GUEST POST: 7 Tips for Telling Friends and Family About Your Fertility Struggles

By: Keegan Prue, author of The IVF Dad--a resource book for men and couples experiencing infertility.

I pushed my chair back from the table, nearly too stuffed to move. The once full table was now heaped with half-full serving platters, an empty gravy boat, and a well-picked-over turkey carcass. Bits of stuffing and drips of cranberry sauce dotted the tablecloth.

A chorus of groans circled from one family member to the next, as intonations of "I can't eat another bite," and "that was the best gravy in years," and "we STILL have dessert to eat?" passed from person to person.

A comfortable silence descended as we all tried to will our digestion to move faster and free up space for a slice of pecan pie.

Then, my grandfather chimed in: "So, Keegan and Olivia. That new house you're buying looks great. I just have one question...do you have any plans for some kids to fill those bedrooms?"

Olivia and I exchanged glances. We knew full well that we had lots of plans and hopes to start filling those bedrooms with kids, but we'd been trying for several months to conceive without success. We'd started to wonder if something might not be working as it should.

Not ready to share these worries, we feigned laughter. "We sure hope so!" I replied.

--

Experiencing infertility can be incredibly isolating and lonely. Just like me and Olivia on that Thanksgiving dinner years ago, that isolation and loneliness can feel even worse when faced with family and friends who want to know if and when you plan to have children. And like us, if you're struggling to conceive, or perhaps are already at the point of pursuing fertility treatments, it can be very hard to share this with family and friends. We can feel ashamed or afraid to share what we're going through, and while the taboo around infertility is slowly starting to ease up, it's still not an easy subject to talk about.

First off, know that it's your experience and you should be allowed to control when, how, and if you share about it. But I also know firsthand that as time goes on, it can become harder and harder to fend off well-meaning but annoying questions about "when the stork is coming."

So without further ado, here are 7 tips to help you and your partner as you consider telling family and friends about fertility struggles.

1) Before sharing with others, make sure you and your partner have discussed and set boundaries.

You and your partner will want to be a united front during these conversations. To do that, it's helpful to ensure you've discussed the questions below before you actually get to the point of sharing with others. Getting aligned on how you and your partner feel about the questions below will help you feel more confident and united as you prepare to discuss your fertility journey with others.

• How much are we comfortable sharing?

• Who are we comfortable sharing it with?

• Is there anyone we specifically do not want to know about this?

• Once we tell people, are we comfortable with them sharing with other friends/family?

• Do we plan to share if/when we actually start any treatment?

2) Practice and plan what you'll say--writing it out might really help!

Even after talking about the questions above with your partner, you may feel nervous about actually approaching that first conversation with a friend or family member. Practice and plan what you'll say, perhaps role-playing with your partner if helpful.

You may also find it helpful to write out what you plan to say in advance, as this can give you space to process and feel prepared.

3) Think about if and how you want to receive help/support so that you can set expectations.

Once you start opening up about what's happening, some of your family and friends will likely want to help or offer support. But as we all know, what's helpful to one person may not feel helpful to another. So, think in advance about what type of help/support you want to receive so that you can set that boundary as well when it comes up. Depending on what you're comfortable with, this could be a wide range of responses, all of which are totally OK:

• "I really appreciate you being there for us. It would be really helpful to plan a fun get together once a month to take our minds off things."

• "Thanks for your support. We plan to keep our treatment progression private, so the best thing you can do for us is just send positive thoughts."

• "I'd love a check-in text periodically just to see how we're doing!"

4) Help yourself feel in control--decide where and when YOU want to have the conversation.

Just as with our Thanksgiving conversation, family and friend gatherings can become very stressful during infertility because we constantly wonder how many questions we'll get about our family-building plans.

When you decide it's time to open up about your fertility struggles, try to plan where and when you want to have the conversation with whatever family or friends you've chosen. This can help you feel more in control and more comfortable.

5) If you anticipate a difficult conversation or reaction, consider sharing in writing

Depending on your relationships, you may not feel comfortable sharing with particular people in person. You might anticipate the conversation with that person being particularly difficult, or that their reaction might not be helpful or supportive. However, you may still feel that you want them to know. That's entirely ok, and you should feel justified controlling the way in which you share your news.

In these cases, it may be helpful to consider sending a text or message or letter instead of talking in person. This way, you don't have as much anxiety about how an in-person reaction or conversation will go, but you still accomplish the goal of sharing what you're going through.

6) Know and be prepared that you'll hear some awkward/unhelpful responses

"Just relax! It'll happen."

"Have you tried having a romantic weekend away?"

Those of us in the infertility community know these uncomfortable and unhelpful responses all too well. Instead of fearing these responses, it may be helpful to just acknowledge in advance that you're likely to hear these from at least one (and unfortunately maybe more) people.

Usually in those cases, we know whether the person is well-meaning and simply unaware, or whether the person is potentially aware that they're pressing your buttons. If it's the former case, saying something like "I know you want the best for us, but what we need now is your support, not advice." If it's the latter case and they are a button-pushing type of person, do your best to ignore them, then text a friend or other sympathetic ear to complain about the crazy thing that person said!

7) Prepare some resources to share with your family/friends on how to be supportive, and send them after your discussion.

Finally, you may want to follow-up with friends and family by sharing some information and resources that can help them be supportive. RESOLVE has a webpage dedicated to this. This way, they can review that information on their own time, which might lead to them feeling more comfortable about how to support you.

And those are our tips! Hopefully they will help you navigate what I know so well can be a really difficult conversation.

It ended up being several more months after that Thanksgiving dinner before we told a few close family members and friends that we were having difficulty conceiving. At that point, we'd started to get our routine testing to try to determine a diagnosis and treatment plan.

It was still hard to share with our families, and there were certainly some well-meaning but annoying questions, but ultimately we were relieved to be out in the open about what was going on. We also found that everyone was very supportive and just wanted us to be successful. So--try out these tips and hopefully they'll help you get started on this conversation.

A big thanks to Katherine for allowing me to come back for another guest post! We both wanted to write topics this month about items related to how we interact with family and friends during infertility, so please check out her post on my blog! And if you are looking for more resources, please consider checking out my book The IVF Dad.

Finally, please leave a comment below if you have any other suggestions for tips to open up to family and friends about fertility struggles!