The Best Way to Support a Friend Through IVF
What Gifts To Give a Friend Going Through IVF Treatments And How to Help her Navigate The Journey
The road to motherhood can be a challenging one. For the lucky few, it comes with ease, without hormone treatments, needles, miscarriages, and disappointing failed procedures. Infertility is more common than you may think, leading most women down a long, lonely, and heart-wrenching journey before reaching their ultimate goal of becoming a mother.
The Reality of IVF
In the United States alone, 1 in 5 women struggle with infertility and after one or more years of trying, may seek out help and consider alternative methods of conception. In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is one of several methods available to help women conceive, where a fertilized embryo is implanted with a 41% success rate on the first attempt. Luckily, the success rate increases with each subsequent transfer, which means that for most women IVF can be a long and grueling experience.
It’s not exactly how any woman imagines creating their baby but we are fortunate enough to have these options available to us, giving hope to an otherwise hopeless situation.
Erasing the IVF Stigma
Whether IVF is the first step in a woman’s fertility journey, or a last ditch effort following a long hard road of procedures, make no mistake, the experience is all consuming, weighing heavy on their minds and bodies as they hope to find a solution. Many choose to go through it in secret, hiding their experience from friends and family for fear of judgment and the feeling of so-called embarrassment in exposing their infertility. They should not be forced to suffer in silence or feel that this is the only option.
So, how can we change the stigma associated with IVF from one of disgrace to one of strength, endurance, and determination?
Start by encouraging these women to:
Write it down - Start an IVF journal, write yourself letters of encouragement or start an email account for your future child and fill the inbox with stories and pictures showcasing how it all started. It can be incredibly therapeutic to get all that mess out of your head and onto paper, everything you don’t want to speak out loud but need to express. It can also be a nice memento once the experience has ended, to look back at all you endured and how far you’ve come.
Build a solid support system - Let people you trust into your inner circle. Surround yourself with a select few with whom you can confide in, talk things out, complain, and receive words of encouragement. IVF is full of complicated emotions and while only you can choose how you handle them, it’s not easy to do it all alone, and you don’t have to.
Prioritize yourself - Don’t forget that you have needs too, separate from your IVF journey. It’s easy to let IVF consume your every waking moment, but remember to take a second to fit in activities that make you feel like yourself again. It could be a movie, a bubble bath, a massage, or a bike ride along the beach. You deserve a break, both physically and mentally, give yourself the grace to take it.
Meditate - Grab a pair of pineapple leggings (did you know that pineapples have become a powerful symbol for women struggling with infertility?) and clear your mind with a calming meditation session every morning with a guided meditation app like Insight Timer or Headspace.
Talk about it - High stress infertility treatments can have an impact on our mental health and can spill over into our personal relationships. Speaking to a therapist who specializes in infertility can help you work through some of your emotions, helping to guide you through the experience and how it may impact yourself and those closest to you.
Be the Change
These critical changes to their daily lives can be difficult to initiate, easier said than done, right? Encouragement from friends and family is vital and with a simple and thoughtful gift, you can set them up to finish their IVF journey with a clear mind and full heart. The Nurtured 9 IVF Journey Gift Box is here to help you provide a gift gesture full of thoughtfully selected items, and beautifully gift wrapped to commemorate their journey. Give the gift of luxury that invites them to embrace their experience and remember it in a positive way.