend, who fell pregnant unexpectedly as a single woman and did not want to become a mother. Through no fault of her own, my friend's friend has had a hard life; she is a sweet, lovely, warm hearted, if slightly damaged woman. She apparently felt whilst she was pregnant that she was not up to parenting her baby daughterbut did not want to place her with strangers on her birth. She offered through our mutual friend to give her baby to us to raise. For obvious reasons this could not work under Irish/Australian law. Private adoption is outlawed in Australia and our friend's friend could only appoint us 'guardian' once the baby was born, because we live in Ireland. As guardians only, it would be hard to obtain for the baby any visa/legal entitlement to live with us in Ireland and at any time, the baby's mother, our friend's friend could ask us to relinquish the care of her baby back to her..... I spent many weeks trying to work out a way for this to work....but it just couldn't. A few months later our friend's friend had her baby daughter and decided to keep her. Not long afterwards, the baby was officially taken into care by the State. Our friend's friend had not been properly feeding or caring for her daughter and child welfare services arranged for her to be placed in foster care. I cried when I heard the news.
Examples of Good Days
A girlfriend from high school, whom I have not seen for about 15 years getting in touch with me via Facebook and through a friend telling her of my attempts to become a mother, offers, completely unsolicited, out of the blue to be a surrogate for my husband and I. Wow. Very humbling.
A dear Australian friend, whom I met in Dublin, emailing and saying, "I am really very proud of you and [DH] of all you're going through to have a baby, I know it must get you down all the time and you are both amazing to explore all options and to maintain your strong relationship and sense of selves also. I think about you guys a lot and know how much love you have for a baby and how great parents you would be....."
You know that is the first time that any friend or family of ours has said they are proud of us? I cried when I read my friend's email and thank her for it. It is deeply loving thing to say (my father allued to it once, when he said, "you are made of tough stuff..", an admiring tone in his voice). Take note you friends and family of infertile people! People tell infertile couples they need to toughen up, to give up, to try harder, to wake up and smell the coffee, stop feeling sorry for themselves, stop throwing good money after bad, that they were silly to be taken in by that clinic or that doctor, that some people weren't meant for parenthood, they maybe they should 'relax' or that they should adopt... Next time you are looking for something to say, what about "I support you no matter what you decide is the next course fof action for you both" OR "I am proud of your tenacity, strength and determination to become parents..."
Another lovely friend [and her husband], who went through their own unique and challenging journey on the path to parenthood, emailed me to offer to swap her place/number in the adoption approval queue in Ireland; so that DH and I might get moved through the bureaucracy more quickly.....
Dearest Amelia, I know I am late in saying this but please know darling that I too am proud of you. I've said in the past that you have lived your life like a litmus test of truth, always uttering only what is truthful and real and getting little thanks for it. Your search for, and refusal to accept anything but, the truth in your life and in your infertility journey, is an admirable quality. I too am proud of your courage, your resolve, your lack of self pity, your humour, your refusal to let this beat you and, above all, perhaps, your honesty about the pain of this horrible journey. I am on high alert after reading the paragraph towards the end where you talk about things people say to infertile couples. I am truly sorry if any of those things have been said to you. They were wrong and should be asking for forgiveness. With love always Nora xxx
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