Over the few years, since I discovered my own fertility issues, I've visited a forum or two on the topic. You get to know the girls in there (I never came across any men) and you become friends. It's always good to be around people who are going through the same things as you and having that support when things aren't going to plan.
Friends of mine have told me of other people they know going through fertility treatment, and sometimes they ask what they can do to help. What can I say?
For me, the best way to help is not to keep asking about it. I don't mind people knowing we're doing it, but I just don't want to have to keep people informed. Some days I'll want to talk about it and others I'll want to forget about it. And as much as I appreciated the amazing support from our family and close friends, I have to say my main source of support was online with people I had never even met.
The fertility forums were very mysterious to me at the start. They were full of things like 'lucky trains' involving ovulation times, temperature checking, and of course, peeing on sticks for various reasons. There were a million abbreviations for all things baby-making. Tips on what to do and what not to do, what to eat and what not to eat. Positions to lie in to help gravity, products to use, tricks of the trade, if you will. To the outsider, all these things might seem silly. But you begin to rely on these things in a weird way – if you didn't take part in the Train threads for example (where you join a 'Lucky Train' thread and note your cycle dates, hoping you get to hop off the train at Platform Pregnant), you begin to feel like you're missing out on something.
At the end of the day, all of these things were a way to get through it. I must admit, I did get a bit impatient with the 'day trippers' let's call them – girls who might dip in after two months of trying to get pregnant, distraught that it hadn't happened yet – but there were a few of us beginning to bond and get to know each other. The thing about fertility is that two people are rarely in the exact same situation, which makes sense as there are loads of factors to consider. I met one girl in particular who has now become a good friend of mine and, I'm glad to say, got pregnant soon after I did. We took great pleasure in meeting up and introducing our babies to each other while we were both on maternity leave.
And there was another nice surprise to come from the forums. Not surprisingly, once I was lucky enough to discover our IVF had worked, I graduated from the fertility forums to the pregnancy ones. In a weird way I felt like I still didn't belong there. I couldn't connect with the women who hadn't been through what I had been through. I missed the familiar surroundings of the girls who had fought their way to being pregnant like I had.
That's not to say the pregnancy forums weren't lovely too, of course they were. It was exciting! I found a group of women who were all due to give birth in the same month as me – November 2014, and we all became members of a private Facebook group. It was a huge support and still is – an instant resource to ask advice and share ideas. Months after the babies were born I discovered that in fact one of the girls in that group had been on the original fertility forum. Neither of us knew who the other was! I loved that. She has a beautiful little girl now the same age as Rian but I think it's safe to say that the time we spent on those forums will never be too far from our minds.
Catch up with Jen Ryan (a 30-something, married mam of one little munchkin and two dogs) on her hilarious blog, thescenicroutebyjen.com.
