You Magazine
We like to think our closest mates will be there for us through thick and thin. But, as these women tell Anna Moore, even the tightest bonds can be stretched to breaking point by illness.
Emma Haslett met her best friend Sophie at primary school in Bath and, by secondary school, they were inseparable.
‘It was a very traditional girl friendship,’ says business journalist Emma, now 35. ‘We had sleepovers every weekend. We wore the same clothes and the same make-up, we liked the same music and snogged the same boys. I shared every thought with Sophie. We grew up together.’
Huffpost
Big Fat Negative author and podcast host Gabby Griffith shares tips for navigating your personal and professional boundaries.
How much of ourselves should we share at work? It’s a question many of us grapple with, but it takes on new meaning if you’re trying to conceive or undergoing fertility treatment.
Figuring out how much to reveal to colleagues can be particularly tricky during this time, as Gabby Griffith knows first hand.
The Guardian
After years trying for a child without success, I sought solace in online message boards. Before long, I was spending hours a day poring over intimate posts, sharing everything with total strangers. Would it help?
eanne was having her fringe cut when she was offered fertility drugs. It was leftover stock from her hairdresser’s treatment and she was giving it to Leanne for free on condition that she dispose of the packaging, as it was labelled with the hairdresser’s name and address. Leanne accepted the drugs – it would save months on NHS waiting lists.
Happiful
More than 20,000 IVF babies are born in the UK each year. But, for every success, there are many heartbreaks. Could more be done to support the mental health of those going through fertility treatment?
Injecting yourself night after night. Endless prodding while the sonographer figures out whether your lining is perfect, and your follicles are the optimum size. Then, it’s time to go under anaesthetic to collect your eggs; to jump every time the phone rings as you wait to find out which embryos made the cut, until the time comes to put them back in again.
Grazia
‘When people say, “I can’t imagine how you feel,” I want to say, “Oh, it’s easy, just imagine your mum or dad in a coffin at the front of the room.” I’m sure they could, if they just thought about it... ’
Since my mum died in 2017, I’ve been having conversations like this with anyone who will listen. It’s usually with people whose parents have also died; members of the same ‘club’.
The metro
The word ‘barren’ is thought of as deeply negative.
Describe a woman who is yet to have kids as barren and you’d probably get a mouthful of abuse or a slap in return. But there are some women who are actively trying to reclaim the word to describe their fertility battles.
BBC News
How Instagram became my support system
Emma Forsyth, 32, also found support when she couldn't get pregnant.
She has been trying to have a baby through IVF for two years and co-hosts a podcast, Big Fat Negative, about infertility.
"You almost feel like a freak because your body is essentially betraying you," she says.
The New Statesman
When friends and family repeatedly told me to stay calm, it had the opposite effect. But linking women’s chances of conception with stress is not only demoralising – it’s dangerous.
There is no easier way to make someone’s brain twist into a pretzel than by telling them to relax. Relaxing, once you’ve been told to do it, is not possible. You start to scrutinise every part of your body for signs of release. The instant your breathing slows, or your jaw unclenches ever so slightly, an inner sergeant major enters stage left. “Hey!” it hollers. “You’ve made a start! Now try harder!”
The Telegraph
The singer’s heart was no doubt in the right place, but his painfully familiar comments are not helpful to anybody struggling to conceive.
When Ed Sheeran decided to speak out publicly about his and his wife’s struggle to conceive, he no doubt did so with the intention of helping others. He probably wasn’t expecting uproar from the infertility community.
The singer revealed this week that after trying for a while to get pregnant, they conceived their daughter on a holiday to the Antarctic – and put their success down to getting away and, crucially, relaxing.
New Statesman
A High Court case seeks to change the law on terminations after 24 weeks. But this is not a choice any woman makes lightly.
My husband and I are a fighty couple. We disagree on a lot. But he is the carrier of a chromosomal disorder that makes it more likely we will conceive a child with Down’s syndrome, and when we started trying for a baby in 2015, we were unanimous on the fact that if the foetus was diagnosed with the condition, we would terminate the pregnancy.
Stylist
Loneliness affects us all, with almost one in four of us feeling lonely during lockdown. Whether you need some company in the middle of the night, or to know you’re not alone in grief, you can find a comforting podcast here.
It’s been said that we’re living in a “loneliness epidemic”, with feelings of being alone affecting us all.
This has arguably never been more true than during lockdown, with many of us feeling isolated from those we love. New research from The Mental Health Foundation found that almost one in four (24%) of us had felt lonely during lockdown.
Raconteur / The Times
For many couples, the pre-pregnancy stage of fertility can be one of the most stressful periods of their lives together.
The trying-to-conceive phase can create a perfect storm of pressure, with worries about potential fertility problems, lack of fertility support and a conscious lifestyle overhaul all adding to the strain.
Refinery29
This week: "We were lucky enough to buy a house in outer London in 2015 and spent a few years renovating it.
We borrowed a lot of money to do this – from family, on credit cards and by taking a further £53k out of the mortgage to convert the loft. Throw a wedding into the mix and you’ve got quite a stretched financial situation.
The telegraph
Kat Brown thought fertility treatment would give her a longed-for baby. Here she reveals the devastating and unspoken reality
I knew my second cycle of IVF had failed from the way the embryologist said “Hello?”. When you’ve spent years reading between the lines, you become highly attuned to sadness, especially on much longed-for phone calls.
The Telegraph
Too often, male infertility problems are overlooked – and women are left facing invasive treatments when there’s a bigger issue
I vividly remember when my future husband told me about the time he had mumps and his testicle swelled to the size of a lemon. We’d just met and were on a weekend jaunt to Berlin, drinking cheap wine in a terribly cool bar. The story of his mumps was a well-trodden anecdote in his friendship group – making the men wince and the rest of us giggle as he described the excruciating pendulum swinging side-to-side as he moved. It wasn’t until we tried for a baby five years later that the story became a lot less amusing.
i paper
New companies are ready to democratise conception, but they face challenges both practical and ethical
The business of baby-making is growing. Across Europe, a rash of new start-ups are receiving funding to develop and market products they say will help people on their journey to getting pregnant. Those in the industry say that this sector – usually grouped into the wider category of “femtech” – has previously faced barriers in attracting venture capital backing, but that this is slowly changing.
New Statesman
Bringing pregnancy loss into line with other forms of bereavement entitlement is an important step – but it should only be the beginning of the conversation.
Sarabeth Queale had been miscarrying for three weeks when she asked her supervisor in the US military for time off. At eight weeks’ gestation, it was unusual for her employers to be aware of her pregnancy, but after she had been forced to work through a previous miscarriage because she hadn’t filed the correct paperwork, she’d made sure her documents were in order as soon as she found out she was pregnant. “Everybody in my command was aware that I was pregnant, and they were also aware that it was a threatened miscarriage,” she said.
Stylist
Writer Seetal Savla’s first IVF cycle failed two years ago - she shares what she wishes she’d know 24 months ago, at the beginning of the process.
Our first IVF cycle failed two years ago. Thanks for the reminder, Facebook. From the consultation to the negative pregnancy test, it was a whirlwind. While my body had been present, my mind struggled to accept reality and simply checked out.
Refinery 29
"Whatever you’re looking for, there’s a podcast for that”
Reviewers say that listening to them makes them feel more informed and less alone. For National Infertility Awareness Week, we’ve found some of the best fertility podcasts out there."
The Pool
Instagram has become my IVF support system
On a rainy Saturday earlier this month, a doctor broke the news to me that yet another round of IVF was cancelled because my body had let me down. As I left my clinic, sobbing and frustrated at having failed, for the third time in a row, to reach the point where one of my frozen embryos could be put inside me, a message popped up on my phone. “How did it go?” A few seconds later, another: “Take care of yourself.” These messages weren’t from my best friends, checking up on me – these were encouragement from a group of strangers.
Metro
What it is like coping with IVF at work
It’s a Wednesday afternoon and I’m sitting in a meeting with a colleague. He’s telling me about the complex technology used by one of our new clients. Something about data stacks. I’m nodding along but there are tears running down my cheeks, dropping silently on to my notebook. ‘I’m fine honestly,’ I say when he looks at me startled, thinking he has bored me to tears. ‘Please keep going.’