Infertility can make you feel alone. But I can tell you you're in good company

This First Person article is the experience of Jen White, a producer for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador and the host of One in Six: A Fertility Journey. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

On the night of Oct. 21, 2018, in our bedroom, I fumbled with a microphone and pressed the red "Record" button on my audio recorder. 

For the first time, my husband Neil Hyde and I talked openly about our deepest thoughts, fears and emotions about an issue that had plagued us for years: not being able to get pregnant.

We started trying to have a baby while on our honeymoon in July 2016. But no matter how many times we tried, without fail, my period would show up. Every four weeks, my heart would break all over again. And the cycle would repeat, with no end in sight.

We were referred to Newfoundland and Labrador Fertility Services in 2017, when I was 34 and Neil was 38. It's no secret that your fertility slowly declines over time. I had a biological clock that was ticking louder and louder with every menstrual cycle.

After a series of tests, we were diagnosed with unexplained infertility. It was a frustrating diagnosis, because there wasn't an obvious reason or explanation of why we couldn't get pregnant. There was seemingly nothing that we could "fix."

I felt ashamed, like my body wasn't working the way it was supposed to. So I told Neil that we were going to keep this secret. 

That meant dodging questions left and right at social functions, from family members and random acquaintances alike. Comments like:

"You've been married for a while now. When are you going to have a baby?"

"You know your mother is dying for grandkids!"

"What are you waiting for? You know you're not getting any younger!"

While it was something so difficult for us, everyone around us was seemingly getting pregnant with ease. Couples who were boasting, "Gee, we were just thinking about trying to have a kid, and boom! Unprotected sex one time, and we got a positive pee stick."

As they recounted these stories, Neil and I would put strained smiles on our faces. No one knew what we were silently going through: the multiple appointments back and forth to the fertility clinic, the hormone pills and injections, the sperm samples, the transvaginal ultrasounds, the nurse inserting sperm in a catheter straight into my uterus (also known as an intrauterine insemination, or IUI).

But despite multiple interventions and five IUIs, nothing worked. Not even an inkling.

Opening up

After two years and no luck, I told Neil it was time to open up — to share that the smiling faces we donned in public and on social media were masks for our heavy hearts underneath. I couldn't carry all of the pain and panic attacks and secret medical visits on my own anymore. Stigma be damned.

That's when we started telling our immediate family and close friends about our struggles. 

It was like I was publicly admitting defeat, like there was something wrong with me — and there were looming fears in the back of my mind that maybe the future we envisioned as a family bigger than two would never happen. 

Also, saying the words out loud made them real. Even though we had been dealing with this for years, it felt easier to leave my emotions in the dark, buried deep down inside.

My eyes welled up with every conversation we had. But, to my surprise, no one was shocked by our news. I was actually the one in awe. 

Almost every person we spoke with said they knew someone who had struggled with fertility issues or was undergoing treatments. (Wait. You mean … we're not the only ones!?)

When the news was out, it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. And then to know that there were others — seemingly so many others, and better yet, people we knew! — who were going through the same thing made the heaviness of everything that much lighter.

You don't have to suffer in silence

Infertility can make you feel really lonely. Like you're the only one going through it.

But I shouldn't have been so surprised during those tough conversations. Statistics show that roughly one in six Canadian couples deals with infertility.

According to the World Health Organization, infertility affects millions of reproductive-age people worldwide. By the agency's estimates, there are 48 million couples and 186 million individuals who are struggling to conceive.

So why did it feel like no one was talking about it?

That's when Neil and I decided we would hit record and document our fertility journey. All of it. The highs, the lows, the bad jokes, the tears — everything. 

I didn't know where it would take us, or how it would end, but I knew that I didn't want anyone else to feel like we had for so long, suffering in silence.

Riding the roller-coaster of emotions

I kept collecting audio for years. I recorded countless conversations between myself and Neil; I interviewed doctors and a therapist; I even recorded myself trying alternative therapies, like acupuncture and yoga. And I met others like me, who have faced their own struggles in trying to have a child.

Every fertility journey is as unique as every person it affects. But I've learned that the emotions are largely the same: the overwhelming sadness; the grief for a future you wanted but you may never have; the guilt of wanting to celebrate your friend at their baby shower, but not being able to do so because it's too deeply painful to attend. 

Riding that unending roller-coaster of high hopes and optimism, that keeps crashing back down with every gut-wrenching negative pregnancy test. All while keeping up the public facade that everything is A-OK in your life.

Then there are the diaper ads, the flood of ultrasound pictures on social media, the gender reveals, the "Baby on Board" signs in car windows, the baby bumps and strollers that appear everywhere when you can't have it yourself. The unending pain and disappointment, seemingly at every turn.

Between the unpredictability of the outside world and the gruelling schedule involved in fertility treatments, you quickly learn that you have no control anymore. You can easily become consumed with tracking cycle days, medication schedules, and clinic appointments. 

Not to mention the stress with the mounting costs of those treatments.

But through it all, I thankfully had Neil. He helped keep the hope (and humour) alive at every turn, to get us through all of the trials along our bumpy journey. And with every step, I somehow found strength — or maybe it was sheer spite? Stubbornness? — to keep going.

I hope this eight-part podcast, recorded over four years, opens your eyes and your heart. 

If you're one of the lucky ones that isn't affected by infertility, you definitely know someone who is. You may have no idea that they're struggling. But if they do open up to you, know that they're in need of your love and support, and not your unhelpful platitudes to "just relax" or "let nature take its course."

And if you are a fertility warrior, like me, I hope this podcast brings you some comfort, knowing that you're in good company. It's not an easy road, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But the burden certainly lightened for me when I started talking to others about it.

I hope listening to this podcast is as therapeutic and comforting for you as it was for me to make it.

Know that you're not alone. You're one in six.

New episodes of One in Six will be released on Tuesdays, starting on Oct. 18. Tune in on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador