Infertility, Relationships and Letting Go

by Dr Randine Lewis

If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
—Tao Te Ching

Letting go for some becomes the easiest thing in the world: they just know. "No more procedures," they say. "That's enough."

But for many, the decision to let go may be the most difficult one they have ever faced. How can you give up the dream that has consumed you day and night, for years? And you are not just giving up your own dream, but also the entire future that dream created. So you are giving up a pursuit and identity that has defined you for as long as you can remember.

There is an identity in trying to conceive. You can even become attached to the label of "barren." Your life revolves around it, and it is difficult to release that obsession. As one of our patients said, "I know what it's like to be childless, but who am I if I let go of my pursuit of a child? Who will I be when I'm not pursuing this anymore? Who will I be if I am not a mother?"

Such questions can put you into a panic, or they can be the next step in a great adventure. Over and over, we have seen that the ending of the pursuit of natural conception can be an opening to a fuller idea of who you are. There will be grief and mourning, of course. And you must move through the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—before you can take a look at what you would like the rest of your life to be.

But in my experience, like the child who lets go of the table leg to take his or her first step, women who consciously choose to let go when they know the time is right find it much easier to step into life after infertility.

Sometimes the point where you find your soul is the point when you finally let go of our dreams. Losing the identity of being a biological mother or of being an "infertile" woman can mean loss, or it can mean discovering the deepest truths about yourself.

Your ability to have children and your role as a mother are only part of who you are. I believe one of the greatest things you can do to honour yourself as you near the end of this path is to gently to remind yourself that you are whole. Indeed, you are more than whole because now you have more substance.

As you release your fierce hold on external things and beliefs, you often come to a point of peace where you find that you are not really lacking anything at all. In that place, your most fundamental needs are always met. I believe that the meaning of Shakespeare's words, "To thine own self be true," is that at our core—without home, appearance, husband, profession, and yes, even without children—we already have all we will ever need, and that is what life is trying to teach us.

Infertility, Relationships and Letting Go

"Barrenness" strikes at the heart of a woman's self-worth. Not only is she afraid of infertility, but also of the possibility that her partner will discard her should she fail to give him a child. This fear may be irrational, but it's one that has been drilled into our heads by thousands of years of history and myth.

A man can support his partner with no greater kindness than to let her know that whether she is a mother or not, whether they have a biological child, choose to adopt, or remain childless, the relationship between the two of them is still an important part of his life. By doing so, he acknowledges the physical, mental and emotional toll the fertility pursuit has for a woman, and makes her feel he is her partner in this endeavour.

The journey of infertility is a perilous one for relationships. It can bring some couples together; it can drive other couples apart. The couples who become stronger are those who share their feelings with each other, who take turns providing support, who are willing to be vulnerable and angry and to grieve and talk and, above, all, love each other through the entire process. Couples who come to the end of the fertility pursuit and succeed in staying together make their decisions jointly.

Life after infertility can be an exploration of the fullness of life if the partners so choose. Certainly your relationship with your partner will change when parenthood is no longer in your future. Instead of parents, you will be companions, partners in a life without children or grandchildren. Perhaps your sexual relations will change once conception isn't the goal. For many couples this change can bring with it a sense of enormous relief! Maybe true intimacy can be what you turn your attention to now.

Whatever your choices, things will be different for both of you when you let go of the pursuit of a baby. However, different can mean better, richer, fuller, with more options—including the option to pursue parenthood in other ways.