How to respond to insensitive comments when going through infertility or fertility treatment

“Just relax it’ll happen”

“I got pregnant after the first try”

“Stopping stressing about it!”

Sound familiar?

Comments like this when you’re trying to conceive and going through fertility treatment can be really minimizing. And you might not quite know how to respond. Do you walk away? Do you ignore them? Here’s how I tell my patients to approach insensitive comments when going through fertility treatment.

Where insensitive comments come from

First of all, where do they come from? Most of the time when I'm learning about insensitive comments or I hear them myself, I know they're not always coming from a place where someone is trying to hurt someone else. 

It is often times is a learned response.

The person saying the comments think they are trying to be helpful, meanwhile you hear “If something's not going well in your family building, you must be doing something wrong.”

You just need to relax. 

You need to consider adoption.

That blame is headed your way, and it is a learned response. And most likely, if someone's sending that blame your way, they too may have experienced that in their lives. And it becomes a repetitive reaction and blame cycle. 

In relationships, please understand most people may not be trying to be insensitive, but they simply don't know any other way. 

How to respond to insensitive comments

So now that we talked about where insensitive comments might be coming from, let’s focus on what to do with them. 

You have a couple of options.

Remove yourself from the situation

You can either remove yourself from the conversation. And use some of your own coping strategies to regulate your emotions so you feel like you're in a better place. This option might work better if you think this person isn’t the right fit for your support network.

Talk to them

Communication is so important when going through fertility treatment, not only to advocate for yourself, but also in order to make it clear to others that you have boundaries. Here’s something you could use as a response to an insensitive comment:

Hey right now, I need your support. And you're suggesting that I need to make changes to have a better outcome. I'd rather hear you say, what can I do to help you get through this time? 

With communicate, you can advocate, and let people know what your preferences are and what you'd rather hear, especially when what they’ve said is insensitive and hurtful. 

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