How open are you about IF struggles?

[Anonymous]

I was fairly open about it with my close friends and some family members, particularly with one cousin who had gone through it. I was less open about it with family members who were from "back home" -- a poor, rural, uneducated area where fertility treatments are not common, because they wouldn't understand and would only think of it in a freaky science experiment kind of way.

My treatment took about one year so I'm not sure if I would have felt differently if it had taken years or if the treatments weren't successful at all. I do know that I needed my close friends to know what was going on at the time, though... and I was never bothered when they asked how things were going. In fact, I appreciated it.

I'm a pretty open person with my good friends, though. I think it really depends on your personality, and of course that of your friends and family.

[Anonymous]

I wasn't very open about it. I only told good friends, some family, and my boss. I wasn't ashamed, but more sensitive about the fact that it was my husband who had the issues, which I realize the secrecy probably contributes to stigma about male infertility. The main reason was that we had always said that we'd move straight to adoption if IUI didn't work. It wasn't a difficult decision at all because I'm adopted and my husband was always on board to adopt regardless of whether we had bio children. But despite all that, I find through my own experiences as an adoptee, people pity adoptees and view adopted children as second best. I didn't want that for my child so most people think we adopted because I'm completing the circle of life and all that (which I am, just sooner than I had anticipated!).

[Anonymous]

I am open about it when it seems appropriate. I had friends that were struggling to conceive and I shared that I'd struggled, too, and that ultimately I conceived through IVF.

I think it helped them to know someone else had walked in their shoes - it's the loneliest feeling in the world when you want to have a baby and cannot and everyone around you is celebrating pregnancy and parenthood. Since then friends of mine who know about my experience have referred their friends to me if they are struggling and want to talk to someone who shared that experience and/or went the IVF route.

[Anonymous]

I regret being open about it (to those I have been open to) - 7 fresh cycles later plus some miscarriages and failed FETs, I am getting a lot of "be thankful for what you have" (I have one living child from IVF #1) and well-meaning concerns about "what [I'm] doing to [my] body" - I am tired of the unhelpful advice. I get the feeling everyone in my life thinks I am crazy and ungrateful. If anything this experience has made me MORE grateful for the child I do have, who more and more seems like a fluke of nature.