Information for whānau and friends

Well-meaning advice

When someone we care about has a problem, it is natural to try to help in whatever way we can. If there is nothing specific we can do, then often we try to give helpful advice.

Don’t feel that you need to ‘fix’ things for them. You can’t. The pain of infertility will not magically disappear. Just being there when they ask you, will be comforting. Allow them to be sad and upset when they need to be.

For some, the loss of fertility is the ultimate loss of control

Infertility means losing control of your reproductive future. It may mean organising your body and life around a series of investigations and treatment cycles. This means exposing a very personal and private part of one’s life to a group of people in an infertility clinic; it may mean being instructed when to have sex and when not to; and it may mean having to celebrate news of others’ pregnancies. The future becomes uncertain; it can become difficult to plan careers when there is always the hope of a pregnancy in the near future. Travel plans may also have to fit in around treatment; and indeed the need for a break or holiday may have to be balanced against the need to pay for treatment or investigations.

This loss of control may manifest itself in many ways, including anger which may be directed at friends and family.

"I will never ask someone when they are having kids because they might be trying. They might have spent Saturday morning lined up in the freezing cold waiting for the blood testing lab to open so that they can get their blood drawn before 9am. They might have just avoided the baby aisle of the supermarket so that they didn’t have to look at the cute babies on the packets of nappies. They might have just declined an invitation to yet another baby shower because they can’t slap on a smile that day."

Excerpt from Taryn's story

The journey through infertility is like a rollercoaster

The waiting game each month is often peppered with spurts of optimism followed by pessimism. It is an emotional roller coaster; with the rollercoaster hitting the high – only to be followed by a crash at the bottom when another period arrives or the treatment fails or the hoped for adoption doesn’t happen. Some fertility medications can also affect moods.

Infertility is a most distressing and disabling life event

The loss of one’s fertility and the dream of a family is similar to the death of a loved one, except that there is nothing tangible to mourn the loss of. We live in a world in which most people fulfil this dream, so infertile people are constantly surrounded by images of children and families, painful reminders of what they yearn for. Friends and family are often having babies at the time when they are struggling with the realisation that they have a fertility problem.