Since our family was completed with the birth of our daughter, I’ve been quite open about our struggles with infertility, both online and in real life. That’s the approach we’ve taken with our friends, acquaintances, strangers even (as I get older I feel an overwhelming need to share, yeah, I need to work on that). I discussed our experience in a leadership workshop that I ran for sixty five senior leaders a couple of years ago. The topic – trust in leadership. Vulnerability, and sharing of yourself, inspires trust.
After the workshop, I was approached by a few of my colleagues – albeit privately – about the positive impact of my transparency on them. One of them had just about given up but decided to try again after she heard my story. She told me a few months later that she was expecting. That was the greatest feeling.
It was so different while we were trying to conceive and being disappointed time and time again. I felt isolated, and very alone. Even my husband, as tremendously supportive as he was, couldn’t fully cover all the emotional bases.
We hadn’t had specific discussions about when, how or even if we would approach the subject with our kids. We let it come up organically as we’d never hidden it from them. When my daughter was around 3, we took them to a milestone celebration for IVF Canada, our clinic. We met several families who had also been successful with their treatments. My kids didn’t know why we were there other than the fact that there was entertainment and cake. So many families, the ballroom was packed.
Our IVF baby will be turning 20 soon. Thanks to the power of the internet, my first blog, and the one about our infertility struggles, are there for the kids to read. She’s met a few other young people who were conceived through IVF. It’s great that they can talk about it so openly. IVF support is getting better and some employers and government have programs. What a difference 20 years makes – but still, I believe many women and couples suffer in silence and treat the subject as taboo.
I am preparing scenes as an exercise in memoir writing. Our journey to build our family has provided a ton of emotional material. Those feelings are still pretty easy to access. I have shared some of these scenes with my kids. I think it’s important that they know how hard we tried. I hope to inspire them, especially my daughter, to know that great things come from being persistent and facing obstacles.
My husband gives me a lot of credit for how much I pushed, worked hard, didn’t accept defeat as we navigated our journey. He’s a very private optimistic guy but he sure bore a brunt of a lot of negative emotions and horrible attitude from me. He always said he would have been fine with life as just a couple.
We would have been just fine without kids. Frankly, it is just the two of us a lot of the time now anyway. We have wonderful kids – adults now – who are absolutely lovely human beings. What shining lights they are for me. They were the catalysts that propelled me on an incredible journey toward being a better human being myself.
Is there anything you’ve previously been private about that you’re now open with?
(I have tickets to see OMD next July- it was postponed from this past summer. I am excited to finally see them live …)
At a time 
Also had my kids via the most aggressive form of IVF, born in 2017 then 2020. I am forever grateful for this intervention.
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I’m glad you were successful !
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I’m thankful that IVF is there for so many who want to have children. I have a close friend who tried several rounds but it never worked for them. So difficult, and I know the hormones you take are rough as well. I’m glad that it worked for you. Did you have your son via IVF as well? Reading this post, I feel like it was only your daughter.
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PS, I don’t think I know that OMD song…it didn’t sound familiar to me.
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I love this song, I like that it features Paul Humphreys singing.
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I’m sorry that it didn’t work for your friend – we were very fortunate that it took first time, we felt we hit the jackpot (after several other procedures had failed). Hormones were awful, made me a bit of a terror sometimes yikes. For our son I just took medications and hormone shots and monitored cycles. “Just” – it was its own journey too.
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It took some help for me too, to get pregnant (an IUI was enough in our case) but I know of so many friends who had either difficulties getting pregnant or keeping the pregnancies. I have the feeling it is talked about it more now and I hope it keeps going in this direction. I have the feeling that a lot of things around motherhood are idealized – pregnancies, being a parent, doing it all and then later menopause. I am pretty vocal about my struggles with it with my younger colleagues. I wish I had known a couple of those things ahead of time. I love being a mom but it is not all sunshine either.
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Agree, it is not all rainbows and sunshine. I love being a mom too – I have a tendency to keep things pretty shiny on my socials, but there are real challenges in the background.
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I’m so glad that IVF worked for you. I babysat for twins who are a result of IVF. Sadly, the mom hoped to have another baby and wasn’t able to.
I had some fertility struggles as well. Not many people know that, because we have so many kids -they don’t realize that early on I had some issues. I think the help I got was called IUI. I got pregnant several times on my own. One thing I was quiet about for a long time was the fact that I had 6 miscarriages. I don’t know if all of our kids know about that. I know my older daughter found out, because a doctor at one of her appointments years ago asked if I’d ever had a miscarriage. She about fell off the exam table. I think she was about 15 years old. My other bio daughter also knows, because I think she asked me once. I’m not sure my sons know. It was such a dark time. I remember the feeling of loss quite vividly. I’m open about the miscarriages now, but I kept it quiet when I went thru it – I think mostly because I didn’t want people waiting around to see if I was going to have another baby. It felt like that would introduce added pressure.
Infertility and loss is so hard to cope with and it takes a toll on a couple, especially as friends and relatives are welcoming their own children into the world. I’m glad those days are behind me. I think it’s amazing that your story has helped other people.
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Oh my heart goes out to you about your miscarriages, I can’t even imagine. We found out later that one of our friends suffered several miscarriages before her two kids came along. Yes societal pressures are real, I don’t blame you for keeping that information private. My issue was getting pregnant, I was fortunate to have really great pregnancies.
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This is a beautiful tribute to the power of IVF. I have known so many women who have struggled – so many miscarriages and lost hopes and LOTS of money spent just trying to have a baby.
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I also recently went to a leadership training and it was all about vulnerabiltity and story telling. Good for you for opening up about your struggle with infertility.
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