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.

I went with my mother to the appointment where she was told she had terminal cancer on the same day that my third and final IVF failed. So in one day I had to deal with my mothers death sentance and accept tht I was never going to get pregnant.

If anyone had suggested I relax at that point I would certianly have decked them!

On the upside, my mother is a medical marvel and is today looking after my wonderful boy.

What a differnce 5 years makes...

I would never say this to someone. It is so insensitive.
I may 'think it'. But never say it.
Seriously my 3 sil's all had terrible trouble conceiving. Years and years and years. They were all told that there was no reason for them not conceiving. And then they decided not to try anymore. And all 3 of them conceived.
THis is how 'they' recounted it, to me.

But I appreciate that this is not the same for everyone.

i knwo two couples who told everyone that they had just miraculously conceived after years of trying. One couple had AID and their family & religion did not permit/approve

The other had IVF with pre implantation screening because they already had a child with a genetic problem who died. They felt guilty that were actively trying to avoid having another child who was affected by the condition. Also their religion did not approve of the disposal of fertilised eggs.

Most people did not know the whole story. Why should they - it was their own business.But it makes me suspect that a few of the miracle stories we hear are due to the miracle of science and medical treatment.

best wishes to those of you who are on a similar journey

I've read the last few pages on this thread and would just like to add that I can't understand why someone would question the fact that stress can affect fertility. After all stress has a bit impact on the body, people get ill more easily when stressed. Personally I get bad eczema when stressed. Labour is more painful when a woman is scared and stressed. Mind and body are connected, I know sounds a bit hippyish, but it IS true. However that doesn't mean that I's saying that you WILL get pregnant if you're relaxed or get rid of the stress. I'm just saying that it's one of the many factors influencing fertility.

About the miscarriage comment of that doctor: My friend actually got a lot of comfort out of the exact same comment, because it gave her a reason why it might have happened. So what works for one doesn't work for the other. And I suppose it's the same for the 'relax and it might happen' comment. Because people really do say it with the best of intentions. (and yes also I know another woman for whom it was true: my auntie gave up after 10 years and got pregnant within months of spending her baby savings on all sorts of luxury things)

Sometimes people get lucky. Sometimes fertilty issues resolve themselves. Not because they've relaxed and finally booked that holiday to Barbados but because of a mixture of biology and luck.

An IVF drug protocol can, very occasionally, kick-start/level recalcitrant hormones. Even if the cycle is unsuccessful the super-dose of synthetic hormones can trigger correct hormone production. And a successful IVF pregnancy can resolve previous hormone issues. So you can occasionally find people get pregnant following these. An investigative lap and dye (tubes being 'flushed') can clear a minor blockage and result in a pregnancy (this has happened to two friends and my sister in law). As this procedure is usually done prior to IVF it tends to get trumpeted as a "well I was just about to start IVF and I got pregnant....". It's rare but it does happen and because of this it gets trotted out as the standard. Relax, give up and you'll be rewarded. Fret, stress and be a pain about it and you'll remain childless.

Everyone has a miracle story. Either a friend, relative or a friend of a friend; six degrees of separation to a magic baby. But for every miracle story there are dozens/hundreds/how many who remain infertile and childless. Their story doesn't get shouted from the rooftops and yet it probably should because theirs is the reality of it: The grey story of a journey through heartbreak whilst the rest of the world, in colour, passes advice based on flash thought, unthinking judgement about how they wouldn't care if it were them, how they'd just go on holiday and forget about it, how they'd accept that it wasn't meant to be. Trust me when I say you wouldn't. It isn't as simple as that.

Belgian, yes I think stress does have a part to play but that's not the point!

The point we've been trying so hard to make is that it is not helpful to tell someone that - and that you can't just tell someone to relax and they'll do it.

Unless you have experienced the all-consuming agony of IF you have no idea what you're talking about - and it's always best not to proffer advice on something you don't understand, tends to wind people up.

I haven't experienced infertility. The longest I have had to wait to conceive was 6 months and even that felt like an eternity, so you are right that I don't know anything about it. But isn't it normal that people want to say something to people who are having a hard time to try and comfort them. That their words appear insensitive to you isn't how they were intended and that's what I was trying to say.

I am in absolute agreement with kitwins very insightful posts. We have been ttc for over 2 years. DP has low sperm count and we are therefore about to start our 1st round of IVF. I know that going on holiday/relaxing/trying not to think about it is not going to make DP biologically be able to father a child naturally. not to mention the really fucking annoying phrase ever so constructive phrase 'perhaps you're trying too hard' wtf?

The empty phrases of friend of a friend got preg when that started adoption proceedings etc etc somehow seem so dismissive to me. That all the heartache and misery, living your life in two week sections, constantly thinking (for example) 'is that twinge in my big toe a early preg symptom?'then furiously checking the internet for people who are now pregnant and had said toe twinge as an early preg syptomand so on are not valid because someone else did get pregnant. I always feel like saying 'well that must be great for them, shame it's not me and has no bearing on whether or not I will actually have a baby.'

Sorry, my strikeout word didn't work .

There are two things here - one is whether stress can play a part in infertility. Probably it can, but it's only a very minor part. The second is whether you should mention this to someone trying to conceive - no, you shouldn't.

ib - interesting that you should mention that you were able to deal with your early and absolute diagnosis of infertility. That completely matches our experience - when we were told that we would never conceive naturally, it was hard but we were able to grieve and move on. When we had treatment, it was immediately very very difficult again. I've said it on these boards before and I'll say it again, it's the hope that's the killer. You can never really move on, because every month you can't help but hope that this month is the month, and every month you come crashing down again. Over and over. Until menopause, for some of our friends.

Oh anniemac

agree with annie. i love dh and i love ds. i know how lucky I am to have him and am thankful for every second we spend together.

but i am also incredibly unlucky to not have another dc. and no amount of well-meaning stories will ever change that. i cant relax about ttc, because my history means that every month i spend my leutal phase on tenterhooks. i cant relax because i have to test after my period, just in case. there are many in a much worse position than me, but there are also many in a much better position and i dont want to hear those stories.

"But isn't it normal that people want to say something to people who are having a hard time to try and comfort them"

BelgianChoc - at the risk of repeating what has been said on sevreal occasions...
"Oh I'm sorry" does the job quite nicely. Can be followed up with "let me know if there's anything I can do" if absolutely necessary.

IME the people who put their foot in it are often not trying to do anything like heal your pain. They are just talking for talks sake but there are some subjects, when (as I think Corbusier said) Less is More.

exactly kew!

I think you are right MadamDeathstare, people feel the need to provide some kind of solution. The nicest thing a friend said to me when I told her about my problems ttc was 'that must be awful for you - it's all so unfair'. This is something I have been screaming inside my own head every month my period has started and hearing someone else say it made me feel supported rather than inadequate.

Belgian chocolates... well, it's very interesting that throughout this whole thread so many women have written insightful, painful, articulate, HONEST posts about the kind of help that would be helpful, and the kind of help that is not only NOT helpful but is also actually pretty offensive. And yet you still managed to come up with that incredible story about your three SILs. Why is that, I wonder... .

As for stress playing a role in infertility, well, the thing is- there is stress PRIOR to finding out about infertility. Are we talking about that kind of stress? Because when you say it may play a role, you are referring, I assume, to the causative factors of infertility? About that, I don't know. For all I know, there may well be some cases (pretty few, I would think) where depression or anxiety is so severe that it may prevent ovulation. But you know, lack of ovulation is a relatively straightforward fertility problem to resolve. Plus, just to let you know (since, I'm sorry to say, you don't seem to know much about the topic) there are hundreds & hundreds of women going through horribly painful & stressful (physically & psychologically) fertility treatment, due e.g. to a sperm problem that their partner has, & still they have absolutely no problem with ovulation, plus they (surprise surprise) manage to conceive during IVF / ICSI, one of the most stressful treatments (as others have eloquently explained). So the kind of stress that temporarily may cause infertility is in my book pretty irrelevant & usually doesn't last long.

What is definitely the case, is that infertility causes stress. So, stress doesn't cause infertility, but infertility certainly causes stress. There is not one- NOT ONE- person going through infertility who doesn't at some point get stressed, depressed, whatever you want to call it. The anxiety, the not knowing, the seeing all your friends conceive at the drop of a hat, the constant contact with pregnant women & babies, the painful (and expensive) treatments, the rollercoaster of the endless 2-week-waits. The list goes on. So certainly all this causes immense stress, and UNDERSTANDABLY. You can imagine, then, that telling someone (supposedly trying to be nice) to 'relax' and 'not try so hard' or that your 3 SILs got pregnant once they stopped trying, is at the very least insensitive & the very worst mean & offensive. And by the way, for your information (and again, others have written about this). Infertile couples manage to get pregnant- with excellent success rates, increasing all the times- during exactly this, the most stressful period of their lives. What do you say about that? The success rates of infertile couples doing fertility treatment are hugely, hugely increased compared to their previous status, 'waiting', 'relaxing', 'taking their time'.

Final point. If we want to talk anecdotal evidence (which as you should know is no evidence at all). I know at least 5 people in real life who went through adoption (in 2 cases), numerous failed IVF cycles (in the other 3 cases). Guess what. They then decided to give up & NEVER got pregnant, 5 or 10 years down the line. And before you tell me 'there's still time', think again, they're now hitting menopause. But maybe there is a miracle menopause story too that you can throw at us.

Just to say: this is not a personal attack, lots of people say these things, believe me, they're not unusual at all. This is just a post written to make a point, with the hope that the point will get across...

Since coming on MN I often wonder if it might be easier just to avoid having casual conversation with any woman of childbearing age, as it seems that so much of what you might say naturally can be taken in such a painful and hurtful way.

I think it is human nature to hear somebody talk about something and want to share your own experiences of it - we do it all the time, on all subjects, don't we?

If your close friends or family say hurtful things to you then you have every right to feel aggreived and to tell them. But when people you don't know very well say in a conversational tone 'x stock thing about childbearing' it's just like talking about the weather to them - they have no idea what is going on in your head unless you tell them.

It would be a shame of these subjects became taboo, as subjects like cancer etc often are, just becuase people don't know what to say. Did everybody here know how to speak sensitively to people who were ttc before it became an issue for them?

It is difficult to know when to say the right thing I agree. However having been on the recieving end of people saying the wrong thing to me about DS2, (he is deaf and has SN)I do think very carefully.

Both my very lovely SIL and my best friend are currently having problems concieving. I do say to them, 'I don't know what to say' or 'I don't want to say the wrong thing so please tell me if I piss you of'. My SIL was talking to me on the phone last week about their difficulties and at the end of the convo we laughed as I had said about ten words in half an hour, and most of those had been 'mmm' or 'yes' etc. Sometimes lending your ear is enough ime.

Morris, I'm slightly bemused by your post - this isn't casual conversations, this is about telling someone you're struggling to conceive and may need treatment and to hear "just relax", "go on holiday", "apply to adopt you'll definitely get pg then" . Or, "I only have to look at my husband blah blah blah".

This is not about chats in the office or at the pub with people you hardly know.

No, I didn't know how to speak sensitively to people about ttc before I started trying but what amazes me is that IF women are telling people on here how it feels and those who've never had any problems are still coming back and saying "but we're doing it to help"!

IT DOESN'T HELP!

How many ways do we have to say it! I'm speechless .

Maria2007, I think that post is spot on.

I agree with spongebrain, making such comments has nothing to do with casual conversation! Has nothing to do with casual conversation, in fact. Or maybe it is casual to the people saying such things... but definitely is not received casually by those to whom they're addressed.

oops! sorry for saying 'it has nothing to do with casual conversation' twice. I guess I really think that... it has nothing to do with casual conversation ().

I think this is the crux of the matter actually.

Back in the days when I used to talk about my conception problems, I was regularly exposed to such hurtful comments.

A lot of it from people who used to ask me how the TTC was going during a casual conversation in the street. I presume this is because to someone who has no experience of such problems, ttc is a fairly casual subject.

Of course to me, it was far from a casual subject and as the years have gone on I have learnt to not talk about it as the comments I generally received in reply were so thoughtless.

This is a shame because I feel not talking about it adds to the kind of 'taboo' surrounding this subject, and I actually would not mind telling people about some of what I have been through.