The Stupidest Secret Ever
One of the most dismissive things people can utter to an infertile couple is, “Just stop trying and it will happen.” Another slap-dash attempt at providing a quick fix is, “You two should just take a vacation where you don’t have to think about anything, and you’ll be pregnant in no time,” which is something two people have suggested to us in the past month. And it’s not that I’m opposed to the concept of leisure: I’d be happy to live out a Mexican-infertility beach dream if they are inclined to pony-up the funds. Either way, a blended margarita and a sandy bottom are not going to give Constance and me a baby.
This advice is about as helpful as recommending that we down a bottle of tequila and spend a passionate night in my childhood bedroom because it works like a charm for so many teenage couples.
Sadly, most people really don’t believe infertility is a disease, and we repeatedly witness it in their words and actions. Would someone tell a breast cancer patient to spend a week at an exotic spa and her breasts will be just like new again? Would you tell a stroke victim that his palsied face would regain full movement if he stopped thinking about it so much?
I came across a press release today from My Fertility Success that purported the following:
“Experience has shown that a woman diagnosed with “infertility,” focuses on infertility. The problem with focusing on infertility is that the Universal Law of Attraction teaches that what we focus on becomes evident in our reality, every time. Therefore, focusing on infertility activates infertility in the system. This is science, not fluff. This is what everyone is talking about, including Oprah.”
Stemming from the current media maelstrom over The Secret – the latest self-fulfilling-prophecy “lifestyle” that is being either misconstrued or purposefully deployed to make us all feel as though we’re failing ourselves – this particular release has me furious, despite the nutty aroma of my venti coffee, which usually sedates me until the afternoon.
While I believe that a person’s attitude, generosity and spirit are of great consequence, and can go a long way toward improving their life and the lives of their loved ones, to say that focusing on infertility is what makes a woman infertile dismisses the science behind it as though it were a pesky gnat.
Constance and I thought that once she tossed out the birth-control pills, we’d get pregnant the first time she ovulated. And while we didn’t install a flashing, neon-lighted runway to welcome fertility into our lives with a grand gesture, our confidence was borderline Abercrombie & Fitch obnoxious.
I don’t know a lot about “The Secret,” but I do know a thing or two about self-fulfilling prophecies, and trust me: I’d look like Brad Pitt’s twin brother by now if such my thoughts became reality. We’d all have everything we want, in fact, but life doesn’t work that way. Much can be controlled by our minds, but the ability to conceive is no different than HIV or heart disease, and no vacation or happy thought will make it go away.
Filed under: Diversions, News from the Parent Front
Amen and fo’ shizzle (is Snoop Dogg going to sue me for writing that?).
My favorite is “you just need to relax”. I was completely relaxed for the first 6 months and pretty darn relaxed for the 2 following that. I banish stress from my life and have more sleep-filled nights than most anyone else I know. I’ll tell you what doesn’t make me relaxed — people saying “you just need to relax”. I think the comparison to any other disease is spot on. There is personal responsibility and positive thinking and then there is cold, hard biology and science. Yes, thinking good thoughts certainly can’t hurt, but if we could relax ourselves completely well then quite a few MD’s would be out of a job.
Dang, now I do sound in need of relaxation, don’t I — any relaxation proponent want to spring for our vacation?
“Therefore, focusing on infertility activates infertility in the system. This is science, not fluff. This is what everyone is talking about, including Oprah.”
Yes, because when I think science I automatically think Oprah.
I’m checking Nature Medicine right now to read all her first rate scientific publications.
Good Grief!
I especially dislike comments like that because indirectly they blame people for their infertility. As in, you’re not relaxing, so it’s obviously your fault that you’re not pregnant.
Drives. Me. NUTS.
If this paid relaxation vacation comes through, can I get in on it?
I stoped telling people for this very same reason. Those that haven’t experienced IF just don’t get it. And I don’t want to hear about your sisters-husbands-uncles-wife that started the adoption process only to find out she got pregnant while they were on vacation in the south of France.
Gaaa I heard this so many times in the 2+ years trying to have our son. We decided to go on vacation right before our first IVF cycle. I got pregnant. Damn it if it didn’t look like we proved all of the idiots right!
Ugh, I know how frustrating “Just Relax” can be!
And, I guess it was my constant thoughts about infertility that made my husband’s sperm disappear into thin air despite the fact he was pretty positive he had some. Interesting!! I guess I better start telling myself they came back and this whole mess will be over with.
Must go check out this My Fertility Success thing-it sounds like a really great resource!
arrrrggggggg. even my best of friends will say to me “you’re trying too hard.” or “it will happen when its meant to.” the first one drives me insane. and i am very honest with my friends. i tell them while looking them straight in the eye “you’re being very hurtful. that’s not what i need to hear and i dont need to be blamed for not being able to conceive.” after that, they never say it again. but the second one, well i dont know how to respond to that. i am not religious by any means, and i dont believe that our fates are determined by anyone else than ourselves. and yet, i still do feel that there is a reason why i am going through this, and others do not. maybe its to make me a stronger person. perhaps i am going through this because i am just an impatient person and this will teach me to be patient before i have a child.
i dont know - none of those reasons seem fair, but it kind of gives me a little strength in knowing that yes, i will be a great parent one day because i wont take it for granted. maybe i’ll even be a better parent than others who havent gone through this - because of this experience, i will never complain about being pregnant and i will never say to another person, “you sure you want kids?” perhaps its not a fair statement to say that i will love my kids more than the other couples, but i sure feel that way. its like anything in life - when you work for something so hard and for so long, you cherish the outcome even more than those who didn’t have to “earn” it. maybe (just maybe) its taking me longer to get pg because i am meant to have twins. =D
i know my logic doesnt make any sense. but those little thoughts keep me sane and not bitter. but either way, the next person who says to me “just relax” will get smacked on the head.
I also hate … I know someone who bla bla bla and they got pregnant straight away. We’re pretty much in the closet with our situation so I don’t get much assvice. Just as well, I couldn’t stand it. Interestingly both my GP and Gynae have said lines of the ‘just relax’ variety. Funny, I was so relaxed with my first pregnancy, a little less with the second. By now I couldn’t ‘just relax’ if my life depended on it. It’s not really an option.
Haha, yea and if I thought positive about looking like Angelina Jolie, than does that mean you and I would have to run off and get married? (not that it would ever happen Constance!)
I have hated hearing that even when we werent “diagnosed” yet–I mean, give me a BREAK! It annoys the crap out of me…so from now on, I will take a vacation every time someone tells me that–and if I get knocked up then by God, I will eat my shoe!
I’m sorry you are going through this. I pretty much didn’t tell people (except close friends) that we were trying. And it seems like it was a smart choice hearing what has been said to you. Take it like water on a duck’s back… ie. it doesn’t apply to you and there is no reason to bother with it. For my friends that didn’t get it, that was pretty much how I handled it.
And yes, I know someone who tried for 5 years to get pregnant, doing everything the doctors told her. Her husband and her decided to adopt. And 6 months after they adopted a child, she got pregnant. Which is why these stories exist and people repeat them. I had changed jobs at the time and only saw her once after she had the child, so I did not have time to find out exactly what happened. But I don’t think it was a matter of ‘relaxing’ that fixed her female problems. I do know she kept talking about feeling she was doubly blessed that everything worked out for the adoption and her getting pregnant. Which led me to believe they had continue going to the fertility specialist. But for people who did not know her well, all they saw was an adoption and then a pregnancy. Unless they found out the whole story, I’m sure it was spread to others just like the “Relax” stories.
The secret is unadulterated bullshit. Science indeed! it’s the same stuff that people started touting in the 60s - the ‘power of positive thinking’. Utter tosh. Try reading susan sontag on this point, it’s killer.
Ugh, this crap is definitely a pet peeve of mine. EVERYONE has said it to us and when we got pregnant (after lots of IVF, mind you) in the same week as we were matched for an adoption, it just made it worse. SEE? You adopt and you really DO get pregnant. (Because, you know, it wasn’t all those drugs and the three embryos we put back in there.)
And we’re the king and queen of vacationing. We even ended up on vaca once after a stim cycle (IUI was cancelled because of timing, but we were instructed to have at it) and STILL NO BABY back then. I mean really.
Beat people. That’s my reccomendation. Beat them.
i freakin HATE the secret!! that crap makes me so crazy. INFERTILITY IS NOT ALL IN OUR HEADS!!! i’m sure it has it’s merits, but i am proof that having absolutely no hope and zero positive thoughts are perfectly suitable conditions for conception if you have the right doctors performing the right tricks at the right time and every little bodily function cooperates. hope you have the same good fortune soon. thanks for commenting on my blog, i look forward to checking back in with you.
I’m trying to figure out how my husband and I could take a vacation and “not think about anything” related to fertility. Short some sort of physically punishing trek through the Himalayas, I don’t see how it wouldn’t come up over mai-tais at some point.
And of course as a statistician, I’ll point out that those examples everyone gives, of people who give up or adopt and then later become pregnant, those aren’t actually the statistical norm. They’re bandied about because they make a entertaining stories.
The Secret… shhuuuurrreeee. When I saw that on Oprah I actaully felt super peed off. “We attracted our Infertility” “We placed an order for it…”
I fully believe that positivity breeds positivity but honestly, I doubt “relaxing” and envisioning our bodies being super fertile, would cause us all to pop babies out left, right and centre. Mmmmnnn. I don’t think “the secret” will cure blocked tubes, bad eggs, fertilization issues etc etc etc. This is a disease and needs to be treated like one.
Two things:
1. I am thinking of starting a campaign to award Oprah the Nobel Prize for Medicine, because, as this article points out, she is the first and last authority on the subject and I can’t think why she’s been neglected for this long. Honestly. I read the article yesterday and I nearly snorted what I was eating out of my nose when I got to that part. And I was eating some pretty solid food.
2. We thought a vacation would be a good way to start trying. We quit our jobs and went on a massive World Tour Conception Holiday and not come home til we were pregnant (we reckoned about 4-8 weeks). Ten months later we got bored of vacationing and came home to see a doctor about our fertility. On the upside, we don’t tend to get that comment.
Bea
Apparently, the universe thinks all of us going through infertility must take this route for some greater reason we have yet to understand, aka, we don’t feel bad enough about our inability to conceive so let’s make them pay thousands upon thousands of dollars just to have the chance to try so when they actually reach parenthood they will be even more grateful.
Wow, great secret.
The “just relax” thing might work if stress is keeping you from ovulating, but you already know that Constance ovulates like a machine. Unless some sort of sea-level/elevation thing does it?
The Secret is essentially the law of attraction, from what I have heard, right?
They are saying that because we focus on infertilty, infertility is what we get… Last time I checked, my focus for the last 2+ years has been on GETTING A BABY. So, according to the secret, shouldn’t I have had a baby a year ago?
Funny how that secret only works how they want it to…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article aby, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.