On the heels of her recent BBC interview (Drawing the Line: When IVF Doesn’t Work) health advocate and blogger Lesley Pyne offered to have an in-depth chat about my latest writing project, Finally Heard.
Grab a cup of coffee or tea (or libation of your choice) and join Lesley and me as we launch into a conversation on what we’ve learned since stopping fertility treatments. We address the challenges of moving forward when infertility treatments fail, the trauma we confronted, and the need for greater accountability within the fertility industry.
You’ll also hear about:
- The biggest shock in our journeys
- What the clinics can and should do to help patients
- Ways the industry can contribute to change
- Why I wrote Finally Heard
Have a listen and please share your responses and comments here as well as on Lesley’s blog.
Great interview Pamela. Despite having read Finally Heard (a number of times!), I loved hearing your conversation, and thinking anew about some of the issues raised. You’ve made me think more about what is going on in NZ too, and resolve to learn more about it, and see what I might be able to do to get this message out there. As you say, in stressing the happiness that is possible in a No Kids life, we don’t want to ever underplay the emotional trauma of facing this life when it wasn’t what we had hoped for.
dear Lesley and Pamela,
thank you for wonderful interview.
dear Pamela – that’s great question – What’s on the other side? Thank you for all your help in the past. With you, my beloved big sister, coming to the other side was much easier.
Loved the interview. Thank you for the talk and the enlightenment. Really love what you said about the dark period and how vital it is to have adequate help/support to heal and move on.
Dear Pamela,
I enjoyed the interview. Funny, given the treacherous nature of the subject matter, that hearing you speak and reading your writing has morphed into such a comfort for me:-)
Everything you said about the fertility industry resonated with my experience and left me wondering what I could do to affect change in this department.
As someone who is still in the trenches of the dark period of post treatment grief you discussed, I always appreciate how well you articulate this period in conjunction with coming out on the other side of it with a measure of contentment and fulfillment.
XXOO Sarah
Late to comment, but I did listen to this when you first posted it & loved it. It’s so rare to hear these issues being discussed in such a thoughtful way, and you are such an articulate spokesperson for our community, Pamela. Thank you, & thanks also to Lesley for providing the forum & the questions!
I really appreciate this insight, as 3 of my sisters-in-law struggle with infertility. One just had a miscarriage at 17 weeks which was not a fertility issue so much as a completely unpredictable genetic abnormality, and the baby wouldn’t have lived outside of the womb. It’s such a traumatic experience, and there really should be a lot more awareness and support for these losses. Miscarriages and infertility are so common, yet nobody really talks about it!