s/o to siblings: Family member poll

Me&Mr.T · August 2009

1. Does anyone else in your family suffer from IF (grandparents, aunts, uncles, moms, dads, etc)? If so, do they know about your IF and are they supportive?

Me&Mr.T · August 2009

Yes... my mom used Clomid for me, my aunt went through 9 years of IF before requiring a hysterectomy and adopted 3 kids, and another aunt never tried to have kids but had sever endo and needed a hysterectomy.

The aunt who went through 9 years had both MFI and had issues of her own. She is such a great support for me because she knows exactly how I feel. She sent me a nice message on mother's day to let me know she was thinking about me that day. She is also a wealth of info for adoption.

She also took her pain from IF and turned it into something good. She started a crisis pregnancy center that counsels women who are unexpectedly pregnant and helps them to either raise their child on their own or find an adoption agency. They are required to mention abortion, but they really try to counsel against it.

My mom is a good listener about it, but she really didn't go through what I will be going through, and she didn't have a m/c or try for over a year. Sometimes she doesn't know what hurts when she says things, but she is still a good support.

I also have another aunt that married into the family that had a m/c at 14 weeks and even though it wasn't hard for her to get pregnant, she is still a great support about IF and my m/c.

*ETA* I also have an uncle (dad's bro) and aunt who only have one child and she is adopted. I don't know if IF has anything to do with this. And my mom has a cousin who wasn't able to get pregnant, but she is one of those adoption "success" stories, where she adopted and then ended up pregnant soon after. Ugh my mom used that to tell me that the other day. Blah.

Yellow_Daisy · August 2009

No one other than DH and his siblings.

However my Aunt is a nurse at an IF clinic in Seattle so she is very supportive. It is nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of who knows what I am talking about.

EastCoastGirl* · August 2009

No one in my family knows, but it took my mom 3+ years to become pregnant with me (I am the oldest). They did not do fertility treatments. I would say that all grandparents and all siblings of my parents had no fertility issues (based on the size of their families). However, I do have an older cousin who did IVF three times before becoming pregnant with twins (and then she had a singleton with no medical intervention at all). She would probably be the first and only person I would confide in regarding our issues.

I would imagine that my mom would be supportive if she knew, and while she is not what I would call religious, she's a big believer in "God's plan" and prayer, which I can't get behind and don't want her saying to me. And I also imagine my sister, who conceived two children easily, would be supportive, although she has made some comments in the past that lead me to believe that she is completely uneducated on how IF treatments work (lucky her!).

But mainly, I don't tell anyone about our TTTC because I don't want anyone asking me about it.

Mrs.AmandaMqn · August 2009

One of my Mom's sisters suffered with IF. She only has one ovary, as a result of a tumor that grew around the other, and my uncle had a low sperm count. My uncle is about 25 years older than my aunt and had children from his first marriage. But they were grown when my aunt married him, with children of their own too.

They adopted 2 of my uncle's grandkids, both had been abandoned by their mothers. My aunt raised them as her own and they are my cousins. Now they are 22 and 18 and they both have contact with their biological mothers but they only call my aunt and uncle mom and dad.

My aunt knows that I have PCOS but she doesn't know that H has azoospermia. I'm sure she would be supportive but she's also really nosy and can't keep a secret so I'd be very hesitant to share anything with her.

06hoky · August 2009

Everyone in my family is fertile as can be...except me apparently. Although none of my brothers have tried having babies. I try not to talk about it because I don't want the whole world to know, but those who do know are very supportive.

losethatsmile · August 2009

My family and DH's family are ridiculously fertile. It's sickening really,

But yeah, I do have 1 aunt who tried for like 7 years and went though many treatments to have her daughter. I didn't know her at that time though, so I don't know what all she went through or what her diagnosis is. I mentioned the fact that I was having trouble conceiving in an email to her a year or so ago, but she has never said anything about it. She has a lot of other things to deal with at the moment though, and I don't expect her to acknowledge my (small in comparison) issues.

apalazzo · August 2009

neither of my parents. none of my aunts, uncles, grandparents. my two brothers conceived children without any problems. I do have two cousins that are younger than me and arent married yet, so not sure there.

My mother and one of my brothers know (he's expecting his 1st in October). they are both supportive. My father can't keep anything to himself, so if he found out the rest of the world would know in minutes and I'm not ready for all the questions yet.

just me Sad

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