Navigating Your Social Life While Trying to Conceive
You may be finding it difficult to navigate your “before” life with your “ttc” life. Suddenly events that you may have looked forward to in the past such as birthday parties or baby showers now may make you feel an increase in anxiety or like you would rather crawl into a hole than have to navigate a social event or talking with people outside of your inner circle.
You are absolutely not alone in these feelings. They are normal.
The trick is to learn how to navigate and validate these feelings and then come to a place where you are able to find a balance between protecting yourself and honoring yourself and not being completely isolated.
I often tell my patients that one of the goals I have when working with them is helping them figure out how to dial back feeling as though trying to conceive is dominating your life and your thoughts 99% or 100% of the time to a more workable and comfortable 10% or 15%. It wouldn’t be realistic to pretend it wasn’t happening or pretend that your life hasn’t changed, but the work lies in figuring out how to shape your life around it so that you are still controlling your life instead of having the journey control you.
Social Events
Go to part of an event instead of the whole thing
Social events may feel particularly hard to navigate during this time and the trick is to figure out what is comfortable for you. For example, say you are invited to a baby shower of a close friend or family member and you are feeling really upset at the thought of not going but the thought of going and having to sit through that is also making you upset. I recommend going for either the first part or the last part—come up with a reason ahead of time that you will either need to leave early or you will be late and stick to it.
Go prepared with your “cocktail conversation” response (one liner that you have rehearsed and memorized to recite whenever someone asks you when you will conceive or why you haven’t yet) so that you can deliver it without feeling stressed or like a deer in headlights. For example, “oh, we’re saving for a house/car/apartment so we’re going to focus on a baby later” or “we are just enjoying being married right now”….something to answer the question but also shut down the conversation so you aren’t pressured further.
Recognize the event from afar
Sometimes the answer may be not to attend the event at all but rather to recognize it. For example, if someone gives birth and you aren’t able to make it to see the baby or the new parent, send a meal or flowers. Something that acknowledges the event in the other person’s life and is an act of love and kindness, but doesn’t force you to go outside of your comfort zone.
Friends & Family
Friends and family can be another difficult element to navigate during this journey. It is common to feel disappointed or let down when you disclose to a friend or family member and they respond with something that feels insensitive such as “why don’t you just adopt?” or “just relax and it will happen”, or “it’s your fault you waited so long”.
It is important to remember that your friend or family member is not trying to hurt your feelings or be insensitive on purpose. They simply don’t know what to say. By nature, most people want to help. They want to provide the solution for you. The reality is that the only real solution that you are looking for is a healthy, live birth, and unfortunately no one can give that to you. So well-meaning friends and family members say things that they think will lead you there because they aren’t quite sure what to say.
I always tell my patients that you need to set them up for success. Let them know what you need - do you want them to reach out to you and ask how you’re doing or do you want them to let you lead the conversation and not say anything unless you start the dialogue? Do you want them to text you or call you? Be specific with loved ones about what you need in terms of success and let them know how they can best help you.
I know that it isn’t fair because it’s another thing you have to do and another thing you have to think about, but it’s important you set someone up for success and give them the tools to succeed in supporting you when you choose to disclose to them.
Pregnancy Announcements
These can be very difficult and hurtful to see when you are on your own journey to conceive. I always recommend to my patients during this time that they cut down on social media–tuning out the noise can be very helpful.
My patients often struggle with the juxtaposition of emotions that may arise when this happens—how can I feel happy for someone else but sad for myself? It is entirely possible to feel two completely different emotions about one thing. We often think that we can only feel one way or another—happy or sad, angry or excited—but this is not the case. We can absolutely feel both happy for our friend that is pregnant but also sad for ourselves because that is what we want so badly and we are really angry that they have what we want and we can’t see ourselves ever getting there.
The point here is not to repress or deny your emotions but to validate and honor them. It is really important that you acknowledge how a friend or family member’s pregnancy announcement made you feel. It is important to say that it makes you feel horrible and you’re angry and it sucks—that is part of being human.
The other part of this equation is to figure out how to deal with it with as much grace and dignity as possible. It may be natural and normal to need to take a step back from a friendship while you are trying to conceive—perhaps your best friend just announced she is pregnant and she tried for one month—certainly that may be really difficult to navigate. The important thing is to communicate to your friend why you may need to take a step back in the friendship or why you may not be her target audience with discussing all things baby with right now and not just lash out and say things you will regret or just drop the friendship altogether with no explanation. The former is a way to navigate a friendship in a way that you will be able to pick up and resume later on; the latter is a way to destroy a friendship and may make it irreparable, something you will likely regret later.
Conclusion
It can feel tricky and isolating to try and balance a social life while trying to conceive. Research shows that levels of anxiety and depression are higher for those that don’t share than those that do. It’s really important to build out your village during this time, and that can look different for everyone–your village can be a therapist, friends, family, support groups–there is no one size fits all approach. What’s important is that you build out a village and have people to lean on for support. You don’t have to go through this alone.
