"Society must know what it means to want and not be able to have children." Interview with the president of the Infertiles Network

In Babies and more We have spoken on many occasions of losses during pregnancy, childbirth and after birth. We do it because we are clear that it is a very, very painful time for couples, to give them support from here, and incidentally to raise awareness among those who have not suffered that these couples need a lot of love and understanding, being too usual for them to receive the opposite: well-meaning phrases, but that do more harm than good.

The couples who usually live the most are those who have fertility problems, who see how they place their hopes on achieving a positive that sometimes ends up not thriving. They are people who can live an absolute ordeal, and who again suffer from misunderstanding by the most direct environment. To talk a little about it, and especially about infertility, we have today Helena, president of the National Infertile Network Association.

What is the National Infertile Network Association

Before I start with the questions, I want to tell you that the National Infertile Network Association was born with the will to be a meeting point for women with fertility problems; women who are going through a hard process to become mothers.

The Association's mission is to be a meeting place that serves to give support, encouragement, desire, strength and above all hope to all those brave and struggling women who get up every day to move forward with only one goal: to be a mother.

Today it has offices in the Valencian Community, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Murcia, Balearic Islands, Granada and Aragon.

Besides, the National Infertile Network Association It is intended to normalize infertility, to break the prejudices that exist around it and to make assisted reproduction known as another aspect of medicine.

Finally, the Association strives to ensure that in pharmacies and hospitals the same importance is given to pharmacological treatment as to emotional follow-up during the process.

"And you, for when? That you miss the rice!", I guess this phrase is very common, and at the same time very painful ...

We spend our lives under pressure from the society around us; They pressure us to have a boyfriend, then to get married, then the children come and the thing does not end there, we have to have the couple, buy the little house with the dog, go on vacation to DisneyLand Paris and drive a minivan. Yes, society cares too much about directing one's life, but does not care about empathizing with it.

So yes. Unfortunately it is very common. I don't think there is any woman of childbearing age who has not heard her, at least once in her life.

And I ask: Has anyone stopped to think about what that phrase implies? Do you know that there are couples who find it difficult to have a baby 2,3, 5 or 9 years? Do you know that there are couples who do not finally have a baby? Can you imagine the physical and emotional wear that this entails? Month after month waiting. Seeing how time plays against him, how the possibilities escape from his hands ... And now that you have put yourself in his skin, think about the pain that must occur to him that again and again remind him that no, that not yet It's mom / dad, who has been trying for years and nothing. That he has had several pregnancies but they have not reached term, etc.

From here we want to say enough! Please, don't you realize the damage you can do? Of the pressure and the added burden that you put on that person who is currently struggling to have a child without getting it?

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And it's not the only phrase, right?

Not at all, there are many. To give some examples of phrases that we should banish forever:

  • Quiet, you are young.
  • Do not obsess!
  • When you least think about it, you will get pregnant.
  • Relax, go on vacation!
  • Think about what you have, not what you lack and you will see that it is not so much!
  • Nature is wise and God knows what he does!
  • If he doesn't give you children, it will be for something. Everything happens for something in life.
  • You are a good person, you will be given!
  • It's a matter of starting an adoption and Plas! pregnancy.
  • I don't know anyone who hasn't gotten pregnant, so don't worry, everything comes.
  • You don't know what you save, how comfortable you are. Having children is exhausting and leaves you no time for anything!
  • If it didn't work, it is best to have lost it.
  • Better to have lost it now that it was just a few cells, to have lost it later. That would be a stick!
  • Merciful woman, pregnant woman!
  • What if you buy a dog?
  • And you don't consider adoption?
  • That is because you are not made for motherhood!
  • Let's see if you don't know how to do them.
  • If your husband does not succeed, mine can give you a couple of classes to see how it is done.
  • It's just that we want to have everything in this life ... but sometimes it can't be.
  • Oh, well, at first, we are going to keep nothing but my husband looking at me, I am so fertile!
  • Science has come a long way. Don't worry!
  • Don't try anymore, right?

Can you tell us a little about how "Red Infértiles" was born?

The association was born in networks. We found three women who at that time had been trying to be moms for several years without getting it. We had several treatments of assisted reproduction on slopes and much physical and emotional wear. We agree on a blog and start talking. Every day more women joined. We create a very beautiful and special bond. We help and support each other a lot.

When I found them, it was sunk psychologically. I had been looking for a baby for more than three years, I had suffered an abortion, my first assisted reproduction treatment had not worked and it was wrong. I was sad, tired, angry, I was afraid… and meeting other women who felt the same as me, who understood me, who didn't judge me… was a respite. For me it was a before and after. I started to leave the well where I was. The road remained hard, but I was no longer alone.

That was what made us think about creating an association for patients with infertility and / or assisted reproduction.

We thought it necessary to create a space in which to be safe. Safe from painful phrases, from harmful comments. A place to feel accompanied. A place to go to receive that hug that many times your environment is not able to give you. That was the beginning.

Now the association is not only that place to go to not feel alone. We work daily to VOICE to infertility. We want infertility to be recognized as another pathology that needs to be treated, we want people not to be ashamed to suffer from infertility and to stop demonizing Assisted Reproduction treatments. In turn, we work to achieve warmth and humanity in the clinics during treatments and bring professionals to patients, who listen to them.

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Surely the women who are part of this network are closely associated with gestational losses, including neonatal losses. Is it usual to also receive phrases that try to help, but do more harm than good?

Infertility is caused by many different pathologies. The inability to get pregnant (infertility) or to carry a pregnancy to term (infertility) is caused by very different causes ranging from male factors to ovulation problems, endometriosis, immunological or coagulation problems, malformations, to name a few . In many cases, it is a combination of different pathologies that does not allow us to be moms / dads.

Unfortunately, many of us have had gestational or neonatal losses. It is a terrible thing. You have to listen to the typical phrases of "Better now than not later", "Nature is wise", "Quiet, you'll get pregnant again".

I guess they say with the best of intentions, but they are such painful phrases ...

The person who receives them has just lost his son. YOUR SON. Yes, he was not yet born, but he was already her baby. I had already imagined it, dreamed ... and it's gone.

Surely that child already had a name and his parents already dreamed of decorating the room and everything they had to buy.

It has cost you so much that positive, that pregnancy, that you cling to it, and suddenly one day you get up bleeding or on an ultrasound review they tell you that that little heart is not beating. Your baby has stopped living.

It is horrible, very hard. Try to control crying and look strong. Strong because you receive phrases like the ones we have named before, phrases that make you see that the person in front of you does not give it the importance it has. Where you are crying to your son, that person thinks it was just a set of cells. Phrases that make you lock yourself and not give more explanations.

We also understand that it is often difficult for a family member / friend to be in that moment. What to say, what to do ...

Our advice: Do not say anything. Look her in the eye and convey with that look that you are there. Give him a hug, a caress, but don't tell him anything.

Nothing you say is going to be a comfort. Surely cause the opposite effect, so do not say anything. Just give him a hug.

A hug and occasionally interested in you, right? Without doing that "avoid talking about it to not remind you." I understand that the ideal is a friendship that, precisely, is there to listen to you if you need to address the issue. Is that so?

Sure, sure, thanks for the clarification. That's. It is not a matter of giving you a hug and "Hala, I have already fulfilled, this is what you needed." No. A good friend, a father, a mother, a close relative has to be there. It is a difficult role, we know, but it is their role and they have to try to do it in the best possible way.

Some clues:

  • Send a whatsapp with a smiley emoticon. No more Speechless. Surely you will not receive an answer, but I assure you that the person who reads it will feel his heart comforted. He will know that you are there and that you do not forget it. What are you waiting for until you recover and gain strength ...
  • Lets take a walk? Do we have coffee? Are we going to the movies? If he doesn't feel like it, he'll tell you, or an excuse will be invented, it doesn't matter. Do not feel rejected. Please do not do it.

I think there is the key. That special person who is trying to help should not feel rejected, should not feel that what he does is useless. Of course it works! It serves a lot.

And if you, a special person who are trying to help someone who has just had a gestational loss, or who has not had their assisted reproduction treatment, are you reading me, pay attention to me, please. THAT YOU ARE HERE FOR A LOT. Don't force the situation, you have to give her time, HER time, whatever she needs. Do not give her advice, do not try to encourage her because right now she does not need to hear words of “encouragement”. Let him know you're there. That you are not leaving her alone.

You can say: "I am here, I am by your side. When you need it, you have my shoulder to cry. You can let off steam with me. I will not judge you. I will not advise you. I will only embrace you and always, always, always, I'm going to support you. "

I leave you a link to a post I wrote about the power of hugs, in case it can help.

Infertility, is it women's business? Is it because of the quality of man's semen? Can it be for both of us?

That is another great topic. Infertility is a matter of two. It's always a matter of two, and now I'll explain. Statistics say that 40% of cases are caused by male problems, the other 40% by female problems and the remaining 20% ​​by problems of both or unknown causes.

But I think that if the search for pregnancy occurs within a couple, infertility is always a matter of two. It doesn't matter if it's me or it's he who has a problem. We are a couple and as such we must face it.

We must also tear down those thoughts and those terrible phrases that come to say: "If your husband does not work, I leave you mine," for example. This makes it difficult for man in many occasions to assume that the cause is his.

And when pregnancy is finally achieved, can it be enjoyed? Joy, fear, fear, hope ... what feelings do you have?

Well ... I suppose that each person is a world, but what they usually tell us, what we have experienced in the first person are feelings of disbelief and contentment mixed with fear.

Disbelief because you can't finish thinking you're pregnant.

Joy contained because it seems that you cannot finish rejoicing because if you explode with happiness you feel that something is going to spoil. And you can't take that fear off. What if we lose it again? What if something goes wrong? To reach the first 12 weeks is to reach the great psychological barrier in which you begin to breathe.

From there ... little by little.

As the days go by, incredulity gives way to certainty. You know and feel that you are pregnant. The contained joy is transformed day by day into infinite joy. And fear ceases to be the great protagonist although in many cases it does not go away. It doesn't go until you give birth. Even when you give birth, when you see it for the first time, you look at it, touch it and touch it again saying: “You are real. Are you here". It takes a few days to assimilate it, to believe that it is real, that you are not dreaming.

And that day you live again. Your life was truncated with infertility and at that moment you return to restart it and start the engine of your path.

I try to imagine those cases in which after several attempts a couple realizes that they will not succeed, it should hurt more than everything previously lived, right?

The road in the search for a baby is very hard. It is a roller coaster of feelings. Ups and downs. You feel fear, panic, sadness, hope, anger, anguish, joy ... All these feelings in each cycle, in each treatment. Psychologically, it is a tiring road.

When the years pass, when you have gone through different assisted reproduction treatments, when the tests do not say anything else, when the checking account is shaking because we do not forget that these treatments are terribly expensive and in many cases they are not covered by Social Security , when you are exhausted and you feel that you can no longer ... When you reach that point, several things can happen.

There are women, couples, who still find themselves in that situation of physical, psychological and economic exhaustion cannot consider stopping. Others, on the other hand, feel that they cannot do more, that it is over. That the next treatment will be the last treatment. And if it doesn't work, they will say goodbye to the search and start a new path, learning to live without a child.

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That moment it's terrible. Terrible because you are already exhausted, because you can no longer. You have no strength. And even then, you have to start crafting a new duel. The final duel The final farewell to that search and that son.

You have to take a deep breath and say, "So far we have arrived. We have tried everything. We cannot do more. Now, we have to learn. We will learn to stop searching. We will learn not to have children. We will learn to smile again. We will learn to return to live".

Many times we talk about battles, fighting, and I want to make something very clear. Stop fighting, deciding to stop looking for a child is not losing the fight. It is not losing the war. It is not giving up.

Making the decision of "So far, I can't anymore", is one of the bravest decisions That couple will surely take in your life.

Photos | iStock
More information | National Infertile Network Association
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