A letter about NIAW

For those family members that try and succeed, fail or don't understand:

I just wanted to let every one know that this week is National Infertility Awareness Week.    The reasons that I wanted to share are simple:

1. You can visit the resolve website and get more information about infertility and why NIAW is so important.
2. If people do not speak out, insurance companies will be able to continue to claim that fertility issues are not health issues.  While not having children may not be life threatening, the underlying causes have their own  medical side effects and symptoms.  Yet, those diagnoses still often have to go untreated.
3. Infertility is treated as a taboo subject, yet it effects millions of people each year.   It's time for people to stop feeling ashamed of having a medical issue.   Shout it from the roof tops and get the support that's needed.   Infertility makes you feel so alone, and then you tend to isolate ourselves by not speaking about it.  It's time for that to end!
4. Mark and I start another IUI cycle in 2-3 days.   Honestly, last month was heart wrenching, and bone shatteringly brutal when we found out the cycle was cancelled.   Add to that the ups, downs and crazies from all the drugs and I think I spent more time in tears than not last month.   It was really, really hard on Mark as well.   While we lean on each other during all of this, there are also times when we need outside support.  I have girlfriends that are great at listening, Mark's buddies....well, not so much.    An extra phone call or two might mean the world to Mark this coming cycle.   Especially since Mark will be working out of town for the entire cycle which gives him even less control and involvement than we had last time.