join the movement

How exciting-- it's our week! 

Orrrr....not. Exciting, that is. No one wants to be part of a group that gets an 'awareness week' (or month). Being a part of those groups never means anything good, as far as I know. There's no awareness week for being awesome, or having a lot of cats, or not stubbing your toe for a third time today on that stupid coffee table. You know. Things that would be worth celebrating for a week or month. It's always the crappy stuff that needs awareness-raising.

So here I am, waving my flag: It's National Infertility Awareness Week! Let's celebrate?

(Side note: Who picks the weeks for these things? Because if it were up to me, I would have picked the week before Mother's Day. THAT is Infertility Awareness Week de facto, my friends. Ask anyone who's in my club. May as well call it like it is. So now we get TWO weeks, I suppose.)

 As I mentioned during Endometriosis Awareness Month (wait- endo gets a whole month, but infertility as a whole only gets a week? Seriously- who DOES plan these things?)-- if you're afflicted with it (endo, infertility, breast cancer, whatever)...you don't need an 'awareness week/month' to remind you. It's your whole life. I guess the point of the month is to remind everyone else what it's like. Or raise money. Or something.

The theme for this year is 'join the movement.' 

I feel like I've done that over the last few years. Not necessarily even intentionally...but I've been blogging pretty openly about our infertility for a number of years here, and somewhere along the way I've connected with a lot of other women doing the same thing. And though I've never joined any kind of real-life support group, I feel like we've established the same sort of community through blogging and social media. And having the support of these girls has given me the braveness and strength I've needed to be bolder and more open in my "real" life, where I know far fewer fellow IF-ers. I don't know that I've started any 'movements,' but I think I've at least established myself as the designated go-to girl for infertility in most of my real-life circles...so I guess that counts for something.

And just in case anyone wasn't aware, I put changed my FB header thing to be this. Awkward.

I don't exactly know what direction to go with this post. Am I supposed to be raising up an army of people, convincing you to join our movement? (LIKE LES MIS?!?!?! Do you hear the people sing?) If you're not experiencing infertility yourself, what can you do to 'join'? I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here-- pretty much everyone who reads my blog is either a) infertile themselves or b) has heard me ramble on ad nauseum a million times before about how miserable IF can be and how to not be one of the people that makes it even worse. But just in case you're new or you have a short memory, I'll throw out an easy-peasy #1 way you can be a friend (and not a foe, or One Of Those Whom IF Girls Send Nasty Emails To Each Other To Complain About. You don't want to be one of Those.) to the IF movement:

Give our disease(s), and consequently us, the respect you would give anyone else with a disease you deem 'legitimate.' It blows my mind to hear (both first and second-hand) the flippant write-off that infertility gets. I can't imagine people treating other diseases with such lightheartedness. Upon my friend's diagnosis with breast cancer, I heard no one suggest that she 'just relax' and it would go away...I heard no one laughingly complain about what a pain bra shopping is and tell her she is lucky she won't have to deal with that anymore...I heard no one suggest that it just wasn't God's will for her to be healthy. Why? Because breast cancer is a devastating, life-altering, and potentially life-threatening disease and people generally treat it as such. I'm not trying to suggest that an infertility diagnosis is equal to a cancer diagnosis- don't get me wrong. But what I am saying is that the diseases behind infertility (even the unknown ones that people with unexplained infertility suffer from) are real, they are medically explainable and sometimes medically treatable, and the effects of our diseases in our lives, both physically, emotionally, and socially, are very real. Just as you would not probably offer helpful suggestions about medical protocol (based on an article you read online or something you heard your sister's boyfriend's aunt did) to someone with epilepsy or kidney disease (unless you happen to be a physician, researcher, or have suffered it yourself), the men and women of the infertility community appreciate you biting your tongue before doling advice out to us, too. My endometriosis is caused by the growth of endometriomal tissue in areas outside of my uterus. The growths (and subsequent cysts and adhesions) have not only caused a huge amount of pain, but mangled one of my ovaries and my Fallopian tube, making it unlikely that a fertilized egg could ever implant there. That is a medical problem. My diminished ovarian reserve means that I have fewer eggs left, and those that are left are of diminished quality. Lower-quality eggs are less likely to be fertilized and less able to implant into my wonky Fallopian tubes. No amount of relaxing will fix these issues, and suggesting that it might only makes you look foolish. My husband's poor sperm quality with damaged DNA is unable to fertilize eggs. It is caused by vein abnormalities that developed during puberty. A tropical vacation will not fix this (although hopefully his surgery did). Propping my hips up on a pillow after sex isn't going to fix this. Trust us-- if the thing you read on the internet or saw on Dr. Oz was the cure we were waiting for, we wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on reproductive endocrinologists, experts, and surgeries. Trust me.

I have many friends who do not suffer from infertility but whom I still count as 'in the movement.' These are friends who recognize the physical and emotional pain caused by infertility and offer emotional and practical support wherever they can. They educate themselves about our diseases and ask thoughtful questions in an effort to understand better. They offer optimism and hopeful anecdotes when they sense those things are needed-- they offer a beer and a shoulder to cry on when those things are not. They jump to our defense when people brush over the pain of infertility by informing us to 'just wait, it'll happen', and they help steer conversation back to neutral ground when they find us growing teary as people share tale after tale of labor and delivery stories. I am so thankful for these friends who have perhaps unknowingly joined our movement, who understand when we dread baby showers and baptisms, who send us cards on Mother's Days, who give us first dibs on holding their babies (if we feel like it). Friends who text while we're at doctors appointments to let us know they're praying, who follow up with us afterwards, who rejoice in our small victories (OVULATION!! WOOO!!!!) and mourn with our losses...they've joined. I don't care if they donate to the research fund or join a walk-- the support they offer in real life is worth more than all of that. 

Chances are that you know someone in your real life who is dealing with infertility-- it effects 1 in 8 couples of reproductive age. Many of these couples may not be public with their status, but if they are, I hope you know how much you can help them in their journey. Treating their disease with the proper amount of disease-respect (I'm pretty sure that's a thing) and offering the same degree of concern you would to someone suffering from any other health problems is an easy way to start. Don't underestimate yourself-- even women brimming with fertility have been valued supporters and allies in my own life. You don't have to share a disease to support someone with it.

So there's my spiel. Join the movement, people. 

In case my plea wasn't strong enough for you, let me borrow the words of the original movement-makers:

Will you join in our crusade? 
Who will be strong and stand with me?

 Hint: It's a song from this book/play/movie (my favorite ever), and describing infertiles as 'les miserables' (the miserable ones, roughly) is quite apropo. I wanted to splice a picture of my face into the picture above, but I don't have Photoshop on this laptop and I'm rather lazy, so just use your imagination and pretend it's my face instead of Cosette's, ok? Thanks!

For more information about infertility or National Infertility Awareness Week, please check out Resolve's webpage.