Isn’t it strange how the whole trying to get pregnant story seems to bring out all those tall stories and old wives’ tales? Infertility myths are rather common (and funnily enough, common sense isn’t). The information you hear could range from innocuous to extremely tactless, and is unfortunately often untrue.

• Well intentioned relatives could inform you that it’s your imagination and you ought to just lighten up and you’ll have a baby. Are you convinced that you don’t want a baby too much? On the other hand, what if, buried in the depths of your subconscious mind, you don’t genuinely want to conceive? Might that be it? Surely there might be a smaller number of abandoned babies if not desiring to get pregnant was adequate to make you infertile?
• Other relatives, perhaps your in-laws, could be tempted to blame it on you, because infertility is the woman’s problem in any case, and we don’t want to believe that maybe he inherited his low sperm count from us. The stats show that overall men and women are equally infertile. Approximately 1/3 of all instances of infertility are a result of problems with the woman’s reproductive capacity, and the second third is because of problems on the man’s part. The final third is formed by the cases where no cause could be found, or instances where both parties have problems. So this is one of those moments where blame is definitely unhelpful.
• Many people lie to blame the contraceptive pill for infertility. Those nasty hormones could really wreck your fertility, from the devil they are! Even with its bad rep, the pill doesn’t make you infertile, but it may mask any fertility problems that already exist. Your neighbor might have a story about her second-cousin who got pregnant just months after she and her husband adopted – sheesh, everyone has one of those stories, but when do they ever tell you about those who didn’t conceive after they adopted? Those stories aren’t nearly as much fun to tell.
• A well-meaning shop assistant may remark that perhaps this is the universe’s way of informing you that parenthood is not part of your eternal fate, that all things happen for a reason, and that you won’t be given more than you can deal with – but don’t you wish the universe had asked you what you thought? How come they get a hotline to ‘Discover your Supreme Destiny’ and you don’t? Being informed that you are doing your part to reduce overpopulation doesn’t make it any easier either, no matter what the greenies say.

That said, there is sometimes a minutely tiny bit of truth in some of those infertility myths. When you encounter these infertility myths you just need to take care to do your research so you can set those prying old ladies straight and possibly even get some information that can actually help you.

Here is more information on Infertility Information. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Infertility.