What is acceptable normal conversation?
“Well are you dating anyone?”
“When are you getting married?”
“No pitter patter of tiny feet yet?”
Many of my clients have had years of fielding that last question with
” Oh yes someday”
Just a little laugh and a change of subject or the tilt of a head, a small smile and the answering question” Why do you ask?”
How do friends respond?
Sometimes friends and family are told about the fertility problems. Sometimes they are not.
It is in our nature to offer opinion and advice. To aim to make others feel better and sometimes to show our knowledge on a subject.
“Just relax and it will happen”
” Oh well you can always adopt”
“I thought you didn’t want kids, that you were focused on your career”
What to say?
Over the years I have come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to handle being told by a friend or family member that they are having fertility difficulties is to listen carefully to what you are being told and what they want from you.Ask if you can help in any way and if in doubt just admit that you don’t know what to say to make things better but you are there if they need you for anything.
Why wasn’t I told?
If you find out in later years that a friend or family member didn’t confide in you please do not be offended.
The fertility journey is all consuming, filled with doctors, tests, diets, restrictions in caffeine and alcohol, drugs, side effects and a total emotional roller coaster and can seem to be all that is talked about.
It can be incredibly therapeutic to go out with a friend and talk about everything else. To have a giggle over frivolous subjects, to listen to someone else’s problems and for a while be that light hearted person that had gotten lost for a while.
Everyone journeys through fertility issues in their own way. There is no right or wrong, just what’s right for those individuals in that moment in time.
