Infertility Group Support Open Letter To My Patients
INFERTILITY, a word all of you are very familiar with! To do a free association activity with this word would produce numerous gut-wrenching feelings, adjectives, questions, nouns etc. I can imagine that I would hear the words isolation, loneliness or alienation reverberated across the room by more than one woman.
Each and every one of your stories stands alone because your experiences with infertility have been soul-crushing. Standing alone in the depth of your emotional responses from your monthly mournings to failed treatments and loss can only magnify feelings of brokenness.
Standing alone is not easy, but you do not have to do it alone anymore. Thank you all for allowing me to be a part of your journey and I want to continue to support and champion your desire to expand your family. It has taken longer than I would have liked, but finally, we are going to provide an infertility support group and so I invite to join us, myself and Christine, through an EMBRACE with other women to share and support one another in your journey.
“The Power of Words Spoken in Group” by Nancy Kaufman, LCSW. She wrote: “Last night a woman told her story out loud for the first time in front of other people. It had taken her years to summon up the courage to attend this group, years to come to terms with belonging here. But the look of relief as she spoke, and her feelings of comfort as she heard others speak, was palpable from across the room. She was, after all, talking to a room full of men and women who all understood how she felt [to be considering sperm or ovum donation] because they too had traveled this same long road. …When someone is given the chance to “Just Say Everything” and their fears, frustrations and devastating disappointments are verbalized, heard and understood… miracles can occur and families are made.”
