Efforts to Reduce Infertility Stigma Going Mainstream
10/30/2011 10:30 AM EST
New Our Bodies, Ourselves Edition and Redbook Highlight “Silent Sorority”
San Jose, CA -- Efforts to reduce the stigma associated with infertility and to broaden the spectrum of voices heard on the complex infertility experience reached a new milestone this month with the latest edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves (released October 2011) and a just launched Redbook “Truth About Trying” video campaign. Each included references to the book Silent Sorority, the first memoir about infertility not written by a mother, and featured contributions from those who did not go on to motherhood following an infertility diagnosis.
Those diagnosed with infertility who complete fertility treatments without the outcome they hoped to achieve have routinely been overlooked, not surprisingly because success stories and images and storylines of glowing women and babies are irresistible. There's more than one ending to the infertility story and it's now being heard.
Silent Sorority author Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos first made her infertility story public in a New York Times profile, “Facing Life Without Children When It Isn’t By Choice.” Her book had its roots in an internationally celebrated blog, Coming2Terms, which chronicled the bumpy adjustment to life as a “non-mom” in an era of helicopter parenting. Her book and blog were written after a decade of trying to conceive the “old-fashioned way” as well as with increasingly advanced fertility treatments.
About her willingness to share her experience, Tsigdinos explains, “In the wake of failing to conceive I discovered that as hard as the loss of pregnancy and ‘normalcy’ was, making a life in the long shadow of infertility after infertility treatments failed had its own unique challenges. With the stigma and judgment surrounding this difficult experience, it’s not surprising that many choose not to speak about it. The silence, though, can be deafening and defeating.”
There are personal as well as professional concerns for couples diagnosed with infertility. In a survey of couples having difficulty conceiving, conducted by the pharmaceutical company Merck, 61 percent of respondents hid their infertility from family and friends. Nearly half didn't even tell their mothers. In the UK, a survey conducted by Infertility Network found approximately a third of people having infertility treatment do not inform their work place for fear of it affecting their career.