What Do Your Parents Know about IF?
Posted on June 16, 2008
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In preparation for an interview with Dr. Alan Singer, we had a brief conversation yesterday to discuss the upcoming podcast. We had a slight difference of opinion on how educated parents of adult children are about infertility. It is his opinion that everyone knows about infertility, such as what “it” is, how difficult it can be on a marriage, and the consequences of adult children waiting until later in life to become parents. I told him that I somewhat disagreed with his opinion. I think we are still trying to inform, educate and bring about awareness about this silent crisis. Not just to the parents of adult children, but to the general population.
My parents knew nothing about infertility. My dad still makes those “wasn’t a problem for me” comments without realizing that he is talking to someone who it wasn’t easy for. My mom only knows about infertility because of our experience with it. She may have heard a little about the topic before we were facing the struggle, but she was not aware enough to offer advice or insight. It never crossed her mind that she should urge us to try to build our family early in our marriage because we “might” have problems conceiving.
My husbands parent’s had difficulty becoming pregnant the second time. Something we would call Secondary Infertility today, but probably wasn’t really addressed 35 years ago. Even with their frustration and struggle to become pregnant, they did not offer much advice or support as we struggled with our IF.
How about you? Do your parents truly understand infertility? Do/did they encourage you to start building your family before your career because it was possible that you “might” have problems, especially if you wait too long? How educated are those in the 50+ age range about infertility? My experience is very little. How about you?
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3 Responses to “What Do Your Parents Know about IF?”
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I’d say my parents aren’t all that educated about it. It took them a whole six months to conceive my sister - the oldest and they thought that was just awful. Quite a joke compared to what we are going through. Age wasn’t an issue in our case since we started trying young.
My father did mention one of the docs at the Sher Institute to me recently and my step mom seems to know a little about IVF and seregacy so I guess they are learning as time goes on and with it being a topic that’s in the news alot these days.
My parents don’t seem to know anything about it. My father had his 6th child a couple of weeks before his 50th birthday, so he’s had zero personal experience. He has been good about paying for things like homeopathy appointments.
My mother, in spite of her (now deceased) brother doing IVF unsuccessfully with his wife many years ago, has no compassion whatsoever. *I* was the bad guy for refusing to attend a dinner with my whoops pg younger sister, even though I explained that it would be too painful for me, and that I’d be on IVF drugs by that point.
So no, I definitely don’t think that “most” parents, or people of any age, have a freakin clue about what we go through.
I don’t think my parents know too much about it–or if they know that it’s not always “easy”, i don’t know that they know the vast range of options available when IF is diagnosed. I can’t believe that anyone thinks that the public in general just automatically knows a lot about IF.