Infertility Has Long-Term Emotional Impacts
Having a baby doesn’t erase years of struggle.
It’s a really hard journey, physically and mentally. Nobody really understands unless you have gone through it. So many doctors, so much false hope. People want to be asked about it. Talking helps, but I feel it is still a bit taboo. When you are in it, you feel like it will never end. — Lindsey, reflecting on her journey with infertility.
Trying to get pregnant (or TTGP as it’s called in the online world of fertility) typically begins with an optimistic outlook. You do the deed, you wait a few weeks, you pee on a stick (POAS)… You think: I will certainly see a positive test when I POAS this month. The excitement heightens as you wait for those two lines to appear. Three minutes of waiting and I will get to celebrate, you think.
Except, for many women, it doesn’t work that way at all. And then for an even smaller number of women, this cycle of disappointment lasts three months, six months, twelve months …
“It’s just such a personal journey that it can be hard sometimes to relate to others who have infertility treatments let alone someone who hasn’t… People say they know how personal the journey is, but it really only scratches the surface.” — Jessica
Infertility
Infertility is “characterized by the failure to establish a clinical pregnancy after twelve months of regular, unprotected sexual intercourse or due to an impairment of a person’s capacity to reproduce either as an individual or with his/her partner. Fertility interventions may be initiated in less than one year based on medical, sexual and reproductive history, age, physical findings and diagnostic testing.” (Resolve.com)
To think of oneself as ‘infertile’ is a slap in the face.
It is such a barren term with no wiggle room. When you’ve been diagnosed as ‘infertile,’ what it really means is that there are medical interventions that can be explored in the hopes of achieving and maintaining pregnancy. The term ‘infertile’ can be quite misleading for that reason. Either way, it stings.
