According to the World Health Organization, nearly one in six people worldwide are affected by infertility. A statistic that varies little from one continent to another, underlines a report published last spring.
Despite this large number, women who go through this ordeal too often feel alone, maintains Kate Lalic. It was with the aim of breaking this isolation, which she herself felt greatly, that the author and editor launched this writing project.
“I found that there wasn’t much literature on the subject,” notes the woman we meet with co-authors Andrée-Anne Charron and Geneviève Filion during the launch of the collection at the Un livre à soi bookstore.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Kate Lalic
At the start of her fertility journey, Kate Lalic would have liked to read testimonials from women who had a similar experience other than snippets on social media. She would have liked to be guided. She would have liked to know more about the physical, but especially mental, challenges that awaited her.
In The ego of infertility, the nine co-authors tell their story in complete transparency. As the months go by, we experience with them the numerous appointments at the fertility clinic, the taking of hormones, the insemination days, the egg retrievals, the embryo transfers, but above all, the roller coaster of emotions that inevitably accompany every journey.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The nine co-authors and the doula who accompanied them in the writing process
These nine women, who met through a Facebook group, lift the veil on a little-shown reality. They say it themselves in interviews and write it in the book: infertility “remains largely taboo and unknown”.
Why this silence, according to them? “It’s the ego,” answers Andrée-Anne Charron. We don’t want to show that for our couple, it’s more difficult than for others. »
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Geneviève Filion
Society shows that women are made to have children. When you were little, you learned to play with dolls. Later, no one teaches you that it can be difficult to get pregnant.
Geneviève Filion
“We don’t have people explain what infertility is. […] If we had had a little more information on this, we would have been less in the unknown,” adds Kate Lalic.
“A race against time”
While reading The ego of infertility, we feel the authors’ dismay at experiencing so many moments of waiting throughout the process, particularly due to the high traffic in the fertility clinics. For some of them, they have been trying to have a child for more than four years. In their thirties, they feel that the passing years are working against them.
“It’s a race against time, in fact,” summarizes Kate Lalic.
The desire to become pregnant “can become obsessive,” notes Andrée-Anne Charron. And when it doesn’t work, “it’s easy to blame yourself, to think that you’re responsible, but deep down, you have no control over it.”
If they had one piece of advice for couples thinking about going to a fertility clinic, what would it be? “The advice I would give is to be proactive, to ask questions, to not be afraid to consult another specialist for a second opinion,” answers Andrée-Anne Charron. “There are so many patients in the clinics that your file gets forgotten. If you have had an exam, call the clinic for follow-up,” adds Geneviève Filion.
But above all, the three women advise taking time for yourself and for the couple.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Andrée-Anne Charron
I think that, for our mental health, it’s good to give ourselves time. […] Take a break, go on a trip or be on vacation at home and relax.
Andrée-Anne Charron
The ego of infertility is published, but for the co-authors, the adventure continues. The rest of their journey, sometimes enlightening, will be told in a newsletter to which it is possible to subscribe on the book’s website. Thanks to this and social networks, Kate Lalic would like to create a community so that couples who are going through a similar ordeal never feel alone again.
The ego of infertility is available online and in some pharmacies.
The ego of infertility
JED Lab Editions
303 pages