Next Steps
Talk to Your
Partner
How can I plan ahead?
Taking these next steps to understand your fertility status and options can help.
Family-building and partnership
Having a baby is one of the most exciting times in a person’s life. If you experience fertility problems, however, this can also be a stressful time. If you are going through this experience with a partner, sharing emotions, making joint decisions, and navigating the process together can be exciting, and it can be challenging. There are a lot of things for you and your partner to consider when making a decision about which family-building option is best for you.
Research has shown that there are 3 main strategies that help couples deal with issues related to infertility and family-building. They are:
Open emotional sharing
This means that both you and your partner share your emotions with each other and feel that you can rely on each other for emotional support and understanding.
Sharing difficult emotions can be hard to do. Emotions are complex. Thinking about your fertility and family-building can feel like a rollercoaster between hope and worry. The situation may make you feel uncertain, frustrated, sad, or angry at times. Some women feel guilty that their cancer was the cause of fertility problems. Although these are normal feelings, they can be difficult to express. It is important to share with each other and cultivate positive communication patterns as you start this journey.
Unity in the relationship
This means that couples who regularly evaluate how their individual thoughts and feelings match up with each other are more likely to feel that they can handle stressful situations together.
Checking in with each other regularly to make sure you are on the same page with shared goals will make you feel more like a team – able to support one another and take on any challenges ahead. This does not mean that you always have to agree. But it is important to identify areas where you differ, so that you can work together to make compromises and to find solutions.
Shared decision-making
When faced with important life decisions, couples are better off when they work together through the decision-making process.
This means that both partners have an equal say in any decisions and that each partner’s feelings and opinions matter equally. It also means that both partners are sincerely concerned about the wishes and personal preferences of the other. It means that no one is “wrong” to feel a certain way or have a certain opinion. Shared decision-making works best when partners respect each other’s opinions, avoid blame, make compromises, and commit to making a decision that is mutually satisfying for both.
Here are some practical tips for talking to your partner (or a future partner) about this decision. (Click the + signs below for more info.)
First, understand your own emotions and opinions.
This may seem obvious, but it can be hard to figure out our emotions sometimes. Before talking to your partner, take some time for introspection.
- How are you feeling about your fertility, family-building, and the decision options you are facing?
- What are your family-building goals and priorities?
- What makes you feel hopeful?
- Does anything make you feel nervous, upset, disappointed, or stressed?
These can be difficult questions to answer. It may be helpful to get a handle on your own thoughts, feelings, and opinions before talking to your partner.
Be clear about your opinion and share it with your partner.
Too often, we hide our true feelings from our partners. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to seem like a burden or we’re scared of getting rejected or want to avoid an argument. Sometimes we downplay our feelings or simply don’t share our concerns and fears. It is common to avoid topics when you feel vulnerable or are unsure how the other person will react, even if the topic is important to you.
It is important to have open and honest conversations with your partner.
Some women worry about passing on a genetic risk for cancer to a child. Others worry about their cancer coming back and what that would mean for raising a child. Share these concerns with your partner.
This is an important decision and you need to be clear about how each of you is feeling and what you hope for.
Listen and respect each other’s opinion.
You may have a lot of emotions and strong opinions about how you want to build your family and what decision is best. Your partner may also have strong opinions and feelings about what is right.
It is important for you to listen to each other and respect what the other is saying.
Both you and your partner should feel like your opinion matters. Both of you should feel included in the decision-making process. Ask questions to understand how your partner is feeling – his or her preferences, concerns, and goals. If you are feeling unheard or misunderstood, try to express that to your partner.
This may mean sitting down and having real, hard, long conversations about your hopes and dreams. You and your partner are equals and you need to work through what’s best for you both together.
Talk again. (And again.)
Communication is not a one-time event. As you go through the decision-making process for building a family, it can be helpful to check in regularly with your partner about how each of you is feeling and your thoughts about the way things are going.
You may find that your initial path doesn’t go the way you think it will.
If you are unsuccessful with IVF the first time, talk to each other about how you are feeling and whether you want to try again.
If the costs are adding up to more than what you expected, check in with each other about your budget and how you want to spend your financial resources.
Many people are able to build a family after cancer exactly how they intend to. For others, it can be an emotional experience with multiple steps that may or may not go their way. Keep checking in with one another to make sure you are still aligned, still a team, and still prepared for what’s to come.
Disagree constructively.
It is important to recognize that you and your partner may not always agree on the best course of action. If this happens, have conversations about your differences constructively. “Fighting fair” means that you address conflict with respect for the other person and work together to find a solution.
Here are some good communication tips:
Listen, avoid personal attacks, keep your voice calm, try not to be defensive, find points of agreement, commit to finding compromises.
Get (additional) support.
If you’re feeling overly stressed, anxious, or scared about your family-building journey, it can be a good idea to get additional support. Maybe that’s a close friend, a sibling, or a parent. Maybe that’s finding a support group or a professional counselor or therapist.
It can be incredibly helpful to find multiple sources of support through challenging times.
