Please Ask for Help with Infertility Stress

I don't normally post my written audio blog, but I have excerpted my current audio blog because I think the topic is so important.

Yesterday there was an anonymous posting on an infertility board of which I participate on. My interpretation and the interpretation of twenty-two other women was that the writer had left her suicide note for all of us to read. The despair that had plagued her was tremendous. She lost a pregnancy at 16 weeks, was financially bankrupt and, clearly, emotionally spent. I am just an armchair psychologist at this point, but my guess is that she suffered from a post-partum depression that could have been magnified when she started to use fertility medications again.

Because she posted anonymously, we had no way to reach out to her except through posting. We posted the suicide prevention hotline number, we shared our stories, we begged her to just call somebody. It is the rare woman suffering from infertility who doesn’t have some dark days. As found on renowned mind-body expert, Alice Domar’s website, research has shown that the stress associated with fertility treatment can be at a level comparable to the stress associated with serious illness. Patients who seek emotional support early in treatment are often better prepared for their experiences and find it significantly less stressful than patients who do not.

If you are emotionally struggling with infertility, please seek out help. There are so many of us out here trying to help each other, sometimes in person, but most of the time virtually through chat groups, emails and twitter. You can even take an infertility stress test http://www.domarcenter.com/fertility/stress_test.html

I don’t know the ending to the story. We have all waited breathlessly today for anonymous to post again and tell us that she called for help. We haven’t heard a thing. We can only hope that she is with someone who is helping her as I speak.

If you or somebody you know is depressed because of infertility, please reach out to someone. Infertility may feel like the end of the world, but there is still so much more.