Family comments during the challenge of infertility can sometimes be damaging, hurtful, and seemingly uncaring. At stressful times most of us wish so much for our family to be comforting, understanding, and supportive, but most of us don't have such families.
In my office I have a cartoon of a convention hall. The banner for the convention reads "Adult Children of Normal Families." Only one person is seated in the entire convention hall.
The goal of this article is to look at three types of difficult family comments and explore ways to cope with each of these.
The Clueless Family Member
Most people who have not been touched directly by infertility have little or no knowledge of the process. These people would be lost on the many list servers - reading abbreviations such as BMS, OPK, TTC, or AF (and those are just the easy ones! :-} )
For those new to infertility jargon: BMS: Baby Making Sex OPK: Ovulation Prediction Kit TTC: Trying to Conceive AF: Aunt Flo (your period)
In addition, even in today's society, direct talk about a woman's body or the process of trying to conceive can be a socially uncomfortable one. And for goodness sakes, don't bring up sperm counts in public! When people are uncomfortable with a subject, their frequent response is to make a joke or to discount the idea.
Clueless family members will ask questions and make comments that reflect their lack of knowledge and discomfort with the topic. Even if you try to be tolerant of the inaccurate beliefs of this family member, you are likely to feel hurt.
"Just relax, honey, and I'm sure you'll get pregnant." (Discounting) "Why would you want to put all of those drugs into your body?" (Devaluing) "Maybe the two of you should just go on vacation." (Without a clue)
Coping with Clueless:
Option 1: Just smile, nod, and say nothing Advantages: a. The conversation stops and you don't have to be subjected to the continued cluelessness. b. The silence will be too uncomfortable. You can be the one to change the subject.
Option 2: Decide it's not worth it to try to educate this family member, but you don't want to hear any more. Stop the conversation and change the subject.
Example: "Aunt Susie, I know you'd like us to get pregnant. We're trying and we already have a lot of helpful suggestions. How's your garden coming along?" Advantages: a. You don't give her credit for being helpful b. You aren't using energy trying to educate her c. You take charge of changing the subject
The Cruel Family Member
The family member who communicates to you in such an unfeeling style that it seems cruel is often a member of your immediate family or an in-law.
Often this is your competitive younger sister/sister-in-law, who has babies by simply looking at her husband. Sometimes the cruel family member is your aunt who wants to put her own sister/brother down indirectly by making you feel little and small. Or the cruel family member can be your own parent who is angry because you haven't made him/her a grandparent yet.
"You mean the clomid hasn't worked yet? I knew a girl who took it and got pregnant in the first cycle. Oh, well, it sure seems to work for other people."
"What's the matter with you (your husband, your doctor)? Seems like by now you would have had at least one baby."
"Why don't you just give up and adopt. You're spending a fortune on all that medical mumbo-jumbo."
Coping with Cruel:
Option 1: ESCAPE - spend as little time with this family member as possible. Why subject yourself to such cruelty?
If you get caught in a conversation unexpectedly, you can always excuse yourself and leave the room to go to the bathroom, answer a page (no one knows if the vibrating ones really went off or not), help in the kitchen.
Option 2: IGNORE - Most people who need to make others feel little and small are like the Wizard of Oz who boomed out, "I am Oz the Great and Terrible," when in actuality, he was just a little old guy who couldn't get back to Kansas by himself.
So if you don't let yourself respond to their cruelty, you don't let them see the desired effect. Not responding is hard to do.
I always tell my clients to listen to such cruel people as if they were Charlie Brown's school teacher. Remember her? Whenever she spoke, Charlie Brown heard, "Waaa, waa-waa-waa wa."
Option 3: BE TRUTHFUL - "You know, Susie, what you just said hurts my feelings. I don't need to stand here and let you hurt me, so I'm going to talk to my husband/cousin/sister over there instead."
The Curious Family Member
The curious family member may want to learn about your situation in order to move into the position of supportive family member. However, questions from such a person can still feel quite intrusive.
If you can reframe the questions as an effort of this relative to move into a more supportive position with you, then maybe it will be easier to answer him/her.
Option 1: Answer the question that is asked and don't give further detail unless it is requested. For example, your cousin says, "Say, Lucy, I saw a headline about IVF and infertility. What in the world is IVF?"
You might answer, "IVF is in-vitro fertilization. It's a complicated process to help couples like us get pregnant."
Then wait to see if the cousin asks for more. In other words, follow the lead of the curious family member to see how far he/she wants to go in gaining information.
Option 2: Decide what your family member's motive is by using nonverbal cues - looking at his/her facial expression, tone of voice, body language. If this curious relative seems genuinely interested, then go slowly. Give him/her information to cultivate his/her understanding.
Remember that before you entered the world of infertility there was probably much that you didn't know also. By answering the questions of a curious family member, you may gain a helpful family ally who can do much to support you and protect you from others in the family who haven't been so curious.
Copyright 2000
About the Author : Linda Tillman, PhD is the founder of FertilityCoach. She can be reached at 404-638-6111 or FAX: 404-845-9988 or by email at mailto:
