Say one word about battling to get pregnant and generally you’ll meet with a spectacular array of pop-psychology ideas and home remedies designed to help you pop out babies at a spectacular rate. Infertility myths are very common (and strangely enough, common sense isn’t). Everyone seems to know precisely how to explain your infertility issues and the counsel you hear is typically vaguely helpful at best or extremely insensitive and untrue at worst.
- Well meaning family members might tell you that it’s your negative thought patterns and you ought to just lighten up and you’ll conceive. Are you positive that you don’t want a baby too much? Alternatively, what if, deep down in the abyss of your unconscious mind, you don’t actually want to conceive? Can that be it? Surely there might be less neglected babies if not desiring to have a baby was adequate to make you infertile?
- Other family members, perhaps the guy’s relatives, may be tempted to blame it on you, because infertility is the woman’s problem after all, and we don’t want to believe that perhaps he inherited his infertility from us. The fact of the matter is that issues with the man’s fertility form just about 30% of all infertility cases, with female infertility representing another 30%. Non-specific infertility and instances where both the man and the woman have problems make up the final third. No passing the blame on this one guys.
- Has the old woman in the apartment upstairs asked you how long you took the pill for? Blaming the pill for infertility is often based on purely subjective evidence, rather than on something substantial. If you experienced a predictable cycle before the pill, you’ll had a predictable cycle after the pill, if you had fertility issues prior to taking the pill, you’ll probably have fertility difficulties afterward too, but being on the pill would have masked any problems. You’re certain to hear the one about someone’s uncle’s sister who has a baby right after adopting, even though I’m sure there are lots and lots of stories of couples who didn’t conceive after adopting. Of course not, it doesn’t make for interesting storytelling, and who wants to mess up a good story with pesky facts?
- The answer that really gets to me is the one where someone, clearly aiming to be helpful, remarks that perhaps you weren’t supposed to have children of your own, it just isn’t your fate, and ‘everything happens for a purpose’ you know, you’ll see, it will all make you stronger. How come they get a hotline to ‘Discover your Supreme Destiny’ and you don’t? You’ll also get those who will attempt to support you by informing you that you are doing your part to reduce overpopulation. Conclusion: unhelpful.
That said, there is sometimes a minutely tiny morsel of truth in some of those infertility myths. When you stumble upon these infertility myths you just need to be sure to do your research so you can set those interfering old ladies straight and maybe even gain some information that might actually help you.
Here is more information on Infertility Information. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Infertility.
