Jacinta recommends family and friends be considerate about sharing pregnancy news and understand that infertility can feel ‘relentless’ and ‘exhausting’.
I think just being mindful of the way that you share news. Like I said, if you get pregnant yourself, maybe thinking through, ‘How would I want to receive this news and what would make it easier for me in that moment?’ Putting yourself in the person’s shoes that’s experiencing the treatment and infertility.
Also, acknowledging that, for your friend or family member experiencing infertility, is that they’re living it every single day. It’s not just the once a month when they get the negative news, it’s a really 24-7, around the clock thing for them and it’s really exhausting. So perhaps, they might not want to come along to certain events, or they might not always feel like talking about your baby or – it’s really time-consuming and exhausting for that person. It doesn’t mean that they’re not excited for you and happy for you and wanting to share and celebrate in all of these things, but it’s pretty relentless. It’s never-ending.
Mary advises family members to try not to be judgmental and to ‘check in’ with someone who is experiencing infertility.
Interviewer: What about, I guess, advice for family members and friends supporting someone going through this? What’s been helpful for you?
Mary: It would be nice if they did try to understand, rather than judgement. I mean everybody, everyone thinks they’re doctors, everyone thinks they’re experts. It’s supposed to be like this. It’s not all movie theatre. Just having a family member sit there, you can talk to them about everything that you’re going through and not have them sit there going, “But you know, the doctor did say this. The doctor did say that.” Being supportive, isn’t – sometimes their supportive ways is more judgemental than it is supporting.
And check in, even if they say, like with me, when I tell my family, “I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” I don’t hear from them for six months, but it would be nice to… even if they say that, “We are okay,” that it would be nice still to check in on your family member.
Max reassures family members and friends of trans and gender diverse people experiencing infertility to not make any assumptions and just ask them how they would like to be supported.
At the end of the day it just comes down to getting to know people, building relationships and understanding what someone needs. So, it’s like if you were a friend of someone and you didn’t quite understand what their experience was just feeling okay to be able to ask what they needed. I think sometimes we get a little bit complicated or fearful. I don’t think that anyone needs to know what the right thing is to do in any particular moment. I think it’s just, if we all as people could strip it back to going, “Hey I love you, what do you need?”
I think sometimes we overcomplicate it. If we cannot make assumptions and understand that everyone has a right to feel safe, everyone has a right to have healthcare and to do whatever it is that they need to do that if we just approach all of these conversations in a way of inclusion and respect and understanding and we go, “Hey I don’t necessarily understand everything that you’re doing. I don’t need to necessarily understand everything you’re doing. But as a parent, as a friend, as a partner, as a boss, as whatever, what is it that you need?” I just think if we could approach every conversation like that there’s not really anything else that we need to do.
Yes. I think sometimes it’s like there doesn’t need to be any script and it’s just like, ‘Hey, you’re having a hard time, what is it you need?’ Or, ‘Hey I don’t really understand this, what do I need to know in order to support you?’
If we could just teach people to enquire and to take on what someone needs – we don’t need all these lessons. We don’t need all these particular programs or whatever. It’s just like everyone’s different and that’s cool and, “What do you need?” “Okay. Sweet. Okay. I can work with that.”
Aisha suggests that you can support a loved one experiencing infertility by learning about IVF and fertility treatment so that you can have more informed conversations.
I think for me it’s very much about respecting people’s privacy, not asking them all the time if it worked. More just supportive, be understanding. I think if you really want to make a difference it’s, for me I would really appreciate if someone went and researched online about IVF or about embryo donation or egg donation and made an effort to learn about it so that they could have an intelligent conversation with me and not just expect me to explain what I’m going through when you haven’t made any effort to understand the process. I think that would mean a lot to someone who’s going through IVF is if you made an effort to learn about it so that you could really support them.
Kate says that respect and empathy can go a long way when supporting someone experiencing infertility, even if they already have a child.
I think people just need to be respectful of how challenging it is. How all-consuming it can be. The impact on your relationships and the financial burden of it all. I do think it’s unhelpful to say – I know people mean well when they say, “Oh at least you’ve got one child,” or, “At least you’ve got two.” I don’t think that matters. Anybody who’s going through infertility – it’s just a shock and it’s a minefield because there’s often not clear answers. And you’re just stuck in this cycle of hope.
So I just think people need to be really respectful of that and really supportive. I think learning how to be really empathetic and just say, “Well that’s really shit,” is probably the best thing people can do rather than “Have you tried this?” or “I’ve heard of this herbalist,” or “I know someone who cut out coffee and caffeine and got pregnant.”
Ingrid reflects on how taboos associated with infertility and IVF can make it a lonely experience. She recommends family and friends try to be open-minded and provide support through acts of care or practical help.
I found out very quickly that some people are very supportive and other people back away. The backing away part is because people are, sometimes it is because they are scared of the unknown, but they’re just not comfortable which comes back to the taboo stigma I guess that IVF has.
The reason why IVF patients are trying to share or trying to speak with friends and family about their IVF journey is because it can be a very lonely existence sometimes. Because you want to tell people everything about what you’re going through because it’s a very daunting thing to even start an IVF journey because you don’t know how it’s going to turn out for you.
But just try and listen to what they’re saying. You won’t understand all the terminology but try to involve yourself because that IVF patient would really like support even if you just nod and bring over some cookies or something. It doesn’t really matter but just it means the world to that patient to have or at least have the feeling that they have your support.
Even if you can help out particularly if there are other kids or if you can babysit or look after kids sometimes when an IVF patient has an appointment or day surgery or needs to be picked up from day surgery. You have no idea how much that would mean to that person that you’ve taken that time out of your day to help out. It might seem like you’re not doing much but it might take 10 minutes of your time it might take half an hour of your day but it means the world to the IVF patient.
