Infertility

I found the Internet a hugely useful source of information. I would, it was quite funny though because I would quite often be at work looking up these fertility websites and there’d be quite complicated drawings of the female reproductive system and I, someone would come into my office and I’d be like, quick, minimise it. So that was quite interesting, you know, for me that was a really useful, a useful source, and also sometimes a scary source. There’s a lot of information on the Internet that isn’t corroborated. You know, you, anybody can put something on the Internet. I think it’s really important to find out a, a respected source of information on the Internet. You can terrify yourself looking at various different websites. You can self-diagnose as well, which I think can potentially be quite a dangerous thing to do. And so I think my advice would be, “Look at, for a decent website with information that you can trust.”

But actually information, you do you want information all the time. You want more information. As much information as you can possible get and as you rightly said there wasn’t much, I wasn’t near a computer much, you know and access to a computer. So those newsletters actually that came from the originating fertility unit were very good, very good, very informative and then they had access to support and counselling if you wanted that. I didn’t actually take that up to be honest, because I felt I got of support from my family and friends, but you do and afterwards the same with newsletters and things, were very good. I just liked that. I liked that aspect of it. 

I do use the Internet and I do search for different things to do with miscarriage and infertility. But I find it quite overwhelming, the amount of information you can often find there. And also the level of medical detail, that perhaps as someone who’s a layperson, who doesn’t, who’s not a doctor, I can’t always understand what they’re saying. And sometimes it can actually I think cause more anxiety than it actually allays. For example I’ve got a bicornuate uterus, which means that it’s slightly heart-shaped, and that can be a cause of miscarriage. But if you go and have a look on the Internet, it basically, you know, the, the scare stories about it are just manifold. And you could end up convincing yourself that if you’ve got a bicornuate uterus you’re never ever going to be able to carry a baby to term. Which isn’t the case at all. So I think that, I do look on the Internet and I do research on the Internet, but I always take it with a little bit of a pinch of salt. But if there’s anything that I find particularly interesting or particularly concerning, I’ll either go on to the forum and post on there and say, “Has anyone read this? And what do you think of it?” or I’ll print it off and take it to my consultant and say, you know, “I’ve read this. Do you think there’s any truth in it?” And I know doctors and consultants absolutely hate it when people go in with Internet printouts. Because the last time I went to see my GP with something I printed out from the Internet I could see her visibly sort of going uh. Because you just, they must get so sick of it, everyone diagnosing their own problems from things they’ve printed out on the Internet. But I just think that it’s often better to just have that second check with somebody who’s medically trained and medically qualified, rather than sending yourself into a complete spin because you’ve read something on the Internet that tells you that because you’ve got x, y and z you’re never going to be able to have children. Because sometimes it can be written from a completely different angle that you haven’t quite picked up on, because it’s a medically researched document or something and you haven’t picked up on actually that’s a research project about someone who’s got a condition that you don’t have. So I think, yes, the Internet is an enormous source of information, but I think it has to be used very carefully. Because otherwise it can just make you even more anxious than the whole thing does anyway.

But I did, at first I was really really reluctant to join any kind of support group. And I think it was partly because it was kind of, it kind of meant admitting that it was a problem. And I remember when I went to the hospital one of the doctors saying to me something about a support group. And I said, “Oh, no, I don’t want to join a support group.” And I was really really adamant about it. And I said, she said, “Why?” And I kind of explained that I thought it would be sort of admitting it was more of a problem, and that it wouldn’t help me cope, and I was coping fine by myself, and burst into tears. And she said, “Well, I don’t think you’re really coping, are you?” I said, “No, I’m not.” And I did actually in the end, I remember I had to really pluck up my courage the first time I rang the Infertility Support Network. And it was like you were ringing about some really, I don’t know, admitting you had some really awful thing. It really felt like that. And I remember my voice was really shaking and I was really really anxious. And they were just really lovely and really supportive and sympathetic. “Well, we’ll send you all our information.” And actually it was a real help. And we went to, we didn’t go to lots of support group meetings, but we went to a few and it made such a difference. It was just amazing to be in a room full of people who you had absolutely nothing in common with really apart from this one thing, but they all understood. And you knew that no one was going to say to you, “Oh, so do you have children?” and, “When are you going to get round to it?” And, you know, we could even laugh about some of the sort of ridiculously awful things that had happened to us. And it was just a, fantastic. Actually it was really fantastic. And I was so glad that we did it. And we didn’t go that often. But you knew when you needed to that that kind of network was there to tap into. And I think that was actually one of the most valuable things that we did, because, you know, at the time we didn’t know anyone else who was going through it. And it was just brilliant. And then later on as we got further down the process, a sort of friend of a friend of a friend was actually having fertility problems and started on the whole testing thing at the same time, and we became just really really close friends because of that. And it was so helpful to have her there and to be able to talk to her and always know that she understood. And, and, you know, we could go off and laugh about ridiculous things together about it and, you know, talk about how awful other people were not understanding and how unsympathetic they were. And actually it was a real help just to have someone else who was there and who kind of had the same things. But then it was quite difficult, because I got pregnant before she did. And I knew exactly how she felt about it. I knew how she was putting on that smile and going, “Oh, that’s fantastic.” And I knew that me being pregnant would be worse than anyone else being pregnant for her. And she was brilliant and we did stay friends. And then she got pregnant in the end as well.