There seems to be an abyss of misunderstanding between those, who conceive naturally, often without plan or wanting and those who struggle for years and endure endless painful and expensive procedures to become parents. Friends stop seeing each other, others suffer at work seeing someone else being pregnant and happy about it. The social media are full of sentences one should avoid saying, questions one should avoid asking or even looks, messages, referencrs to adoption, age, career, etc. All these don’ts are in complete contradiction with tens of thousands of profiles of those trying to conceive complaining about solitude, suffering in silence and isolation. However, they are completely impossible to understand when looking at the effort of many patient and professional associations (no, they are not the same) trying their best to raise awareness for the topic of difficulties in conceiving or infertility, which by the way still lacks a good definition everyone would understand. Having spent most of my professional life among women in their reproductive age with fertility issues, we can definitely confirm that the amount of knowledge in all age groups we follow in the in-fertility network (students, nurses, paramedics with jobs related to fertility, average population and those ttc) in relation to basic biology, fertility, its signs and risks, is unfortunately decreasing and not the other way around. This despite the fact that most of those interviewed by us had a smartphone in their hand or bag. Back to the conversation between the two groups we have mentioned before. The mothers and the “dwtb” mothers or the others… Wanting a child badly and getting a BFN each month is a tough burden. Nobody knows how much it weights. But it can be as heavy as an anchor pulling and holding you down to the endless black bottom. At least for a day. A week, a month. We are all different. But with love and understanding, burdens can be lifted. Carried together. Made lighter. Love has this healing power and it mostly comes in words or a hug. Talk about it. When you feel like it. Be sensitive. Both of you, the one trying as well as the one trying to help. It is always a good idea to ask if it is fine to talk. In most cases, talking from over 20 years of experience, it is. With love. Not trying to solve the unsolvable (in that bar on that night), perhaps not even trying to advice. But to talk. Open the door for all the important and elegible feelings, such as pain, sadness, stress, anger, despair, chaos, dissapointment, expectations, anxiety, fear or dilemma. They are part of our lives and we cope with them much better once we understand them and know why we have them and how they should be dealt with. But releasing them, admitting, which one can do so well while talking to a true friend or the loved one, or sometimes to a complete stranger you know you will never meet again, is the very beginning.
We are all different. Individuals. But we all have feelings and wish to be happy. With a lighter burden. Suffering in silence won’t help.