Infertility and Loss Are Not Shameful

“This shroud of secrecy that surrounds baby-making is making it so much harder for people to get the help they need.

We don’t talk publicly about sex in my community.

We don’t talk about taharas hamishpacha (Jewish laws of family purity which state that a husband and wife cannot be intimate from the time she gets her period for a minimum of twelve days. Sex is permitted when she dips in a mikvah/ritual bath after nightfall).

We don’t freely share that we’re going to the mikvah because G-d forbid someone should know that we’re having sex. We’re only allowed to go at night, under the cover of darkness. I usually pretend I’m going to the grocery store for their late night special.

We don’t share any pregnancy for the first few months, even though so many pregnancies miscarry and that silence prevented me from getting the help I needed.

We only speak about stillbirth in hushed tones, as if sharing the news out loud is contagious.

We definitely don’t talk about infertility.

And yet, here’s the part I just don’t understand: We have big beautiful weddings that celebrate the beginning of a new family. Thousands of dollars are spent to make sure it’s done beautifully and tastefully. We expect these young couples to pop out a baby within a year. So when that doesn’t happen, people start looking at the woman’s stomach and the couple feels this pressure to stay silent, because ‘we don’t talk about these things.’

I suffered deeply through 6 years of infertility and three miscarriages, and I’m tired of the whispered phone calls I get.

Infertility and loss are not shameful. I didn’t do anything to cause this. We need to start talking about ALL life cycles events more openly, because it’s just too hard to do this alone. And while I’m still not brave enough to share my name with the people reading this, I need to speak out.

Too many people are suffering and it needs to stop.”