There comes another biggie! How do I respond to questions about children and pregnancy?
To Parents who are dreaming of becoming grandparents, to friends who want the same happiness they are experiencing for you, even to untactful strangers who just ask out of curiosity or well-meant interest…
There again the idea is to go beyond their behaviour and try to comprehend their intention…
Possibility no 1 – People may not know about your fertility challenges; consider how many times we have been hurtful to others simply out of ignorance…
Possibility no2 – People who have not been through a fertility challenge may not have a clue about what you and your partner may be going through – your emotional hardship and the extent it may dominate your life…
We cannot control the behaviour or others. What we can control is our own response and become as ‘waterproof’ as possible when it comes to the cold showers of untactful questions directed towards us.
Tip No 1 – Decide what is YOUR effective strategy!
It could be that you may want to share some information with that person.
Or not…
Tip No 2 – Have your ‘line of response’ ready. It could be expressing your understanding of the other person’s positive intention and well-meant interest and then explaining that it is not something you want to share right there and then. Or whatever else you want to communicate in your own style.
Tip No 3 – always keeping in mind the person and the context. Those two variables – Who we are talking to and the circumstances, the context of our communication are important factors to consider in any communication…
When people are asking you about what’s going on, about your family planning, it’s really worthwhile knowing what you want to say, and how much you want to say. If you don’t want to say anything about it, you are perfectly entitled. People don’t really have a right to ask, it’s just such a normal part of society’s conversation that we ask without thinking. You might feel comfortable in educating that person that actually it’s taking longer than expected, you might want to go into more details and say you’re having fertility treatments. Also if you do give that amount of information, be prepared for someone to tell you a story of their brother’s cousin’s sister who had also been through it and it did or didn’t work for them. But being prepared with what you want to say about the situation is the best way that you can cope with these types of unwanted questions.
Unfortunately, it’s like an in-built piece of society that people, anybody in a shop, somebody you don’t know feels it’s okay to ask about children, how many children you have, and all that patter of tiny feet. Often, that’s just because infertility has generally been kept so private. It’s only now that really we’re starting to see that stigma being released a little bit and people talking more openly around infertility and miscarriage that then, hopefully, we can really drive change in how people do approach these conversations. It has become something that’s just almost embedded in society that people do ask around those.
But how do you actually deal with it at that moment? It really depends on the actual situation. Often most people will try and laugh it off but it’s really good to have almost a prepared response. You might want to say something like “yes, we’re trying” or something like that. That actually gives that person an indication that you are going through infertility and I think that’s really important because I think the more we can actually talk about this, the less stigma there is and the less likely it is that people will make these insensitive comments.
If you can, feel open and it depends on the situation, the person, and the moment you’re in, then it can really help drive that societal change as well. Feel free to shut the conversation down, move away from it, it can be very upsetting. You need to do what you need to do for you right now so it’s totally okay. I had one client who was in the middle of a bread aisle and got asked the question in the supermarket and literally just had to say “I’m just leaving my shopping and going” and that was what she needed at that moment and that’s okay. Be kind to yourself and just either laugh it off, do your prepared response, or maybe share your story because you never know possibly what warmth, compassion or recommendations or anything that you might get.
