Thoughts on Infertility

Last year we had to take an adoption class. They gave us a disc with a ton of articles and I just remembered they had some on infertility. I will share them over the next few weeks.

Patrician Irwin Johnson:
"As with any wound, it heals with a scar which can be reopened at an unexpected time. Infertility's scars remain on the soul long after the wounds have healed.

Barbara Eck Manning:
"My infertility resides in my heart as an old friend. I do not hear form it for weeks at a time, and then, a moment, a thought, a baby announcement or some such thing, and I will feel the tug - maybe even be sad or shed a few tears. And I think, 'There's my old friend.' It will always be a part of me."

Al Berk & J. Shaprio:
"Grief is...a natural reaction to the feelings of helplessness when a couple realizes that pregnancy will never occur. This grief over the loss of life's goals - the pregnancy experience and having children - is particularly difficult because our society does not recognize such a loss with rituals or other processes that could allow the couple to work through the time of grief."

Silber & Dorner:
"Infertility is grief experience, although traditionally it has not been viewed as such. Infertility is a loss - it is a loss of the imaginary child (the child the couple imagines would have been born to them). They will go through all the normal stages of grieving for this loss, just as if they had lost a child through death. However, society does not relate to or understand the loss of infertility because it is invisible."