Coming Out of the Infertility Closet

Infertility is a very personal battle. And this struggle…this fight…this abyss of sadness is something we tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t share it with the people who we see everyday or those who love us most. We retreat to our computers where we find amazing support on message boards and blogs from people who don’t know us and wouldn’t know us if they walked right into us on the street. But this is a huge thing that we go through. It is physically and emotionally draining. (I’m not even going near the financial implications.) It is a lot to keep from the people you love and share your life with, isn’t it?
The majority of people decide they want to have a child and get to make love to their partner in the privacy of their bedroom. They get to surprise the world with a pregnancy whenever they see fit to share it. We don’t get that. Our sex lives (or lack thereof) are out there for the entire world to know. (Doesn’t it feel like that sometimes?) We can’t have a baby the “old-fashioned” way. We need doctors and embryologists and anesthesiologists just to have a chance at having a baby. We get looks of pity and pep talks. (And who needs or wants those!? Or is it just me that gets really angry from that crap?) We get poked and prodded and used as pin cushions. We don’t get to surprise anyone with the news if …IF…we actually get pregnant. And we don’t even get definitive results…
I don’t know about you, but I’ve skipped lot…and I mean A LOT…of functions over the past two years because I couldn’t handle seeing kids. In a way, it feels like I’m hiding from my life. I hate that. How much of your life have you missed since finding out that you were infertile? How much of your struggles with infertility have you kept from the people you see every day or those you love? Telling our loved ones may make this fight easier to bear but telling them comes with questions…the ones about when you decided to have kids… what have you done so far…are any of us ready to answer those questions? Do we even have to?
I mentioned all this to a good friend of mine who is also struggling with infertility. And in all her infinite wisdom she said to me: “If they ask questions, you can say with impunity, ‘This is a really difficult process for us, and we’d prefer not to talk about it. I hope you can respect our wishes.’ And who knows, maybe having the visible support of your extended family will help us cope? Maybe in keeping it private, we’re giving ourselves a heavier burden to bear?”
And you know what? She is 100% absolutely positively right. How many of us suffer in silence daily only to cry to our computer screens because the people we talk to in cyberspace are the ONLY people who can even begin to imagine what it is that we are going through. We get by on virtual hugs instead of trusting those who can actually hug us. We go through the motions of every day life. We suffer through the intrusive and insensitive questions such as “Are you having kids?”
But the question remains…are we making this harder on ourselves then it needs to be? Maybe we should have a little more faith in those we love? Maybe we should come out of the infertility closet?