Infertility is not caused by psychological injury, but people can use it that way.

I find it amusing how people can find "work" for the infertile to do to "resolve" their infertility.  Just yesterday I shared with someone the update we had received from an internationally renown fertility doctor regarding why we were not conceiving.  When I first learned this information it was a relief to me, because it proved there was nothing non-medical I could do to improve the situation.  Changing my diet, relaxing, having more faith, resolving some personal issue,.. nothing I did in my own life would "fix" it.  And here yesterday I shared this info with a person who professionally should know better and their response was, "well, sometimes emotional issues cause physiological issues in the body." I just have to laugh thinking about their response. Really?  You are going to blame some hidden unresolved emotional concern for lets call it a birth defect?  I wanted to retort back that I have worked through every possible thing I can think of in my life that I might need counseling for and I am still not pregnant.  None of that difficult work of resolving relationship tensions, forgiving someone, addressing fears or areas where I feel guilt could possibly repair my body. 

I am glad that I now can find humor in comments like these.  Having a diagnosis that is sooo physiological helps me to see how really obscene comments like this can be.  It also makes me realize that one of the unfortunate gifts of infertility is that it causes people to search for answers and get help healing from past emotional pain. In many ways a diagnosis of infertility eventually leads to the resolution in so many other areas of a person's life and yet so many who are infertile end up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. See infertility in and of itself is traumatic.  In itself it attacks the very sense of identity and self-worth that a person has. There doesn't have to be any other factors at play.  Research has shown that women who have gone through both cancer treatment and infertility treatment (sadly there are a lot who have) will say that infertility treatment is just as traumatic if not more than cancer treatment.  Infertility comes in many forms but it is a life-changing disease. Again, I say infertility is a traumatic event all by itself.  Instead of digging deeper trying to find a different source for the pain, please recognize that infertility is the source of the pain.  Care for the infertile as you would care for someone grieving the loss of multiple loved ones or a person recovering from a series of accidents in which the result of each was a body part being amputated.  When I reread that sentence it sounds so harsh, but I think it is how many of us feel. 

Don't worry about me right now.  I am in a good place as I write this.  This isn't written to express my pain, but rather to inform and educate and of course to laugh!  Now all I need to do is come up with a creative and humorous comeback for the next person who tries to "fix" me, any suggestions?