Opening up about it: Part one

Addressing IVF with your nearest and dearest

From the very fact that I’m writing this Substack, it should be fairly clear that we’re open to sharing our IVF journey with other people. But knowing who to tell and when to tell them isn’t always the easiest.

I know some people like me who are extremely open about everything, some who have told select friends and family and some who haven’t shared it with family at all. Lots of things can play into this: your relationships with people, cultural and religious differences, job stability and security…and just how comfortable you feel discussing something so intimate with other people.

The main thing to know is that this is your personal journey. There is no right or wrong way to handle it and nobody is owed an explanation about your fertility or your decisions. And if you change your mind about how much or little you want to share, that’s also fine.

We’ve chosen to tell our friends and family what we’re going through: Matt’s family already knew this would be his path after his genetic diagnosis, and I talked it all through with my mum and sisters when I first found out.

It’s good to have your family in your corner, but there’s also a certain weight to it. It’s not fair to tell our mums that we have appointments but then not tell them how it went, or tell them we’re waiting for results and then not let them know that we’ve had them. They are, after all, our mums and are naturally worried about us. They want to know what’s happening next, not to pressure us, but to support us and know that we’re satisfied with progress.

Having family that know about the journey means that my in-laws won’t think I’m appalling if it’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m in my pyjamas because I’m injecting myself with hormones twice a day. It means I can call Mum and cry down the phone to her if a transfer doesn’t work, and she will already know the circumstances and be there to share my disappointment and lift me back up.

It does also mean that the sadness of a failed transfer is not just on us, but on our whole family. And that’s a hard burden to carry – for us, that we’re going to disappoint them; for them, that they too are waiting and getting their hopes up for good news.

We’ve also told our closest friends, which, again, is a balancing act. It’s important to us to be able to share with them, for them to understand why we may be a little less sociable and maybe a little more fragile – at the same time as making sure that IVF doesn’t become our whole damn life or our struggles fall too much on the shoulders of our friends.

Being able to be open with them has helped in various ways, though. As we’re all largely aged between 30 and 40, it is only logical that lots of us are trying for babies currently. For friends to know that we’re doing IVF has helped to avoid insensitive situations when they do conceive – and has also encouraged people to talk to us about their own fertility issues. In the last year, I’ve become a safe space for friends to mention long periods of trying, miscarriages, concerns about whether they should freeze eggs and more. It has turned out that two of my oldest friends – who also know each other – are doing IVF too, and we have organically become our own mini IVF support group.

Finding people you can talk to in real life is vital, especially if they’ve also lived through this process.

Setting boundaries is also important. We have been incredibly lucky: our families and friends seem to have mastered the art of listening and asking questions without pushing opinions or overstepping.

Not everyone has that and it’s important for your own sanity that you remember that the only advice you need to take is the medical advice. If someone is pushing you with ‘shouldn’t you?’s or ‘why don’t you?’s, remember that ‘no’ is a full sentence. You don’t have to justify yourself in such personal decisions.

It’s also ok to not have the capacity to always be thinking about it or talking about it. Just because you’ve invited people into your story, it doesn’t mean you’ve entered a contract to answer all questions at all times. Only the other day, a good friend asked me ‘So where are you up to? What happens next, what medications are you doing?’ He was genuinely curious and I appreciated him making an effort to be involved, but I’d just had a day of making big decisions about it all and I simply said ‘Do you mind if I go into it another time? I’ve run out of IVF brain capacity tonight’. Unsurprisingly, he was totally understanding. We’ll pick it up another day – or maybe we won’t, but I’ll know he’s there for me either way.

Finally, it’s also completely fine for your decision to be that you’re not telling anyone anything. It’s already an exhausting, stressful time and you need to do what works for you. There’s support out there beyond family and friends: podcasts, bloggers, clinic counselling. Me and my Substack. You don’t have to talk to anyone but you can still find your people.

Next time I’ll look at the arguably more stressful element of who to tell and when to tell them…employers…