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Fertility Neighborhood
November 9, 2004
The Challenge of Infertility:
Finding Light In Your Emotional Black Hole
by John C. Martin
In couples facing infertility treatment, basal thermometers, hormone shots and ovulation charts can be the primary focus. In those circumstances, love, romance, communication and understanding that come with relationships can often be pushed back to lower priority status. As an extension of that, negative feelings can eventually bubble up to the surface; frustration, hopelessness and miscommunication can create radical changes in a couple's daily relationship.
For couples facing these arduous times, it may seem that maintaining a normal, healthy relationship – once effortless and joyous – now seems like an exercise in futility, like pulling yourself up the side of a lofty mountain with every ounce of strength you have, then looking up, only to view the misty summit far off in the distance. It's enough to want to make you give up.
Finding Common Ground
Kristen Magnacca has been there. She, as other infertile couples, learned that her plans to become a parent probably wouldn't happen without medical assistance. "I remember when I had to come to terms with the fact that to create our family it might be in a sterile environment, a doctor's office, instead of in the privacy of our sacred bedroom," Kristen writes on her website. "It was a huge lesson in acceptance and releasing that I wasn't able to comprehend."
Today, Kristen and Mark Magnacca are the parents of two children, Cole and Grace. But she says, it took three years of trying before her son was born.
Through trial and error, she learned how to more effectively communicate with her partner while they grappled with their diagnosis, and decisions about the future. "When you're going through fertility treatments it feels so lonely, doesn't it?" Kristen states. "It feels as though the whole world is going about the business of creating their families, or their dreams, and we are left feeling empty. The sorrow is sometimes too much to bear."
The overwhelming emotions that Kristen and her husband, Mark, faced themselves after finding out that they wouldn't conceive without assistance were like brick walls encircling them, blocking any attempts at open, understanding communication.
That's when they knew they needed a better plan – strategies that weren't just a part of their everyday habits, but instead a game plan to help them reach common ground.
Teaching What They've Learned
The strategies that the two developed were transformed into a seminar for other couples that both now present around the country every year. They focus on the importance of sharing and communicating so that a couple can move successfully through infertility treatment and its related experiences without allowing it to become all-encompassing and overwhelming.
One of those strategies is known as the 'Honey-Do List', a series of daily objectives that one individual requests of the other, not unlike the familiar roster of "domestic chores" that a wife might give her husband, but on a more emotional level. For example, a woman might ask her partner to first tell her about his day when he arrives home from work rather than retiring to the TV room. "The Honey-Do List really gave us a way of telling each other what we needed in a non-threatening manner," Kristen told Priority Healthcare. "Instead of playing mind-reader with your partner, or thinking that he needs what I need, you have it right here in black-and-white."
Putting Pen to Paper
Kristen eventually wanted to convert what she taught at her seminars into words, and so became the author of two books on the topic. Her latest, Love and Infertility: Survival Strategies for Balancing Infertility, Marriage, and Life (LifeLine Press), explains how to maintain the romance in the relationship you have with your partner while the both of you continue to plan your future family. This latest volume arrived on bookshelves in conjunction with National Infertility Awareness Week in late September.
In it, Kristen offers more than 2 dozen survival strategies that can help keep both of you focused on infertility while simultaneously keeping the focus on each other. Some of these strategies include the following:
The Fertility Game Plan: A concrete plan to help a couple work as a team when trying to conceive. (Easier said than done, Kristen points out).
The Power of Visualization: A strategy that features mental rehearsal of upcoming events in order to gain a sense of control and calm your fears.
The Gratitude List: An exercise for couples to practice each night to help them gain a positive perspective about their lives' abundance and all for which they are grateful.
The 'Elevator' Speech: A brief, well-rehearsed response to insensitive questions about family planning that may arise spontaneously from others.
One strategy that particularly appeals to Kristen is called "Writing Your Love Story", which she says even men at her seminars embraced. It involves putting pen to paper; recalling in writing what it was like when you fell in love with your partner.
"That has a profound connection to getting back to those feelings again," she said. "It's just so moving to see these couples write their love story."
"I didn't remember why I fell in love with Mark," said Kristen, recalling her own emotional upheaval that weighed in on their relationship during struggles with infertility.
"All I could think of is what a jerk he was," she said, laughing.
'Tools to Understand the Differences'
Her latest book is an extension of her first, entitled Girlfriend to Girlfriend: A Fertility Companion, which is a compilation of Kristen's perspectives while enduring her struggles. The strategies outlined in her books and relayed at her seminars are meant to help couples recognize that not every person has the same perspective on a particular situation. Perspective and reactions to situations are as unique and different as a person's other unique characteristics.
"We give you tools to understand the differences," she explains.
As an example, after several attempts to become pregnant, Kristen and Mark learned in 1997 they had been successful. But their joy was soon stymied by news that the pregnancy was ectopic. The short-lived celebration soon led to a bout of depression for the two. But Kristen soon began to notice that Mark was dealing with the crisis in not quite the same way.
"Throughout this, especially after the loss of our first baby, I sat in judgment of Mark because I felt he wasn't mourning our circumstances the right way because he wasn't mourning it like me," Kristen recalled. "But it wasn't a question of being right or wrong. It really was a question of understanding what Mark associated to what was happening, and then meeting him there."
Each strategy in the book also includes tips on how to get started, she explains.
Business Savvy Becomes Life Savvy
Kristen and Mark adapted the material for their seminars and books from their profession: They own and operate a consulting service for business executives that provides strategies to help attain peak performance, both professionally and personally.
They learned early on that while they had an effective communication strategy for business professionals, they didn't have one of their own for each other.
She describes these strategies in her new book as "a buffet."
"There are 28 strategies, and some might resonate with you, and some might not," she says. "But they're there throughout the whole process to help you get through it."
John Martin is a long-time health journalist and an editor for Priority Healthcare. His credits include coverage of health news for the website of Fox Television's The Health Network, and articles for the New York Post and other consumer and trade publications.
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