b. Experiencing Other Emotions During the Expedition. An infertility diagnosis’s emotional impact may startle many. Rodney Hodges recalled, “I didn’t expect things to be this difficult … emotionally on both my wife and myself in different ways.” But other emotions can increase individuals’ resolve to forge ahead and meet infertility’s challenges head on. “I knew I had to keep going, and through it all, there was that determination,” remarked Nicole Bell. “[A]s long as I had a plan of action, as long as I was doing something, I felt good. I felt proactive.” Yet, this determination can become compulsive: “[I]t becomes kind of like this obsession and it almost becomes like a goal to reach” (Anne Kelley).
Thus, infertility’s emotional experience changes from diagnosis through treatment. Its effects are pervasive, influencing how readily individuals cope, what course of action they choose, and how they react to outcomes. Emotions’ onset, intensity, and duration all determine whether they help or harm individuals—or both, at varying points in time. Most important, however, these emotions have very real physical and social effects: drawing couples and friends together or driving them apart, prompting individuals to seek new social connections or isolation, immediately seeking fertility treatment or considering other options, and continuing to pursue certain interventions or cutting losses and ceasing treatments.
AT EXPEDITION’S END: THE INFERTILITY EXPEDITION’S LONG-TERM EFFECTS
Individuals with lengthy infertility Expeditions that last through several treatment cycles occasionally assess where they are and what has changed thus far. They consider how infertility has affected their daily routines, personalities, values, romantic relationships, and friendships, noting personality changes, redefined life priorities, religious doubts, introspection, and vulnerability. Friendships are lost and won; couples’ relationships are strained and strengthened; new sources of support are identified and tapped.
An infertility Expedition rapaciously devours individuals’ emotional, physical, and financial resources. It takes over life routines. Sylvia Nelson explained, “[I]t’s also really all-consuming… . between pregnancy and miscarrying and having surgeries and fertility treatment, it’s very hard not to think about it every day. And there are times when I’m at the doctor more than half the month … at least once a day.” It proves physically exhausting. Kay Elliot observed, “We’re no longer active. We don’t go out. We used to go out all the time. And [it] just rarely happens now… . you’re always tired.” It prompts deep introspection. Sheri Lopez recalled, “[I]t just caused us to question everything that we’d thought or known.”
Moreover, infertility shakes up spirituality and challenges religious convictions. Doreen Fernandez said, “We’re both pretty religious; my husband is actually a pastor. We had a lot of anger towards God for a while.” Often, individuals wonder if infertility is a spiritual message. Kendra Figueroa was perplexed: “I guess it’s just wondering if maybe God is really saying you don’t need to have children or just like am I supposed to have children.” Other times, faith provides support, as Madeline Lowe found: “Our faith helped a lot… . God kept telling me, ‘Hey, you’re supposed to conceive,’ so we kept trying.” Infertility expectations thus prompt introspection as well.
Individuals often realize they have undergone temporary or permanent personality changes from their Expedition, which they often attribute to medications that “change your whole demeanor” (Juanita Poole) or the length of time they’ve dealt with infertility: “You’re so pumped with hormones; almost every emotion that you’re feeling is pretty much a false one, probably, or magnified” (Stella Madison). Infertility’s emotional roller-coaster often produces turbulent moods: “I was short-tempered, I would fly off the handle, I was very sensitive to other people’s pregnancies, I would get really upset… . It was just like manic-depressive” (Bridget James). And personality changes can be more long-lasting; Jenna Moreno felt as if she “kind of checked out for a while. I got to a point where I really wasn’t happy. I wasn’t smiling. I wasn’t myself. And I almost felt like a sort of shell of who I actually am.”
There is often no going back to who one was beforehand—a bittersweet discovery. “I definitely feel stronger with what I’ve gone through, but … I feel like part of me, like an innocence will never come back” (Sasha Goodman). “In the long term, . it’s left me a little more bitter,” reflected Delores Weber, “and a little more patient and understanding of other people’s issues.” But infertility forced Adam Woods to mature: “Miscarriage was a very adult experience, and I’ve found I don’t feel like a kid anymore, in pretty much anything, and that wasn’t true before we started this.” Individuals complete their descents from the precipice as changed individuals, arriving at different destinations than they had originally mapped.
Unfortunately, it’s at this time of instability and doubt, when support is most needed, that infertility can jeopardize relationships with friends and family members. It’s painful to keep others apprised of the latest treatment developments, and so silence seems safer: “Every time it didn’t work, I didn’t want to have to call my mom… . So the less people that knew, the less people are going to be asking me questions” (Antonia Hughes). Marital and romantic relations take the brunt of infertility-related stress. “It weighed heavily on our relationships,” Brittany Watson noted. “I know a lot of people have said that it only made them stronger but for us it was really trying.” Adam Woods explained, “[W]e’d fight all the time, some nights we’d cry, we’d feel very alienated, and of course you can’t hide from this.” Changes in a partner’s personality exacerbated marital strain: “I wasn’t being my normal self; we didn’t enjoy the time we had together the way that we should” (Jenna Moreno).
Intimate relations are also strained, most often from having sex to conceive rather than for pleasure—“baby dancing,” in infertility forum lingo. Kay Elliot said, “It’s no longer about ‘We want to have sex,’ it’s ‘Is it time to have sex?’” Sex is no longer sexy: “[not] a natural thing between man and wife [but a] biological experiment or something. Just a process” (Tyrone Crider). Futile conceptive attempts lead to performance issues, particularly for men: “[T]here came a point where he couldn’t even get aroused, ’cause he just knew that there was nothing that he could do” (Victoria Santos). And if men can’t perform sexually, their partners may feel unattractive or even unloved. As Logan Hunt recalled, “[W]e were butting heads because she was putting pressure on, like, ‘We need to [have sex] tonight at 11:00 p.m.’ She had it all mapped out and timed out, and it actually ended up causing my inability to even … ejaculate. And I never had that problem… . Psychologically I was locking up. And therefore she was starting to say, ‘It must be me; you don’t like me.’” Eventually, one or the other partner might throw in the towel: “[My wife] became depressed and distant, and didn’t want to be sexually active anymore and just wanted to mope around” (Francis Foster). One or both partners’ refusal to “baby dance” might mean leaving the reproductive dance floor altogether.
Moreover, conflict ensues when partners want to pursue different treatment plans. As Sean Gray recalled, “[M]y wife wanted to immediately go the in vitro route, and I didn’t want to do that… . being Catholic … that was my challenge, and so I at first was reluctant to do it, which of course made her very angry.” Sometimes one partner wants children more than the other. “It’s been extremely trying on our marriage,” related Patrick Shields. “[S]he feels very strongly identity-wise as far as being a mother, being pregnant, having children, … I don’t identify quite the same way… . I can be happy in life without kids.” Finally, husbands find it painful to watch their wives endure treatment procedures. “It really had a significant impact on my husband’s emotional state as well,” Jenna Moreno observed. “[H]e tried as much as he could to understand what I was going through, but because it wasn’t his body, he couldn’t.” In short, running the infertility gauntlet leaves couples exhausted: “This