to wish people wouldn't tell women who are ttc to "relax and it might happen naturally/I know so many people who gave up and then fell pregnant"?

[wannaBe]

Because if it really was that simple then there would be no infertility treatment/no need to spend years and years trying for a baby you cannot have.

I do realize that people are trying to be helpful.

But I do also think that it gives a lot of false hope to people where there is none.

Because while there are of course women who forget about ttc and end up falling pregnant naturally, there are a lot more who don't.

because it is soothing and meaningless but lets them feel they are being supportive.

Like when childless friends meet a newborn and say 'Is he good?'.
It's not because they care, or think he should be sleeping through or anything, it's because they can't say 'So, how's your fanjo after that?'

Also it is their subtle way of saying 'are you having enough sex?'

Agreed, yanbu.

I'm extremely lucky and fell pregnant the first month, but a close friend has been trying now for 3 years and it's so painful

I think that it can also sound quite accusatory (although this is obv not how it's meant!) to someone who's been trying for a long time to concieve. Like, if they stopped trying and wanting it so badly, they might get it

hmmm I dunnow.

I know that it is well-meant. I also know that these things do happen and that women do fall pregnant naturally after years of ttc.

But I also know that when ttc you will cling to any possibility, and that if you reach the end of any intervention and have to give up, if someone says that by giving up ttc you will probably fall pregnant naturally is something that will give you hope where there probably is none. I know that when I actively stopped ttc about two years ago I did deep down wonder if it would just happen now that i wasnt thinking about it so much any more.

But I've just read on another thread where a poster who has had multiple miscarriage, and people have been telling her to relax and that maybe it will all happen naturally for her.

Not as bad as asking if they're doing it properly. I heard both comments many times in the three years we tried and it upset me a lot.

Oh good grief.

I got this ttc dc2.

Funnily enough, as soon as we'd been for tests and had been told we were unlikely to conceive without IVF with ICSE, to which we shrugged our shoulders and said 'ok we accept no more babies then' (no money or heart for fertility treatment), we did. Conceive that is. Twice. In each occasion having had sex just once in the month. And second time around I was 39, was still bf, had polycystic ovaries and endometriosis.

Nowt to do with 'relaxing'. Everything to do with sheer good luck. I feel like I won the lottery twice.

it is difficult to know what to say to ppl who are having trouble concieving, and that is the standard responce.
its the same as saying you are "so sorry" when you find out a friends relative has died.

people say it for a lack of knowing what else to say, they are trying to be helpful.

so you YABU for being ungrateful that they care enough to do more than ignore the situation. which is what most ppl do in my experiance.

YANBU YANBU YANBU

I so agree. I have not had problems with fertility (yet), but know people who have, and have read around the subject.

PLEASE don't tell ttc-ers to relax, or about your friends cleaners niece who adopted and them 'bam! she ws pregnant', or how you'll conceive if you go an holiday (for one thing they then feel obliged to reply politely to your stupid comment that they've heard 1000x before) All you need to say is 'I'm sorry to hear that, I hope it works out for you'.

IF someone you know has just had their third m/c, all you need to say 'I'm so sorry, that's awful'. Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed how many people say things about 'not meant to be', 'must have been something wrong with the baby' and other such bollocks.

By the way, they've done studies in the US, and guess what? Infertile/Subfertile women who start the adoption process/go on holiday/get drunk etc are not more likeky to fall pregnant than their 'less relaxed' peers!

YANBU. I'm sure that people say these things because they feel dreadful and want to help. So we should be educating people that it is a really hurtful thing to say! The subtext is "you're not pregnant because you are a neurotic loon", whether that is meant or not.

So I completely agree with charitygirl. There is a standard and appropriate response and it's "I'm so sorry".

Bless them, we had a lot of these from family when we admitted that we were infertile. It made me very glad that we had kept it very quiet for the rest of the world at large.

yabu It is just people trying to be nice, same way people sy to me"let me know if there is anything I can do" when they hear about my dad....what would they be able to do? they say it to be nice.

When I ask if there's anything that I can do, I mean it. Could we do the grocery shopping, go to the bank, look after other DCs, that kind of thing? To take a burden off the person going through the trauma.

Also, and I KNOW this isn't how it's meant, but the 'adopt, and you'll get pregnant' thing doubly rubs me up the wrong way because it suggests that you should go and adopt a child in order to get the 'prize' of a biological child.

Plus of course, adopting is very often an enormously lengthy and stressful procedure which should not be entered into lightly, and which certainly won't help you relax..!

It's not done with any malice, I'm sure. Sometimes people genuinely don't know what to say, and say the first thing that comes into their heads.

That's the thing isn't it? We're not all saying "yes, those people are really horrible", we're saying instead that we wish that people wouldn't say these things because they do hurt.

YABU. I know how infuriating and upsetting a thing it has to say since having 2 close friends ttc for years (and eventually give up and come to terms with the idea of not having children).

But... before having close experience of the agonies of ttc, it is exactly the sort of thing I would have said. I'd have meant well. I'd have been horrified to find out I was adding to the upset, not helping.

I sometimes wonder what else in my life I blythly say without having a clue that my innocuous little witterings are actually offending someone.

Asking if there is 'anything I can do', which, like Mrs TM, I genuinely mean, is very different to implying that someone (who has probably read everything there is to read about ttc, maybe been for medical treatment etc) might be able to conceive if they just went out for a nice meal, or booked a week in the Canaries!

Plus, 'the anything I can do' question only requires a 'Thanks so much, no'. The 'relax' comment requires the poor ttc-er to

a) stifle her rage at the fact her friends are moronic enough to believe that relaxation could improve her DP's sperm quality/cure her endometriosis/stop her uterus resisting implantation etc
b) think of a polite response that doesn't offend the well-meaning questioner
c) try not to read into it that she is a uptight neurotic who has let ttc-ing take over her entire life.
d) go off and have a little weep

I know I'm going on, but i just don't think your example is at all the same.

You are DEFINITELY not being unreasonable! You're very very right to be annoyed by such comments.

2shoes & Natty: saying to someone who is struggling to conceive that they need to relax & it'll happen is NOTHING like saying 'I'm really sorry' or 'is there anything I can do to help' and it's certainly a very hurtful thing to say & has nothing to do with trying to be nice, but lots of do with ignorance. Often people don't really care to listen to people's struggles with TTC and/or infertility, & say these banalities just because they don't take the time to think things through. If they did think them through they would very quickly realize that telling someone to relax (as if anyone can relax just because they decide to! but that's another story) is hurtful & ignorant & shows no understanding of the medical side of such problems. By the way, women who go through IVF are extremely stressed (usually) throughout the process... and yet IVF has very good success rates. This clearly shows that once the medical problem is resolved e.g. with IVF then conception is very likely (not definite... but likely). The idea that all couples who conceive easily & quickly do so because they're somehow more 'relaxed' is ludicrous. Infertility has nothing to do with relaxation. If being stressed could create infertility then the human race wouldn't really have survived all these years. Things about all those who desperately DON'T want to get pregnant & are completely unrelaxed about the whole thing... and yet they do. Anyway. I can go on with similar arguments, the thing is this issue really irritates me.

Oh and by the way, Charitygirl, you're very right, there are indeed studies that clearly show that adoption and / or having succeeded at IVF or 'giving up' do not lead to a natural pregnancy. This is a complete & utter myth, and one of the most annoying ones.

What Charitygirl says.
I have only just realised that it is only through really being 'in' an experience do you begin to understand it-and that applies to any sort of difficulty/tragedy or indeed happy event. It is then you also look back and cringe at the rather thoughtless/mindless things you have said yourself.

When you are raw, every 'wrong' thing said sticks to you so painfully; it becomes engraved to the point where you can fear talking to people in case they say the wrong thing-it is way of protecting yourself.

My mother in law stayed wisely very quiet, but loving and caring and supportive throughout our own trauma. She explained that after living through her own difficulties (cancer in her case), she knew that sometimes it was so much better to just be loving and careful and practical and say very little to those who are grieving or sad. The whole 'it was meant to be' concept is, imo, a really dangerous premise and wholly uncomfortable. Just because things occur does not mean they a re 'meant to be' and hence somehow deserved.

I disagree Princeonthemove with some of what you say, although I do agree with your main point of view. Why do you have to be 'in' an experience in order to be able to listen, to try to understand, to empathize? I do agree & understand that people often make thoughtless comments. But saying to someone struggling with infertility to relax & it'll happen has nothing to do with trying to be nice. It's just thoughtless, naive & hurtful. As for being raw & every thing sticking to you painfully... again, I disagree. I think people going through infertility have every right to expect care & good listening skills from those they consider friends. What your MIL says is very right... being loving, careful, practical, & saying very little (e.g. advice) is a very good way to put it. And yes, the 'meant to be' argument is also very very dangerous. Imagine a cancer patient going through treatment being told it's 'meant to be' that he/she is ill...

I saw that thread too Wannabe and it made me feel uncomfortable.

I suppose I meant that it is only through maturity and exposure to certain experiences that you develop the skills of empathy and understanding. Most of the supremely daft and wittless things I have heard have come from people who just churn out platitudes without thinking, because they have not been exposed to it themselves. I guess it is a living and learning and sagacity issue.

'I think people going through infertility have every right to expect care & good listening skills from those they consider friends.'

Of course they do- but even friends can get it wrong, and in this age of pop=psychology and an unwelcome amount of over-intimacy, we can find ourselves at the mercy of everybody's opinion; people who aren't are friends but who are in our lives. People we work with, people on the edge of our social circle. These are the people who are in a way hardest to avoid and who can end up saying the worst things to us.

sorry OP-i forgot to say yanbu!

it is SOOOOOO not helpful to have people say 'it will happen' or 'relax', SOOOOOOO not helpful.

Do these people think that they have suddenly hit upon a suggestion that no one else has ever made when they bang on about relaxing?

on one level I don't see anything wrong with telling people to try to relax, although I do realize that that's easier said than done.

Ttc can be an immensely stressful experience, and it can take over your life to the exclusion of everything else. So it is not unreasonable to suggest someone try to relax, because often relaxing about it can help you rediscover parts of your life you've lost sight of since ttc took over.

But while the "relax" comment is of course well intentioned and is often valid, the implication that it will happen if you relax is not, because it implies that the reason you are not able to conceive is that you are not relaxed enough about it, and for most women that is simply not true.

I do agree that for women who have been ttc for five minutes and wwho are already getting stressed about it not happening, chances are that it will happen and they need to try to relax because if it does take longer they're already setting themselves up for a stressful time. But for someone who has been ttc for years there is generally a medical reason why they are not falling pg, and their state of relaxation has nothing to do with it.

YANBU at all. This used to drive me insane when we were struggling to conceive. I have something concrete that stops me from getting pregnant without assistance and the number of time I heard 'oh just relax and it will happen'. You would not say to someone whose had had half of their leg amputated and was trying to learn to walk again 'oh relax and you'll be sprinting for the bus before you know it'. Drives me inane.

Sorry for rubbish typos and spelling.

YANB at all U. I got this from DPs family a bit, then when we were finally lucky enough get pregnant with assisted conception, they were all "you see, you just had to be a bit more relaxed about it". Uh, yeah, it was that that made the difference, not the months of drug treatment, endless scans and intrusive tests, sure.