angelalawsonphd

Thanks for the question! Unfortunately many people are dismissive of people's experiences with pregnancy loss. There are likely many reasons why this happens. Some might include:

1. We don't do a good job of talking publicly about pregnancy loss and so many people don't understand why it could be as emotionally difficult as it is. This also means that we don't have a shared understanding of how to support people who have had a loss.
2. It makes other people uncomfortable when we are sad and they want us to get over it so that they can feel better.
3. They don't know what to say to someone who has had a loss so they either say nothing or say something that they think is well-meaning but is hurtful.
4. Some people who have had early pregnancy losses aren't as emotionally affected by them and this makes other people inaccurately assume everyone just "gets over it".

In order to shift the way we support people going through loss, we have to talk about loss more. Since beginning work in the fertility clinic 15+ years ago, I have seen a shift beginning to occur with more and more celebrities and us regular (yet awesome) folk talking about loss more to our friends, family, and social media. For those who feel comfortable doing so, sharing publicly or within their social circles can help others feel not so alone. Suffering in silence for fear of what someone will say to you if you have had a loss is devastating. We can all use our voices, like Dr. Swanson and I do every day (and we have very loud voices 😁) to help create a culture of love and support for those grieving a loss. Lastly, a good resource for those experiencing loss would be again to find a reproductive mental health professional (either online or through your doctor's office) or looking at some of the support groups on resolve.org or https://pilsc.org/get-help/groups-navigator/.

Health psychologists are a thing! 🙂 There are health psychologists who specialize in a variety of health conditions. For example, in addition to fertility, at Northwestern, there are health psychologists who work in the cardiology, oncology, sleep, pain, and GI clinics just to name a few. Health psychologists may specialize in working with people experiencing a variety of health conditions but they are also "regular" clinical psychologists who can treat all sorts of emotional concerns. To find a health psychologist, you can ask your medical clinic for referrals, use web sites like psychology today, or when searching online type in the type of health condition you want support for and then the word psychologist (e.g., "reproductive psychologist). I love working as a reproductive psychologist. It is such an awful experience to fear whether or not you'll get to grow your family in the way that you want. Being able to support people during one of the most difficult times of their lives is an honor. ❤️

I agree with all of the above. I talk about this issue in very similar ways with patients. I also talk about how I think "jealousy" is the wrong word to use here. When someone we love is pregnant, we are generally happy for them. It also makes us sad for us because we are reminded that we want the same thing. But the thing is, true jealousy does not include any happiness for the other person. So what's the "right" word to use to describe the experience of being happy for someone else and at the same time being sad? Unfortunately there is no word in the English language to describe this, and yet our minds are quite capable of having more than one feeling at once.

Let's take a different example. Imagine how many people following a devastating hurricane would feel to have lost everything they had ever worked for (home, car, etc). They'd be pretty sad right? Now imagine that all of their loved ones survived. They would also be fairly happy too. It's likely that no one says to them "you should just be happy that your loved ones survived" and invalidates the pain they feel from the losses they experienced. And yet we do this to people struggling to grow their families. You get to be happy and sad. They can co-exist. They don't feel good when they are happening at the same time, but no one is doing anything wrong and no one is being jealous...they're just being human and they are grieving.

I imagine emotional wounds and physical wounds healing in very similar ways. When we are first wounded, the wound hurts the most. As we tend to our wounds and they begin to heal a physical or emotional scab starts to form and eventually a visible or invisible scar forms. Scars don't hurt but when we notice them (e.g., watching a tv show about fertility/loss, going to a baby shower) it's like someone is pointing at our scar and saying "How did you get that scar?" If we are still in the healing process, it's as if they have picked open the wound and added a little salt. Either way, we can't help but be reminded of the pain associated with the original injury. We need to be aware of our wounds and our scars and do what is best for us as we are healing.❤️‍🩹

I am so sorry that you are having to deal with this! This is a great question and it's an issue I see daily in the fertility clinic.

First, I will say that infertility is no one's fault. You didn't cause yourself to have PCOS. We are all born with whatever our reproductive potentials are and then we grow up and fall in love and bring those two sets of reproductive potentials together. Sometimes they work together the way we want, and for 1 in 6 couples it doesn't work out that way. But no one (hopefully) falls in love with their partner for their ability to make sperm or eggs or have babies. That being said, growing a family is often an important desire for both partners.

My hope would be that your partner has reiterated to you that he does not blame you for the delay in conceiving and is grateful (and at least a bit in awe of you) for your willingness to be poked and prodded and hopped up on hormones in order to grow your family. My guess is also that if there was a sperm factor issue you wouldn't blame him and would instead be nothing but supportive. Next, I would ask yourself, "What if my best friend had PCOS and her husband had no known fertility issue? What would I say to her and believe to be true?" My guess is that you would say the most kind and loving things to her, all of which you would believe to be true. You would tell her that you were sorry to hear that it was difficult (physically and emotionally) to be going through this and that it wasn't her fault. You would ask her to show herself some grace 🩷 while she copes with the anxiety of all of this. Now tell yourself what you would said to her. Tell yourself, again and again and again as many times as you need to hear it.

As for working as a team through fertility treatment. Yes, you will be taking on the brunt of treatment as well as managing all the clinic messages, appointments, insurance battles, and the like. That doesn't mean you can't work as a team. Your husband could for example take on the insurance battles, you could ask the clinic to call your husband for various appointments, you could print out a paper (yes paper) calendar of all your upcoming appointments so that he can see it every day and proactively ask you what the appointment is for, how it went, can I come, etc.

I agree with Dr. Swanson. What an awful experience to go through. I hope that she and any others affected by this are getting the support they need. Abortion is also an important and often life-saving medical treatment that shouldn't be determined by politics, but of course it is. If someone made a mistake during surgery and amputated the wrong limb, it would be unlikely that people would politicize the mistake to say we shouldn't do amputations in the future. Medical decisions should be left to patients and their healthcare professionals.