Trying Out Some New Vocabulary
I read this the other night from Lara at Little Beans 4 Me and I have been thinking about it ever since:
I have this friend, M, who has an aunt who is a hypnotherapist. She told her aunt about me and my trying to get pregnant and her aunt said she wanted to help me with hypnotherapy. I talked to her on the phone and gave her the run down on my history, and she said the first thing I need to STOP doing is saying the word INFERTILITY. By saying I’m an infertile, or that we’re going to the infertility doctor, its already planting a negative seed in my mind that I’m not going to get pregnant.
Such a little thing. But it makes a lot of sense to me.
Since I decided to start acupuncture this cycle, I’ve also started trying to visualize my body and what’s happening inside of it in preparation for the FET. Kind of like meditation, but more fun. Sometimes I picture a set of knitting needles knitting a wonderful, warm holder for a set of embryos. (I think this image was prompted by the tap tap tap of the electrocurrent machine at my acupuncturist’s office.) When I’m at the gym, I visualize myself powering up with mega-muscles, while my womb gets healthier and fuller, ripening with anticipation - like a hard, armored exterior protecting this delicate piece inside. Other times, my thoughts are vivid but silly, like picturing a smiling pear-shaped organ with outstretched arms waiting to be given another chance.
It may sound silly, but I think it’s working. I can’t wait for our next doctor appointment on Friday (which will check the thickness of my endometrium) to see if I’m right.
So, if I am spending all of this time, visualizing what I want my body to be doing, why would I undercut those efforts by constantly using a term that denotes otherwise? Good question. I know that I am not naturally fertile. I do not produce eggs. My ovaries are shot. No eggs = no baby. It’s not rocket science. But are the lines really so clear anymore? Because I am not fertile, am I then automatically labeled infertile? What about someone who is considered infertile who successfully has a child - do they automatically switch to fertile?
I don’t think so in either case. And for now, it seems counterproductive to call myself something that I don’t want to be. I am not at the stage that I can embrace the term and move forward. Perhaps I will be someday, but not now. So from now on, I am going to try to switch up my vocabulary, just as I have been trying to switch up the images in my mind. You’ll tell me if I slip won’t you?
Tags: , acupuncture, Gabrielle Sedor, hypnotherapy, identity, infertile, infertility, positive thinking, visualizationRelated Stories
POSTED IN: fertility boosts?, infertility treatments, shared experiences
4 opinions for Trying Out Some New Vocabulary
Shinejil
Mar 5, 2008 at 11:20 am
This is a thought provoking post. Though I’m skeptical of the whole “think positive and it will happen” approach, words do matter. Especially for those of us in the unexplained boat.
My therapist had a similar reaction to my “infertile this, infertile that.” So I decided, at least in my own head sometimes, to use a term you often come across in medical literature: subfertile. You’re not a failure, just a C- student who needs some after-school help. :)
Gabrielle
Mar 5, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Yeah, I know, the whole “think positive” thing can sound pretty corny, or as my acupuncturist said the other day, “very woo woo” and new agey, but I’m looking for ways to separate (at least in my own mind) my last failed cycle and this new one. I need to know there is something different in the equation. The imagery, for me, is one of those things. Plus its fun and funny and I crack myself up with some of the visuals I am conjuring.
So funny that you make the analogy to a C- student. As someone who got A’s her whole life (well, up until advanced French in college) and didn’t have to work that hard for them, I think its easy to assume that other things are going to work as effortlessly. I am definitely feeling like a C- student who needs some after school help, if I weren’t in detention.
Megan
Mar 9, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Hey Gab,
I was talking to someone about this a few weeks ago — if I was bad at something, like, say, volleyball, I would just avoid it. But with the baby thing, I have to just keep trying. I can’t pretend to stove my finger and head cheerfully to the nurse’s office, secure in the knowledge that gym class will be over when I return.
I’m doing acupuncture too — I find it really relaxing, and I think it’s helping with anxiety if nothing else.
-Megan
p.s. I have great eggs but a shoddy uterus. Too bad we couldn’t band together for one great reproductive system.
Gabrielle
Mar 10, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Megan, thanks so much for your comment. I am amazed at how many women I know that are trying to conceive and running into obstacles of various shapes and sized. I think combined, we could probably create one fabulous reproductive system.
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