Today I want to talk about Resolve. We've had plenty of conversations about it here on the blog before as we went over my resolutions for the past couple of years. But this kind of Resolve is different. It is more serious than the flippant resolutions we make one day of the year and for some us even forget about before the month is over with.
I'm talking about Resolve.org the website and in turn infertility.
Today starts NIAW week. Which stands for National Infertility Awareness Week.
Infertility affects 1 in 8 couples across the world and it is often times a soul crushing diagnosis for which there is no quick or easy fix. The clinical breakdown of infertility is this, 1 year of trying to conceive if you're under 35 or six months if you're over that benchmark. What that doesn't even began to describe is all the emotions that go with such a diagnosis or the months and years that follow without a resolution.
It has been said that for some people hearing the diagnosis of infertility is akin to hearing a diagnosis of cancer; for me it wasn't quite so severe. For you see my husband and I are 1 in 8.
For some reason talking about infertility is almost taboo. It makes it feel like you're going through the struggle alone and alienated. It doesn't have to be like that and with numbers like 1 in 8 you can bet you know someone who has struggled with infertility in the past or who is currently silently struggling.
The struggle is oftentimes exacerbated by well meaning friends and family who say the wrong things at the wrong time. A couple of highlights or lowlights if you wanna look at it that way from this list are as follows:
- "Just Relax"
Infertility is a diagnosable condition/disease. You would not tell a diabetes patient to relax as the only way to control their blood sugar or cancer patient to relax and their disease will magically go away. So don't say this to a couple with Infertility. Relaxing will not magically make it go away. More often than not it will take 100's if not 1,000's of dollars and an incredible amount of medical visits to come to a positive resolution. - "Just Adopt" or "My mother/uncle/cousin twice removed knew this one couple who adopted and then got pregnant..."Adoption is not the cakewalk that the general populace perceives it to be. It is expensive and emotionally draining. The average cost is anywhere from 5,000 to 35,000. The average wait for a baby is 16 months. The average adoptive couple will experience at least one failed match which can mean that you take a baby home love it as your own child for two weeks and then the birthmother changes her mind and takes the baby back. Yes, this happens more than you know and it is perfectly legal. The average foster-to-adopt parent will go through a 100 placements or more before they are given their forever child. Adoption though a wonderful process is not for the faint of heart. And as for the second comment once you commit to adoption wholeheartedly, you've shut the door on biological children and this outcome could be potentially very upsetting.
- "Maybe you aren't meant to parents" or "Maybe its not in God's plan for you"
You may not realize it but this is an incredibly cruel and hurtful thing to say. It offers no comfort whatsoever. Every day infertile couples hear about parents who abuse their children, who do drugs, who can't provide for them or simply don't want the responsibility. And here you are saying that the divine sees them as better parents than we would be. Just don't say it. - "Oh my god I hate being pregnant" "I can't wait til this is over with" or any variation thereof.
Do not complain about pregnancy or parenthood to an infertile. Don't do it. There are plenty of people you can complain to about it but not your infertile friends and family. We know pregnancy is not a cakewalk, we know its uncomfortable, but most infertile couples would kill to have the opportunity to have what you're taking forgranted. Many infertile women deal with the bloat, the nausea, and emotional disarray from the hormones they willing, and painfully I might add, inject night after night during a treatment cycle just for a chance to have a child. - "You should do IVF"
Invitro fertilization treatment is a miracle of modern science, but it isn't for everyone. Some couples have religious qualms about the procedure. IVF is painful. It is emotionally draining. It is exorbitantly expensive. It is time consuming. And its not a sure thing. One single conventional IVF cycle is in the range of 15,000 to 17,000 dollars. The success rate is slightly less than 50%. Would you bet fifteen thousand dollars on a coin toss? Sure it would be worth it in the end if you were successful, but if you weren't...
Infertility affects more people than you realize. And it affects more facets of an infertile couples life than you realize. Sometimes its not just about having a baby. It's about having a family, passing on traditions and histories, like waking up early to put those easter baskets out for your children, or putting gifts under the tree in the middle of the night in the guise of Santa, reading the bedtime story you yourself loved as a child, telling that story about the time grandma or great grandma did...whatever. Looking into a child's face and seeing a grand mixture of yourself and your spouse reflected back at you. Or when you grow older and your own parents are gone, and god forbid one day your spouse, without children what becomes of your family. Who will you have sunday dinners with, who will help you blow out those birthday candles, who will put presents under the tree, who will remember you at all? The loss is sometimes unfathomable.
So for this week I'm standing up for all those who have been affected by Infertility. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are not broken. and most importantly You are not alone.
