Tough Love: How to Survive and Thrive with medical infertility

I had the honour of being interviewed by my dear friend Federica Leonardis, who has started a new podcast called Tough Love, where she brings together stories that tell people that life after trauma is possible.

Whether that’s as a victim of circumstances or of the malice of others, this podcast explores how you can still have a marvellous life:

Have you ever wondered how, after tragedy hits, some people are able to move forward and thrive? In each episode of Tough Love, I'll interview a guest who has been through a traumatic experience such as medical infertility, divorce, abuse, the loss of a spouse, addiction, anorexia, a cancer diagnosis, a prison sentence. I will listen to their story and ask questions. I'll concentrate on the strategies and the daily habits they implemented that helped them rebuild their life and move beyond trauma. Tough Love celebrates human resilience, the amazing strength people display every day to live through what life has put in their path and move forward with courage and integrity.

How do you come to terms with the loss of something you never had? In this episode, we spoke about my journey through infertility and pregnancy loss, about the tyranny of hope, the healing power of dark humour and why sometimes hell really is other, well-meaning, people.

You can listen to the show online, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts - and do check out the other episodes for some incredible insights into a wide range of devastating and challenging life experiences.

DrawingOut: Drawing Experiences of Infertility

Emotional impact of disease gallery from DrawingOut

As we know, infertility is an ‘invisible’ condition, and it’s really hard to to explain what we’re are going through. As a writer (and someone with a massive gob!) I’m rarely short of a few words to say, but it can often feel impossible to articulate emotions that I’m not sure can even be put into words. Finding an outlet for our emotions when going through infertility is so, so important - to get stuff out of your head in some way, shape or form.

Maybe it's talking to a counsellor.

Maybe it's going to a support group.

Maybe it's posting on social media or in an online community.

Maybe it's writing in a journal.

Maybe it's a mix of all the above.

Or maybe it's drawing.

‘Infertility Rift’ from DrawingOut

Drawing as therapy

A picture is worth a thousand words, and visual expression can communicate thoughts, feelings and ideas in a way like no other.

Art therapy is well understood as a therapeutic tool for addressing painful feelings and difficult experiences without having to talking about them

It can help to get a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions out of your head, and give you a voice without having to find the words

Which is why I wanted to share a fantastic initiative called Drawing Out

Patients with invisible diseases often struggle to have their needs recognised. DrawingOut is a project that explores what it means to live with diseases that are not immediately apparent to others by creating and sharing simple drawings.

About DrawingOut

Infertility is an ‘invisible’ condition, and so affected people can struggle to explain what they are going through.www.drawingout.org encourages people to reflect on their experiences of such invisible conditions through a series of simple drawing exercises, and to share their drawings through online galleries. 

People with ‘invisible’ conditions (e.g., infertility, endometriosis, Cystic Fibrosis, ME, depression) may find it especially difficult to explain their experiences to others. A new website, www.drawingout.org, uses simple metaphor-based drawing exercises to help people express and share their thoughts and feelings about their condition. The online galleries showcase the artwork produced by individuals, as well as providing links to information and support through our partner charities. 

The website is the result of collaboration between two academics at Cardiff University: Dr Sofia Gameiro is a psychologist who focuses on understanding and improving the healthcare experiences of infertile patients. Dr Lisa El Refaie’s work has shown that visual metaphor can express people’s illness experiences more creatively and often more accurately than just verbal descriptions. They originally developed DrawingOut as a group workshop tool to help people with invisible diseases overcome language and cultural barriers, and to facilitate the expression of sometimes very emotional, taboo views through drawing.

DrawingOut: Experiences of Endometriosis

“‘The drawing makes it fun and makes it easier for everybody to open up’ ”

— DrawingOut participant

DrawingOut: Thorns and Flowers

Drawing your own experience of infertility

You can see some of the incredible drawings created at two DrawingOut workshops above, but you don't have to attend a workshop to have a go yourself - there's a step-by-step guide designed to give you the tools to express your experiences in new, creative ways.

It will help you to communicate those aspects of your disease that are invisible to others by drawing about them - and to rediscover the joy of drawing we experienced as children.

Everyone can draw - the only thing you need is some paper, coloured pens or pencils and your imagination!

Follow the step-by-step guide to draw your experience of infertility

Share your drawings

If you'd like to share your drawings to help others (and encourage them to have a go themselves) please do consider submitting them here so they can be displayed (anonymously) in the online gallery on the DrawingOut website.

And if you'd like to share your drawings with the infertility community but don’t want to do so publicly, you can email them to me and I’ll happily share them (anonymously) on your behalf.

Happy drawing!

The Times: The pros and cons of online fertility forums

‘Understanding Fertility’ was a special report published in The Times on 27th March 2019, exploring a wide range of topics around fertility - including a feature about the pros and cons of online infertility forums to which I contributed.

I shared a lot of thoughts with the writer, singing the praises of the online communities that have kept me going throughout my journey - women who’ve kept me going in the darkest times, my fellow members of the club that no one wants to join.

As is often the way, only a snippet of the interview made it into print, and predictably the one quote that was selected has been included in the ‘against fertility forums’ section!

This article is a great overview - but I just want to set the record straight that my personal experience of online fertility forums has been overwhelmingly positive. The privilege of getting to know so many incredible women, across a number of different online communities - who’ve provided such immense sisterhood, solidarity and support - has been the silver lining I take from a very dark cloud.