There can be many myths and misinformation when it comes to fertility and trying to conceive. Many of these can be invalidating and damaging to your experience.

Fertility can also be one of those topics that many people have opinions and beliefs on with very few boundaries and the compulsion to impart their knowledge. If these people do have experience in fertility support, it’s important to remember that everyone’s journey is different and if they have no personal experience, they aren’t in a place to tell you how or why your journey is the way it is.

Sometimes there is no reason or cause for infertility or taking a long time in trying to conceive. Particularly for Queer and LGBT+ people, you may be completely reliant on clinics or professionals to help you get pregnant. The average couple can take 9 cycles to conceive.

You can debunk the biggest fertility myths by knowing these five things.

1. Stress Doesn’t Cause Infertility.

   Trying to conceive and stress can have a definite psychological impact on you during this time but stress itself doesn’t make your body infertile.

   Others telling you to ‘just relax’ or that ‘you should be trying harder’ can be insensitive and hurtful and the least helpful thing to say to someone when in the process.

   Sometimes the process is stressful and that can’t be avoided nor should you feel invalidated by the emotions you are feeling.

   The best thing for your experience is having a good social network around you where you feel supported, validated and safe to express yourself.

2. There is not always a medical issue for someone accessing fertility support.

   Not everyone has a medical issue that underlines their fertility support needs or sometimes someone’s infertility can’t be easily explained with medical tests.

   People in the queer community may have social fertility needs where they need the support of a third party to start their family. This then means there may be no medical issue impacting their fertility but they may need fertility support for IUI, surrogacy etc.

   You should not be going through invasive or unnecessary procedures such as exploratory surgeries to meet a funded need of support. On the other hand, if you do have medical infertility indicators such as irregular cycles, thyroid issues, excessive pain etc, that should be properly looked into to meet your fertility needs.

   Some people may also experience unexplained infertility where all extensive testing and explorations show no infertility but the experience of trying to conceive is difficult. The reason may arise at later stages of IVF or it may not.

   Neither situation for patients is because of them or their fault.

3. Infertility Issues Aren’t Just Apparent In The Person Trying To Carry A Pregnancy.

   Many people place the cause of infertility on the person trying to get pregnant rather than looking at the full picture of both parties if more than one person is involved.

   50% of infertility cases are also due to issues with sperm-producing people but little consideration is given to that circumstance. This can be very isolating for the second parent if involved in the conception and places a lot of assumptions, invasive input or unsolicited advice on an already difficult situation.

   You are under no obligation to tell people how or why you are accessing fertility support or to tell them about your journey at all.

4. Food and Diet Doesn’t Directly Impact Or Cause Infertility.

   People can get a lot of misinformation or toxic positivity around their diet or what they should or shouldn’t be eating to conceive.

   While having a balanced and nutritious diet is great for fertility, your infertility isn’t happening because you didn’t eat enough fish oil or avocados at certain points of your cycle.

   It can be good to get full bloodwork done to check your vitamin levels for things such as iron, folic acid, vitamin D and B12. If the results flag up the need to boost certain levels, they can be increased with amendments and more inclusion in your diet. You should feel the need to eat excessive amounts of one particular thing or food group to get your levels back on track.

   Supplements can be great to give you that added boost as well.

   Sometimes with recurrent loss or missed cycles, you go through the five stages of grief. One of these is bargaining where patterns of being ‘the perfect fertility patient’ may show up such as feeling you need to be on a strict regime, taking the right supplements at the right time, restricting food or being quite strict with what you are eating. It is a very common response but if happening for long periods or you are feeling a lot of shame or guilt about food, it may be good to check in about support.

   What you are or aren’t eating isn’t directly causing your infertility.

5. Everybody’s Journey Looks Different.

   Your journey will be unique to you and only you!

   It can be very difficult to not compare yourself to others or implement what others are doing when trying to get pregnant.

   Hearing from others about what helped them or their colleague mightn't be helpful. You have a right to have boundaries with others or ask for recommendations to stop.

   Work out lifestyle and day-to-day patterns, emotional support and release tactics and information gathering that works for you and your family to feel at your best and begin to feel confident about your own experience.

The most frustrating thing about struggling to conceive is that sometimes everything is out of your control and there is nothing you can do to change that.

Also, I think people, unless you have been through the process yourself, don’t realise that fertility treatment won’t always result in a pregnancy. It can be a hard realisation to come to terms with.

It was never because you did something wrong or didn’t do something enough.