Infertility Counseling: Getting the most out of therapy

If you never have been in therapy before, or if you are beginning a relationship with a new therapist, or if earlier counseling experiences have had nothing to do with your infertility, you probably are feeling perched on the brink of a new opportunity and a new challenge. Undoubtedly you already are receiving either a diagnostic workup or medical treatment for your infertility, and your decision to seek counseling is an important step in handling the many emotions that emerge in this process. So, now that you and your counselor are beginning your relationship, how can you get the most out of the therapeutic experience?

Most therapists will initially ask you to be clear about what you hope to gain from therapy. I'm going to make the assumption that you and your partner are going to the first session together, so both of you will need to think about how you would answer this question. It is not unusual for partners to have different perspectives on the challenges posed by infertility (see my video at www.connieshapiro.com/ ), so you both should feel free to speak for yourselves. Also, if some issues are more compelling than others, or if you have tried and not succeeded to make desired changes in your lives, it is good to provide that information as well.

In addition to answering questions posed by your counselor (who, for the sake of pronoun simplicity, I will assume is female), you should feel free to ask her to talk about how she sees her role as a therapist, what expectations she will have of you as clients, how she guides the counseling process with her clients, and how you and she will know whether you have accomplished as much as possible in your relationship with her. You should be listening for how open she is to your input, how she formulates goals for the counseling experience, how familiar she is with infertility, particularly issues of loss and communication difficulties, and how she evaluates whether she is being helpful in moving you toward the changes you hope to accomplish.

For you and your partner, both of you should be prepared to view therapy as work: on your relationship, on your relationships with others in your lives, on your communication skills, on your willingness to strive for insight, and on your openness to considering new options in making decisions about your future. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, I tend to give homework assignments, and if your therapist follows this practice, it is helpful to be conscientious about the therapeutic learning that takes place both outside and inside the therapist's office. You might think of it as having ongoing practice with new skills or discussing new perspectives, which you then can review with your therapist in your regular appointments.

From this perspective, you can see that I tend to favor a therapeutic perspective that helps you to feel empowered, both in new skills you acquire and in new ways of considering how you will handle the stress and the decisions imposed by your infertility experience. This is not the only therapeutic perspective, and it may not be the most productive one for every client. So the important thing for you and your partner is to assess how you feel about your therapist's way of viewing her relationship with you, her willingness to accept your input and your questions, and her willingness to challenge you to think in new ways about painful issues. Therapy is not a full-time "feel good" experience, but it should be a relationship in which you feel both trust and confidence that your counselor has her finger on your emotional pulse and is keeping pace with your readiness to move forward.

With your infertility physician, there should be times when you pause to assess where you are and what's next. The same is true in therapy. I use every 6-8 weeks as my "pausing point" with clients, partly to check out how they are feeling about the changes we are working on, partly to give them my feedback on their new skills and the work that lies ahead, and certainly to see whether they are satisfied with the direction and the pace at which I'm encouraging them to move. I always welcome critical feedback or discussion of therapeutic frustrations at any point during therapy, but I also am a big believer that a regular pausing point helps my clients and me to be attentive to both progress and pace.

Let me spend some time now on ending the counseling relationship. Ideally this decision is a mutual one, perhaps growing out of a conversaton at one of your pausing points. In the best of circumstances it will be an outgrowth of achieving the goals you set in the course of therapy or, even more hopefully, your success in becoming pregnant (although I confess that most of my client couples have found pregnancy to have its own stresses, so many of my clients continue on a reduced schedule until they have celebrated a healthy birth). In less favorable circumstances you may find that you are dissatisfied with your therapist, efforts to address those dissatisfactions have not yielded changes, and you decide to end the relationship. Then the question becomes whether you believe that it would be constructive to identify a new therapist, in which case you hopefully will have a more successful experience. But if you are ending therapy on a successful note, feel free to raise with your therapist that, if new concerns arise, or if you find yourself needing a "booster" session, you hope that you and she could reconnect to assess next steps.

So, in the spirit of "getting the most out of therapy," I hope my perspective is helpful in your anticipating how you might begin your therapeutic relationship, as well as how to provide input as the relationship progresses.
Infertility is not a smooth road to travel, but the support and skills of a good therapist can help you feel empowered as you face emotional challenges.

Infertility Counseling: What to Expect

Individuals and couples with infertility often contemplate whether to seek counseling. Some approach this decision with ease, but many others have questions about what is involved in a counseling relationship. In today's blog, I will offer an inside view on the beliefs that have guided my counseling experiences with hundreds of infertile clients.



So when I entitle this blog as "what to expect," I probably should have added "if you seek counseling from me." Since I can only speak for myself, I hope you will gain some familiarity about general principles that guide counselors and therapists (I use these terms interchangeably), as well as questions that you can ask your own counselor in order to clarify your understanding of that person's perspective on your relationship.



In my own experience, my first contact with a client usually is in a telephone conversation. On the telephone I try to learn how the prospective client (almost always a woman) defines the problem(s) she wants to work on; what her partner's feelings are about being involved in counseling; whether she or her partner has ever been involved in counseling before; at what stage of diagnosis/treatment they are; and where they are currently getting medical intervention. I then offer a bit of information about myself, including possible appointment times that I have available; fees and insurance coverage information; my office location; as well as the request that both the caller and her partner come together for this first appointment. I also ask whether she has any questions that she would like to ask me before we meet. Then we set a date and time for the appointment, and I provide directions to my office.



In a while you'll learn enough about my approach to understand why I ask for both partners to come to the first meeting with me; if the woman is not in a relationship, I tell her that I will be interested in learning about her support network. So here are some things that are typical of my first meeting with my new clients. It is not unusual for the person with whom I have spoken on the telephone to take the lead in introducing me to her partner and in saying something along the lines of "I think I'm going crazy!" or "I don't know how much more stress I can take." And my response to that introduction is usually to point to my nearby box of tissues and to say that being upset comes with the territory of infertility. I also try to work in something about the courage it takes to begin a relationship with a counselor, since getting help will involve talking about difficult issues.



I ask both of them if they are comfortable with my taking notes as we speak, since I want to be sure to remember accurately how they portray their situations. And then I say that in my experience, each of them may have their own unique "take" on their infertility, so I will be encouraging both of them to clarify for me the dimensions of this experience that are important to them. This also opens the door for them to see each other's perspective and to learn how important it may be to keep both perspectives on the table. It is here that I say to the partner of the telephone caller how much I appreciate his/her coming to this meeting, and how much I believe that person's presence can help all of us to move forward in working on the issues connected with their infertility.



I also clarify briefly the two important issues associated with confidentiality: first, that if either of them communicates something to me when the other person is not present, I will keep that information confidential until it is revealed between the partners in a meeting with me, and, second, that I observe confidentiality unless circumstances occur when I believe there is the likelihood of a client causing harm or danger to oneself or someone else. Lastly, I say that, although it has never happened in all my years of practice, if I am subpoenaed to appear in court, I might need to reveal information that had been shared with me in counseling.



With those introductory remarks, I remind all of us that we have work to do, that our session will end in "X" minutes (I meet with clients for 50 minute sessions), and I encourage them to tell me how they hope I can be of help. I am careful to have both members of the couple speak about their own perspectives and to summarize my impressions of what seem to be the most pressing issues. I am interested in knowing how the couple has already tried to address their challenges and what successes and difficulties they have encountered. That will more than fill up the first session, and probably will spill over into subsequent sessions as well. Before ending, I ask the couple how they are feeling about the time we spent together today, whether they would like to return and, if so, whether this is a good time for regular future appointments, and whether I can look forward to having both of them at subsequent sessions. I tell them that after a few sessions I should be able to give them some idea of how many meetings we may need in order to address their concerns, and I express my appreciation for their openness in sharing with me today the challenges they are facing. I ask if they have any questions for me, which I try to answer as succinctly as I can. I then give them a homework assignment: for each to draw for our next session a sketch of their sources of support and their sources of stress (I mention family, co-workers, neighbors, friends, spiritual leaders and health care providers as potential people who may appear in their sketches).



Now for some reflections about why I do what I do in the first session. I very much hope that both members of the couple will come to each session, since they can be most constructive in addressing concerns if they each verbalize them and if they each practice the skills that I will encourage them to develop. So I am not shy about emphasizing to both that their presence together is a big help to me. I want to hear the initial information from each of them about how they see their concerns, both so I will understand where each one is coming from, and so they will be able to hear the perspectives that each of them presents. I want to reflect back to them my understanding of their issues, so they can correct any misperceptions. I want to convey that infertility can be filled with difficulties, as they well know, and that they probably have an idea of what has and has not worked in coping with their difficulties. And, in giving a homework assignment, I want to convey that getting help is not just a 50 minute session once a week, but that they need to take away from these sessions new perspectives and return to each forthcoming session prepared to build on the new learning thay have developed. Lastly, many clients are concerned that they may be in counseling "forever." I want in the first session to convey that we can decide together how long to continue to meet and what problems we will discuss, thereby conveying that this is a partnership. Typically I am able to make substantial progress on most of the most troublesome problems over 9-12 sessions. If the clients choose, they can introduce additional concerns (or perhaps their infertility will present unforeseen issues such as pregnancy loss, an unanticipated diagnosis, etc.), and they may choose to embark on additional sessions to deal with these new issues.



Now let me look ahead broadly to how I think about subsequent sessions. In my experience, I tend to think of these sessions in terms of content and process. Content, which is presented by my clients, tends to be dominated by issues of loss and issues of communication. In my new book When You're Not Expecting, I write extensively about both of these, including the ways that they tend to change over the course of a couple's infertility. Process, which tends to focus on interactions, may consist of my asking the couple to discuss a difficult issue, with me ultimately giving them feedback on my observations and some clear feedback on how they can build better communication skills into their repertoire. Then I send them home with homework that will enable them to practice these new skills and report back to me the following week how they were feeling about using these skills. Learning skills in assertive communication can come in handy as well, particularly with health care providers and well-meaning loved ones. A third topic, "resources," tends to weave in and out of discussions, depending on what the couple may have presented on their initial sketches to me regarding their sources of support.



From time to time I ask both clients to revise their sketches of sources of support and stress, so they can see how their communication efforts have made a difference -- OR so they can see that they need to distance themselves from unrelenting sources of stress. One of my goals is to help clients perceive themselves as part of an ecological infertility map, complete with superhighways of support and detours of stress. As a family therapist, I also consider it important to understand and discuss the roles that family members are playing in my clients' lives, especially fertile siblings and eager-to-be-grandparents. The more clients understand ways they can increase their support, the more resilient they become.



I do not think of myself as a therapist who lets my clients entirely drive the counseling process. I tend to be fairly interactive in offering feedback to clients on their skills and resources. I am respectful of the social work edict "Start where the client is and stay with him/her." To me this means that I should be respectful of where my clients want to focus, but it doesn't prevent me from testing whether they are ready to be pushed to new places. If they have had an infertility intervention for months that isn't working, I am likely to push them to ask their physician to make a plan with them that includes how long to continue with one intervention before moving on to a different one. If they have spent many dollars and many years on infertility treatment, I may revisit an earlier statement that they won't consider adoption or a surrogate, by asking if they would consider collecting information about either of their previously rejected options. If I see areas of difficulty on which they have not asked for my help, I may make an observation that such-and-such an issue seems to be an "elephant in the room," and I am wondering whether there is a reason they haven't felt ready to examine it. So, even as I try to stay apace with my clients' issues, I also push and prod a bit, just to see whether new growth and resilience enables them to feel resilient enough to consider new directions. If not, I step back, and I am not surprised when, weeks later, they may raise the question of the proverbial elephant for future examination.



Before closing, I will mention two last areas that are neither process or content related. The first is that, as a social worker, I believe that it falls in my realm to teach and to provide advocacy when clients are treated poorly. Occasionally, clients will report to me behavior in an infertility setting that I consider unprofessional. Often their distress is severe enough that they are considering ending treatment with that provider. In the dozen or so cases I have encountered, I have shared with the client my perception that they are on target in objecting to unprofessional communication, and that I would be more than willing either to help them think about how to address this directly or how I might (with their permission) bring this incident to the attention of their provider. In each case, the resolution has been highly satisfactory, always resulting in an apology to my clients, and sometimes resulting also in in-service training for staff so that they understand rude or dismissive remarks will not be tolerated. The second area I will mention is that, as clients and I are preparing to end our sessions, I make clear to them my continued availability if their circumstances should bring a rise in stress or other unforeseen difficulties. Sometimes clients whom I believe are ready to end our counseling relationship will be more ready to accept that encouragement from me if I offer "booster sessions" every 6 to 8 weeks, simply to reassure them that I'm there if they run into bumps in the road.



So, for those of you who are contemplating seeking counseling for any of your infertility issues, I hope that my own disclosures about the way I think of the counseling experience will help you in your own interactions with a therapist. Keep in mind that not everyone shares my perspective that client partners are the first choice when providing counseling, nor that the families of the couple may be the "elephants in the room," nor that the therapist takes as active a role as I do, nor that assertive behavior with health care providers is a place for therapeutic intervention. But all therapists should be able to be clear with you about areas in which they can offer new knowledge and skills, how they observe confidentiality, and their comfort with the ever-so-present issues of loss and mis-communication.



If you would like to see some youtube webisodes that focus on how infertility affects relationships, check out my Hopefully Yours website at http://www.connieshapiro.com/

And stay tuned for the last in my Infertility Counseling blog series: Getting the Most Out of Therapy.

Infertility Counseling: Getting Started

Since the recent publication of my book When You're Not Expecting, many people have approached me to ask about the counseling experience: How to know when counseling is a good "next step," how to access a counselor experienced with infertility issues, what costs may be involved, and what to expect of the counseling experience. The common thread that seems to be present in these conversations is " Since I feel like I'm going crazy, is counseling likely to be of any help?"

These are very important questions. Since I have provided counseling to hundreds of couples and individuals grappling with infertility, I know all too well the kinds of barriers that can prevent people from seeking help for the emotional fallout of infertility. In the coming weeks I will devote several blog posts to various dimensions of infertility counseling. Today we'll begin with how to get started in this process.

First, I think readers would agree with me that the infertility experience is filled with stress. Who to tell, how much to tell, how to cope with the fertile world, how to communicate with loved ones and health care providers, how to juggle treatment and personal life and, above all, how to bear the interminable waiting. This list could be much more extensive, but you get the idea: it doesn't take long for infertility to become a ruling force in your life. And this is an experience for which you probably have had no preparation. This also is an experience for which you lack a road map, so looming out there in the future is the fear of the unknown and whether you'll have the emotional strength to emerge from the infertility journey unscathed.

Anyone who has been infertile for any period of time will be quick to say that the experience changes you. The question you will want to ask yourself is: at what point in this process do you want to seek out a counselor to help you cope more effectively with the inevitable stresses? Knowing that infertility will change you, do you want a counselor by your side to help you find new ways to handle the present and to think about the future? And do you see counseling as something for yourself, or is your partner also interested in being involved?

Since I happen to be a believer in keeping a finger on one's emotional pulse, I would first encourage you to discuss with your partner how each of you is handling the stresses of your infertility. What are those stresses for each of you? What do you find difficult to discuss with one another? What are your worst fears about the way infertility will affect you? What sources of support do you have? And there are probably other questions that will come into your conversations once you begin this process. If you find yourself talking pretty openly and honestly with some degree of hopefulness, then you can give yourselves high marks for empathy and self awareness. You should make your own assessment about whether any issues are causing you emotional pain and, if not, there are several options to consider. First, continue to keep open communication with your partner about these topics. Another is to join a local infertility support group. RESOLVE's website http://www.resolve.org/ lists support groups by regions in the US, and the Infertility Awareness Association of Canada (IAAC) http://www.iaac.ca/ does as well for Canada. In addition, many communities have their own peer-led support groups. And, further, many infertility clinics offer support groups for their patients. A third option is to make an initial appointment with an infertility counselor; this will give you an opportunity to check out whether this is someone with whom you feel comfortable and with whom you believe you could communicate about difficulties when they arise. It will give the counselor an opportunity to see you and your partner at a time when you are managing well. It will give all of you an opportunity to discuss the likely future availability of the counselor, as well as practices that you need to know about: fees, insurance coverage, length of sessions (usually 50 minutes), whether the counselor has a preference for working with individuals vs. couples, etc. If this visit does not make you feel as though this counselor is the person with whom you would like to work in the future, then continue your quest until you find someone in whom you have more confidence. Waiting for a crisis is no way to pursue this quest.

So, what if your conversation with your loved one is filled with fears, misgivings, tears or apprehensions on at least some of the topics you are discussing? This would suggest to me that at least one of you is hurting, at least one of you feels inadequate or confused about how to soothe your partner, and at least one of you is feeling emotionally overwhelmed on some level. Whether this means that you rarely discuss these issues with one another (usually for fear that the tears will turn to torrents), or that you are often reaching out for comfort that cannot be met by your partner alone, these are signals that you need more emotional support than you are getting.

Counselors are accustomed to having clients who are tearful on their first visit, who say "I think I'm going crazy!" by way of introduction, and who are searching for coping skills that elude them in the midst of their infertility. So if the description in this paragraph feels familiar, your options would include inquiring about whether your infertility clinic or physician's practice can provide or refer you to infertility counseling services. If the answer is no, then you will need to do some detective work in your community to locate a counselor. Resources to help with this may include the medical social worker at an area hospital, your religious leader, any infertile friends in whom you have confided, as well as listings that may appear on the websites of RESOLVE or IAAC. Even contacting a number listed under "mental health services" in the yellow pages or googling infertility counselors with the name of your town may yield one contact number that could give answers to your questions about whether there are experienced infertility counselors in your community. This can take both time and patience, but it is well worth the effort if you connect with someone who can help you with the emotional burdens you are carrying.

Some individuals or couples are so consumed with sadness and depression that it may take an emergency to jolt them and loved ones into recognizing the depth of their pain. Under these circumstances, when inability to function or a suicidal gesture are clear emergency signals, the path to help must be more immediate. Here is when an initial evaluation by a psychiatrist is an important first step, with the likelihood of prompt follow up by a mental health professional. The initial contact may be through a telephone call to your local mental health clinic where you firmly request an immediate appointment (that very day) or, if that is not successful, a trip to the emergency room of your hospital where a psychiatric evaluation should be available. It is far more important to get immediate services in a crisis, and ultimately to learn about the counseling resources in your community once the initial crisis has been addressed.

So, very briefly, let me tell you a bit about the different kinds of counselors (some will refer to themselves as therapists) , including their titles and their training:

• Psychiatrists, who are medical doctors, can offer mental health diagnoses and can write prescriptions for anxiety, depression and other conditions. It is important to inquire of the psychiatrist, and of your pharmacist, about the effects of any prescribed medication on a developing fetus. Some psychiatrists offer counseling, but it is more likely that a psychiatrist will refer you to one of the professionals listed below.


• Psychologists, who have master's degrees and often Ph.D.s, cannot prescribe medication. They have counseling expertise gained through their education, internships and post-degree supervised clinical experience.


• Social workers, who have master's degrees, have acquired their counseling expertise through clinical supervision during internships and possibly post-degree experience. Social workers often have skills in individual and family counseling, promoting couple communication, addressing issues of loss, advocacy and helping clients to find appropriate community resources.


• Marriage and family therapists, who have master's degrees, have acquired their counseling expertise through clinical supervision during internships and possibly post-degree experience. They provide individual counseling, couple counseling and family counseling.

It is possible that any of the counselors listed above, who are licensed in their state of residence, may be eligible to receive insurance reimbursement for providing services to you. This differs in each location, and a call to your insurance provider should be able to determine whether the counselor is considered a provider in their system. If money presents a barrier, there are several options you can pursue. You can ask a counselor whether s/he can offer you a sliding fee scale (this means fees will be flexible depending on your financial circumstances). If individual counselors in your area cannot offer this flexibility, sometimes agency counselors (at Family and Children's Services and Mental Health Agencies) can offer a sliding fee scale. Should none of these options be available, I would suggest a very open conversation with your counselor about an initial partial payment plan, with a repayment plan built in. Another option might be to see the counselor less frequently than weekly, thereby incurring less cost.

I know for any readers who looked at my "getting started" title and expected to whiz through this blog, you might be feeling as if there's a lot to this process. But remember, what I have tried to do here is to depict the process in enough detail so that you could see your own circumstances in the options I am presenting. So, in truth, you don't need to digest everything in today's blog -- just the parts that apply to you.

And, while you're digesting, I'll mention that my book offers therapeutic tips at the end of every chapter. So while you are considering whether/when to seek a counselor, you may find the book helps to acquaint you with the process of learning effective coping and communication skills over the course of the infertility journey. In my next blog I'll review what you can anticipate from the counseling experience, so you can feel more familiar with what to expect.

Post Mother's Day Reflections

For many women with infertility, the week after Mother's Day feels like a time to let out a deep breath. We haven't just been holding that deep breath on the holiday itself. No, we took that deep breath some time in early April when the first advertisements from retailers began to remind us that Mother's Day was approaching. And we, unlike the mothers in our midst, began to wonder how we would survive the holiday this year.

So did we survive it? How did we handle it? And why does it matter? I'll start with why does it matter. If you emerged this year emotionally unscathed, then you probably entered the Mother's Day season with a mind set or an action plan that worked for you. If you emerged emotionally wrung out, then this is the very time to sit back, breathe deeply, and reflect on what you can do now to learn from this year's difficulties. I know, I know, you have every hope that by Mother's Day next year you'll be able to celebrate with a baby in your arms. However, we all know infertility can be a long journey, and it's worth it to store this year's reflections as important insights into how you handle your vulnerabilities and how you try to anticipate emotional potholes.

So when you reflect on how this Mother's Day could have been less painful, given your infertility, what thoughts come to you? Over the years my clients and I have discussed everything from being caught by surprise, to feeling "out of place" amidst one's parents and fertile siblings, to feeling smothered by the presence of infants and toddlers at family celebrations, to feeling torn emotionally that you want to honor your mother (or mother-in-law) at the same time you want to bolt from the scene. Couple this with the bouquets of flowers that you send but don't receive, the special attention some religious leaders give to mothers in their congregations, and the impossibility of finding a quiet restaurant where you and your partner can have a calm meal (without being greeted cheerily by a staff person who wishes you a happy Mother's Day), and this day clearly emerges as filled with emotional challenges.

Each year I have tried to find a creative way of sensitizing others to the pain felt by families without mothers on Mother's Day. In an earlier blog I mentioned how, years ago, I spoke with the religious leaders in my community in February to help them be more sensitive in their Mother's Day remarks. This year I approached my local newspaper and asked that they do a feature on how infertile people experience Mother's Day, and the result was a full page spread that I have heard touched many hearts in our community. And in the years in between I have politely reminded well wishers that my infertility makes this holiday difficult (which at least made them aware that infertility hurts, and at best may have made them more cautious about assuming that every female is a mother). Also this year, in the two university courses on family relationships that I teach in the spring, I have included a unit on infertility and used a case study focusing on Mother's Day to bring my points home. So, for those of you who want to take on this holiday in the spirit of public education, there are all sorts of ways you can sensitize others. Begin thinking now how you (perhaps with a few friends) can reach out to make a difference.

But if you, like many readers, are not in the mood to be quite this vocal, think back to what you wish would have happened differently this year. Talk with your loved ones about how you need to approach this holiday differently next year if you do not yet have a child. Make some notes to yourself, so you can remember these reflections over time. Think about how you can reframe this day in the future so that it resonates as little as possible with feelings of loss and, instead, provides opportunities for you to feel hopeful or thankful for some aspect of your life. But DO think about this now, because when next year comes you may want to feel more emotionally steady as you enter the holiday fray. Ideas and strategies that worked for you this year are welcome! Feel free to make a difference by sharing them.

Women with Infertility: We're Everywhere!

In the last month since the publication of my book When You're Not Expecting, I've been amazed at the number of women who have confided in me their personal stories of infertility: women I know well, women I know only slightly, and women I am meeting for the first time. For some, their infertility is recent. For others their infertility is an indelible part of their past. Yet all of these women told me (even as their eyes filled or their voices trembled) how emotionally isolated their infertility made them feel. In addition to the women who had been diagnosed with infertility, another group of women sought me out after reading my book. These women were students, colleagues, reporters, friends, health care professionals, former college classmates, and relatives, all of whom had read my book and wanted my thoughts on how they could be more sensitive to women who have shared news of their infertility. So here's the dilemma -- how can these two quite different groups come together to have a compassionate conversation about the emotional challenges of infertility?

It seems to me there are several barriers we need to address: defining what is infertility, clarifying what behaviors are supportive, and shifting the conversation's focus as the infertile person's circumstances change.

When most people think of infertility, they tend to think of a couple's inability to get pregnant. But those of us who are deeply involved in infertility experiences know that women with the following circumstances also consider themselves to be infertile:

• an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy
• a partner diagnosed as the cause of the couple's infertility, even though the woman herself is considered fertile
• a molar pregnancy
• a pre-natal diagnosis that causes the woman to decide to terminate the pregnancy
• a miscarriage or a stillbirth
• secondary infertility

So when you share with friends, co-workers or loved ones that you are grappling with the sadness of infertility, they may not grasp that your circumstances fall within their definition of infertility. Broadening infertility to include pregnancy loss, a partner's diagnosis or secondary infertility will help others more fully to appreciate the sadness and frustration of your current situation.

Defining infertility may also involve being clear about the treatments that you/your partner are pursuing. Most fertile people are out-of-the-loop when reproductive technology is the topic under discussion. They may believe that IVF can be affordable and effective for everyone, that adoption "cures" infertility, that taking a vacation is a recommended clinical cure...you get the picture. It will fall to you to be as informative as possible, without offering so much information at once that you confuse your listener. That includes correcting misconceptions, as well as offering educational information about where you are in the diagnostic/treatment process.

A second barrier that may stand between you and a compassionate response is uncertainty about how to respond to your news. Especially around information that is perceived as having a sexual component, listeners are cautious about violating your privacy. This is the time to thank them for being interested in your infertility, to offer to answer any questions, and to suggest ways that they could be helpful now that you have shared this news with them. Depending on whether the person is your boss or your sister, there may be a necessity to have you clarify what you need from this person at this time in your life.

And that brings us to the question about how to handle infertility and your relationships over time. For starters, you are learning as you go along who you can count on for what. Some friends who are great for certain forms of support won't want to offer other forms of support; some who are compassionate early on will get tired or emotionally disconnected over time; some will find their own lives consumed by the joys of their own fertility and feel awkward around you; some will be there for you through thick and thin. In anticipation of this, you'll want to do several things to keep your support system resilient.

• Remember to relate to your friends as they've been relating to you: offer help when they need it, keep the flow of information about both of your lives, and allow them to distract you from your infertility whenever you're receptive.
• Try not to have your infertility define you in the eyes of others. Express appreciation when they inquire about diagnosis/treatment/waiting/etc., but feel free to turn the topic of conversation away from your infertility to another aspect of your life. Of course, if you've just gotten your period, a discouraging test result, a baby shower invitation, or other news where you need a sympathetic ear, you are entitled to ask for support. But every inquiry needn't turn into a major dialogue about your infertility.
• Even though you feel as if your life revolves around appointments, injections, mood swings, medications, etc., do what you can to plan with your partner, friends and loved ones some distractions that you can look forward to: a spring picnic, a new restaurant, a walk in the woods, a weekend out of town, a potluck dinner, a birthday party...you get the picture!
• Try to cultivate relationships with infertile friends. These folks won't need much prompting to understand why you are bummed out with a particular piece of medical news or the poor outcome of a medical procedure. In addition, adding to your friends adoptive parents and couples who are childfree by choice will expand your awareness of options these couples have pursued in their lives, perhaps with infertility as a backdrop.
• As time passes and you find yourself and your partner facing new decisions about future options, consider which acquaintances may be most helpful in talking about possible new directions. Some will be more helpful than others, and you may want to think about this before asking them to weigh in with their reactions to new choices that you are facing.

So, as we know that infertility affects far more people than would initially be apparent to us, and as we realize that many people are silent or awkward because they need a little help to know how they can help, I hope you can envision yourself reaching out in new ways to people who have the capacity to be supportive, both emotionally and practically. Feel free to weigh in with strategies you have used to generate support from people in your life!

Troubled Adoptions: Why? What to do?

In recent weeks there has been a fair amount of attention given to troubled adoptions. This has, in turn, been unsettling to individuals with infertility who ultimately are considering adoption as an option for future parenthood. The media's attention to the mid-April return to Russia of 7 year old Artem Saveliev by his Tennessee adoptive mother has ballooned beyond this one situation to a host of articles and TV coverage on "adoptions gone sour." The formal term for the ending of a legal adoption is "disruption," but the stories behind these unanticipated family sorrows are causing many readers to think more carefully about the possible risks associated with adoption. So why might an adoption become problematic? And when it does, what resources do adoptive parents have?

Let's look first at the "why?" factors that can contribute to troubles after the adoption. Whether an adoption is domestic or international, the prenatal care of the developing fetus often is unknown. Alcohol or substance use, poor nutrition, low maternal age and other risk factors may be present in the mothers whose babies are placed for adoption. Life after birth of the baby may include institutional care that is substandard or routinized, with little opportunity for the interpersonal warmth and cuddling that can be so important to building future trusting relationships. For older children or sibling groups, there may be a history of foster home placements or institutional care where those children have, at best, needed to fend for themselves and, at worst, have experienced abuse and emotional rejection. A child's records that are available to prospective adoptive parents may not include this kind of information, and the reports from the examining physician may focus exclusively on obvious health problems. This sets up the possibility that an adoptive parent, eager to provide welcoming arms and a loving heart, may be unaware of the extent of physical and mental health difficulties experienced by a child. Given that the agency adoption process itself can take several years, the conditions in which the child has lived are important for adoptive parents to understand, as there will be more empathy for whatever adjustment difficulties occur post-adoption.

So now, let's consider the "what to do?" question. This is not only for adoptive parents who are experiencing troubles, it also is for prospective adoptive parents who want to know what their options are if their child's adjustment to their home is painful or filled with trauma. This is where the services of the adoption agency need to be evaluated. Is the agency one that offers workshops for prospective parents in which they cover both the joys of adoption and the potential problems? Do such workshops include information about predictable problems (sleep disruption, night terrors, food hoarding, testing behaviors, etc.) that children of different ages might demonstrate as part of the normal adjustment to a new home? Are prospective parents given an opportunity to meet with adoptive parents who have experienced adjustment difficulties, learning from them various ways they coped? And, most importantly, does the agency make itself available for adoptive parents to return for counseling around difficulties that arise after the adoption?

Clearly an agency that addresses possible troubles up front is helping prospective parents to anticipate the special needs that their children may have and to ask themselves if they are "up" for this possible challenge. This is a time when prospective parents need to assess whether they see adoption as "second best" or as a "second choice." Second best is worrisome, in that it presents a sense of disappointment and the belief that having a birthchild is preferred as a route to parenthood. Second choice identifies that the adults had hoped for, and tried for, a birthchild, but when that option was not promising, were sufficiently committed to becoming parents that they turned to adoption as their next (and second) choice.

Since all children at one time or another present unanticipated challenges for their parents, those adults with a second best perspective may be most likely to point to the adoption as the root of the child's difficulties, whereas second choice parents may direct their commitment to parenthood into problem solving strategies. Clearly a problem solving approach is most likely to enable parents to reach out for counseling, for support services, and for mental health treatment. And here is where prospective adoptive parents can do some important homework. Does the agency with which you are working offer that counseling? If not, does it provide referrals to agencies and services that are familiar with childhood adjustment problems and dynamics that families may use in response to these problems?

Clearly prospective adoptive parents are aching to hold a child in their arms and to provide the love and comfort that will nurture this new family member. At the same time, they are hopeful that this child will enable them to feel more fulfilled as adults, opening new experiences to them as they finally join the ranks of their siblings, friends and co-workers who are parents. Yet it is important for adoptive parents to realize that they will need to have a special sensitivity to an adopted child around everyday issues such as "tell me how I was born," assuaging grand-parental misgivings and apprehensions, appreciating how differences in skin color or facial features between the child and parents may present issues (both within the family and in community/school relationships), and deciding how to help their child feel a connection to the country of his/her birth.

So, much as troubled adoptions have been in the news lately, this actually presents an important opportunity to help prospective adoptive parents weigh quite carefully the circumstances under which adoption feels possible, the kinds of questions to ask as you consider what agency to work with, the importance of talking with adoptive parents about how they have weathered hard times in child rearing, and the availability of support services in your community for children and families experiencing adjustment problems. Entering into parenthood requires that each of us ask ourselves how ready we are for this new chapter in our lives; and contemplating adoption requires even more introspection and self awareness about the unique opportunities and possible challenges that adoption can bring into the lives of families. Feel free to share your experiences, both in anticipation and in reminiscing about your own adoptions!

Celebrate Infertility Awareness Week: April 24-May 1

So, you may be asking, "What's to celebrate?" Infertility is not an experience anyone wants to have, it is something people hope to put behind them as quickly as possible, and it tends to be a somewhat carefully guarded secret for many couples.

So when a week is proclaimed in honor of infertility, this tends to jolt us a bit and provoke some questions in our own minds about how we fit into this week of public awareness. I find myself reminiscing (and not at all warmly) on my early days/months/years of infertility. Given that my children are now young adults, I'm recalling the mid 1970's when infertility was misunderstood on many levels, not very successfully treated, and generally "in the closet" for many affected couples. From that context, I imagine that many people would say that there have been massive medical breakthroughs and successes. This is true, particularly for couples who can afford to pay for medical tests, treatments, and choices (including donor eggs/sperm, adoption, or a gestational surrogate). But, in spite of medical progress, there are areas that have not experienced as much success, and it is especially these areas that will benefit from our voices during Infertility Awareness Week:

• Lack of insurance coverage for diagnosis and treatment: This is a significant concern for individuals and couples who want to explore what options are available for becoming birthparents. Insurance companies are reluctant to explore this potential black hole, and yet infertility is a significant concern for 12% of couples in the U.S. population of childbearing age. Even more pressing for some couples is being uninsured altogether, which interrupts their efforts to understand more fully what may be contributing to their inability to conceive or to carry a pregnancy to term.


• Lack of attention to the emotional impact of infertility. On the shelves of most book stores we can find a handful of books on infertility, but almost every book focuses on the medical aspects, with perhaps a cursory mention of the stress and anxiety that accompany the inability to conceive or to have a healthy pregnancy. The absence of the emotional factor has significant ramifications: physicians focus solely on the physiological, and their patients have no validation for the emotional challenges they find themselves confronting month by month as pregnancy eludes them. In addition, too few infertility clinics have therapists on staff to help patients with the mental health fallout from their infertility diagnosis and treatment. Of course it has been this emotional component that compelled me to write When You're NOT Expecting, in which I focus specifically on strategies for coping with the emotional challenges of infertility.


• Lack of awareness of the full range of populations trying to pursue birth parenthood. In the eighties, nineties and the early years of the 21st century, most infertility support groups were composed of married, middle class Caucasian women, with male partners occasionally accompanying their wives. The populations now trying to pursue parenthood also include people of color, same sex couples and single men and women. Creating face-to-face environments and on-line communities that welcome all would-be-parents is an evolving process. In my book I make a conscious effort to include the voices of these less visible prospective parents, since their emotional struggles are important to recognize as valid.


• Lack of sensitivity by some ob-gyns, urologists and infertility clinics to unmarried patients and same sex couples hoping to conceive. Beyond the local "invisibility" of these would-be parents, we may find that specialized infertility services can be insensitive to some patients, either unintentionally or, perhaps, in an effort to attract "typical" clients. These insensitivities can include social history forms asking for the name of a "spouse/husband/wife;" reluctance to have the same sex partner in the examining room; obvious awkwardness of the health care professional when interacting with unmarried patients and same sex couples; and, potentially, an unwillingness to accept input on testing/treatment from the couple (an example here would include a lesbian who requests that her partner's egg be fertilized with donor sperm before being implanted in her uterus).

The above are only the most compelling of the issues that deserve attention from the media, from insurance companies, from health care professionals and from infertile people who may have had a restricted view of people affected by infertility.

So, when you find yourself asking "What's this awareness week all about?" recall the issues above, add some of your own, and consider ways that you might be able to advocate on behalf of under-served folks who, like you, share the hope of some day becoming parents.