Infertility - One Way to Help Your Family or Friends Who May Be Experiencing Infertility!

Our kids are entering middle school and high school. Our older son was adopted at birth. After 13 failed inseminations and 2 failed In Vitro fertilizations (IVF) the reproductive endocrinologist told us our best shot at a family would be adoption. The twins were the result of a later successful IVF procedure.

The road to a family was a rough one. For people who have no problems getting pregnant it can be difficult to understand how painful it can be to our friends who would do anything to be pregnant and have a family.

Very often people say things that they feel are nice, or comforting, but which actually feel like daggers in the heart to those who are desperately trying to have children.

Below is a guide of statements that you should NEVER say to people who are having trouble conceiving a child. .

Things That Can be Hurtful To Those Experiencing Infertility:

- "I know how you feel" Uh NO YOU DON'T!!! Unless you have desperately wanted a family and have had to go through month after month, year after year of trying to get pregnant, you don't know how it feels.

- "Relax!" or "Go ahead and adopt and I bet you'll get pregnant because the pressure will be off" or "I know this couple for did fertility treatments for years and they get pregnant on their own once they stopped. Guess what? There's almost always a valid medical reason someone is not getting pregnant and it has nothing to do with relaxing or stopping treatments.

- Complaining about your kids, or saying we can have your kids for a while and then we wouldn't want any. I won't justify that with a comment. That's plain rude.

- "You're trying too hard!" See comment above about relaxing.

- "It's just terrible that you can't have any children, because I don't want to use my nanny five days a week anymore, I only want her two days a week, and if you had already had babies by now, we could have shared my nanny" Need I comment about that one?

- "Oh I wish you had children too so our kids could play together!" Believe us, that's our wish, too!!

- Continuing to harp on your own children's annoying habits or antics. It is painful for those experiencing infertility to hear people saying things that they would give anything to experience.

- Don't get angry or hurt when we don't want to discuss infertility after treatment fails, telling us that we probably didn't want children that much anyway, especially if we make the decision not to adopt.

- "Oh we hope you get pregnant soon!!! We desperately they want to be an uncle, aunt, grandfather, etc!!" WE already know that you do.

- Please understand that it's hard to see babies in the family. Yes, we are happy for you, but it's STILL very difficult!

- Please don't keep asking the same questions over and over about fertility treatments. Listen the first time. Just like anything else, if you ask questions again it shows you didn't care enough to listen to the answers the first time.

- Please don't ask us to touch your pregnant belly for good luck.

- Don't tell us how awful your pregnancy was and say we're lucky that we don't have to go through it.

- If you've been trying for two whole months to get pregnant don't tell us that you know what we're going through.

- Please don't assume it's the woman with the infertility issues!!!

- Don't lecture us about the religious issues surrounding infertility treatments! Chances are that we have already dealt with this aspect of infertility and we have made choices, so don't pressure us or make us feel any worse than than we already are.

- "You're lucky you don't have to worry about the expense of babysitters" or "You're so lucky to go home to a nice quiet house!"

Your reaction may be, "why should we have to walk on eggshells around family or friends because we may upset them talking about children or babies?" Well, it's just plain human kindness. If one of your friends just lost a parent you wouldn't talk about how lucky you are to have your parents, or complain that your mother or father is just a pain-in-the-neck. Have some compassion.

One last item! Don't assume that these comments don't upset guys who desperately want to be dads, either. They do!

I hope this helped you. My wife and I went through quite a few years of infertility treatments. It still helps me to read these comments as well to make sure I remain sensitive to others, as well!