How to be a good friend to someone who has infertility?

“Anything critical of the mourner (“Don’t take it so hard,” “Try to hold back your tears, you’re upsetting people”) is wrong. Anything which tries to minimize the mourner’s pain (“It’s probably for the best,” “It could be a lot worse,” “She’s better off now”) is likely to be misguided and unappreciated. Anything which asks the mourner to disguise or reject his feelings (“We have no right to question God,”) is wrong as well.” — When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner

In the Torah’s Book of Job, Job loses his wife, his daughters, and all his worldly possessions, with no explanation. Three friends of Job (who had not experience such drama) come to provide comfort, and try to provide advice: on how he should grieve, on what may be the reason for his sorrow etc. This adds to Job’s anger and grief.

The phrase “Job’s comforters” now describes people who mean to help, but who not only fail but end up only making things worse. But for those who have not experienced infertility, how to support a friend who is struggling with its psychological and physical impact?

Job’s experience of friends’ failing to be of comfort has definitely happened to me. A few days after New Year’s, I was enjoying my last few days before going back to work but had a pretty tough day — two friends announcing their pregnancy to me the same day, and in the evening I was going to a friend’s birthday dinner party where I knew most of the other attendees were mothers or pregnant. When that friend announced her pregnancy at the dinner, another friend of ours shouted to her: “Oh! I’m so happy for you! With Valentin [her husband] we were actually just reflecting that you were the last couple who got married a while back and still didn’t have kids”. Forgetting that I was sitting just two feet away, and got married a full two years before both of them, and still had none. That really made me feel excluded and awkward. I thought about the incident a lot more than I should have.

How to be a good friend: LADDER

I’ve tried to distill which friends had made me feel better of the course of my infertility and how. I’ve come up with an acronym “LADDER” to help lift some person with infertility up.

So here it is:

• Listen: Even if it’s boring to hear about treatment protocols, number of ovules coming up through each ovarian stimulation, negative results etc. It’s a lot worse to live through it and have no one be interested.
• Acknowledge pain : Do recognize this is a really difficult moment in life for your friend. And don’t make it feel as if its own fault. This is what a lot people do unintentionally by saying things like “Oh have you tried relaxing more? You should try to stress out less”.

• Distinguish: When going through the struggles of infertility, I’ve been extra sensitive to little gestures friends have made to make me feel special, like bringing back a little gift from holidays for me, writing a card, telling me that I was one of their best friends, etc. Infertility really makes you feel like a broken individual and it’s nice to know that you still hold value for your friends. This is especially important for friends who start having kids, and with whom the infertile person may feel that there is a risk of a divide forming between them.
• Distract: Your friend is probably thinking of her infertility at least 40% of her time outside of work. I love it when my friends’ suggest fun things to do together, which are completely unrelated to my time in hospital. This could go from watching a stupid series to going away for the week end together — the more planning involved, the better . My best friend is a doctor . I really enjoyed that she gave me her ok for me to hike Mount Kenya, which I was desperate to do. We bought an apartment (see “big projects) over the past six months and one of my friend’s volunteered to be my interior designer. This was great because she was pregnant during that time but we had almost daily conversations unrelated to babies, which made us even closer.
• Exchange- check in regularly and share own struggles. Sometimes I found it tough to reach out when I just got bad news (again), so I really liked having friends make the first step for regular contact. At the same time, if a friend needs to take a bit of distance (e.g. because you are pregnant) don’t abandon. That will pass.
• Reassure that things will get better. I felt reassured when I heard friends say that they were certain that this crisis would come to an end, and that we would have a family one day, whatever time it takes and whatever family format that may be. I generally felt really worried, and having someone tell you that the storm will pass always feels good, even if they had no evidence. I also really felt grateful for friends who made useful suggestions to help — e.g. recommendations for a top doctor, acupuncturist, nutritionist.