By NewsGirl, Guest Author for ITNB

Infertility is a very personal battle. And this struggle…this fight…this abyss of sadness is something we tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t share it with the people who we see everyday or those who love us most. We retreat to our computers where we find amazing support on message boards and blogs from people who don’t know us and wouldn’t know us if they walked right into us on the street. But this is a huge thing that we go through. It is physically and emotionally draining. (I’m not even going near the financial implications, see The Price of Money below.) It is a lot to keep from the people you love and share your life with, isn’t it?

The majority of people decide they want to have a child and get to make love to their partner in the privacy of their bedroom. They get to surprise the world with a pregnancy whenever they see fit to share it. We don’t get that. Those of us fighting this battle get phone calls and emails asking when our next doctor’s appointment is…when the next procedure or cycle will be. Our sex lives (or lack thereof) are out there for the entire world to know. (Doesn’t it feel like that sometimes?) We can’t have a baby the “old-fashioned” way. We need doctors and embryologists and anesthesiologists just to have a chance at having a baby. We get looks of pity and pep talks. (And who needs or wants those!? Or is it just me that gets really angry from that crap?) We get poked and prodded and used as pin cushions. We don’t get to surprise anyone with the news if …IF…we actually get pregnant. And we don’t even get definitive results…we have percentages of success based on age and a whole host of other things that are beyond our control.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve skipped lot…and I mean A LOT…of family functions over the past two years because I couldn’t handle seeing kids or because I had just gotten a BFN again (see Becoming Estranged below). In a way, it feels like I’m hiding from my life. I hate that. How much of your life have you missed since finding out that you were infertile? How much of your struggles with infertility have you kept from the people you see every day or those you love? Telling our loved ones may make this fight easier to bear but telling them comes with questions…the ones about when you decided to have kids… what have you done so far…are any of us ready to answer those questions? Do we even have to?

I mentioned all this to a good friend of mine who is also struggling with infertility. And in all her infinite wisdom she said to me: “If they ask questions, you can say with impunity, ‘This is a really difficult process for us, and we’d prefer not to talk about it. I hope you can respect our wishes.’ And who knows, maybe having the visible support of your extended family will help us cope? Maybe in keeping it private, we’re giving ourselves a heavier burden to bear?”

And you know what? She is 100% absolutely positively right. How many of us suffer in silence daily only to cry to our computer screens because the people we talk to in cyberspace are the ONLY people who can even begin to imagine what it is that we are going through. We get by on virtual hugs instead of trusting those who can actually hug us. We go through the motions of every day life. We suffer through the intrusive and insensitive questions such as “Are you having kids?” We smile at family gatherings and hang out at the bar (there should always be a bar at family gatherings) because it’s easier then facing the kids that are running around laughing or the talk of so and so’s pregnancy.

But the question remains…are we making this harder on ourselves then it needs to be? Maybe we should have a little more faith in those we love? Maybe we should come out of the infertility closet?

For more articles by NewsGirl including the original of this article, please visit her blog I’ve Got News For You and follow her on Twitter @GotNewsForYou .

Avoidance. It is something that we infertile couples tend to do when situations arise that will be emotionally difficult to handle. Strong examples of this would be to decline any and all invitations to baby showers, children’s 1st birthdays, baptisms and the like. Turning these events down does not mean that we don’t care, but rather it brings us face-to-face with the reality of what we are missing and what we are not celebrating. The upset-o-meter tends to rise quickly if all we see are happy parents and happy children to boot.

After a while of non-attendance, we begin to lose touch with those folks that we used to be very close with pre-kids. Since our lives are going in different directions, or better yet, their lives are going in a forward direction and ours has halted, being able to relate becomes more difficult. Even if we were courageous enough to participate in these functions, conversations are difficult because we’re not sharing the same anecdotes related to children’s’ first this and children’s’ first that.

This estranged feeling is not limited to just friends with children. We happen to observe the same awkwardness within our immediate family. When a family member or relative says or does something insensitive to our infertile situation, we again crawl into our shell. These periods of non-contact can go on for months. Even when apologies and forgiveness are issued, there is still a sense of need to be walking on eggshells from all parties.

We are in charge of who we let into our lives. At this point, in the middle of all this madness, it might just be ok to keep the inner circle very small. There is the old saying that we should not run from our problems, we should face them head on. There is also something to be said about avoiding things that make us uncomfortable. Which one is more relevant?

A pretty typical question couples (or individuals) ask themselves. After being diagnosed with Infertility – you can’t help but feel broken at times. Doctors tell you have this issue, you have that issue, it might be this, it might be that and so on – ahhh! – too much to process.

If you are like us, in addition to feeling broken, you may feel guilt. Although you know that you should not feel broken and guilty because your diagnosis is a physical problem and doesn’t have anything to do with you as a person….it is still a REAL feeling that waxes and wanes.

This guilt sometimes can interfere with your marriage. As a couple, we know that we are in this together, but we can’t help feel that the other would not have to deal with this annoyance if we weren’t married to each other. These feelings can even get to the point where one person actually verbalizes these thoughts by asking the other to leave for greener pastures.

All we can do is try to stay strong and support each other without question. We might not be broken in the true sense of the word, but our hearts surely are…