Fertility Treatments: Why It’s Important to Have an Understanding as a Birth Doula
by Lara
As birth doulas, we don’t often know our clients before they become pregnant. Some of us might have a couple of questions on our intake form. Perhaps we prepared for our first meeting to ask about how they became pregnant or any relevant fertility history that they’d like to share. But often, the conversation about preconception ends there.
As both a doula specializing in supporting queer and trans families and a parent who underwent fertility treatment myself, I want to share my experience to show the positive impact that birth workers can make when they’re informed about fertility and conception.
In addition to being a doula offering preconception and fertility care myself, I am a parent to a child conceived through donor conception and IUI (intrauterine insemination).
My preconception and fertility experience absolutely affected how I moved through my pregnancy, including navigating and receiving care from my midwives and doula.
A long journey to getting pregnant, including experiencing loss along the way, made my early pregnancy feel loaded with emotion - both excitement and anxiety.
Having a care team that was aware of the long journey that I had had to get pregnant and stay pregnant was essential: my midwives were better able to understand any anxiety that came up, and my doula was able to meet me where I was at and understand what I had gone through already to get where I was.
Having a doula who already understood what donor conception can look like and what navigating fertility clinics and treatments can feel like was extra important and impactful because I did not have to use my energy to explain what things had been like or what procedures and treatments I had done.
So, this is my call to action for the birth doulas out there who do not work in the preconception space: take some time to learn and understand what fertility and infertility can look like, so you can show up for your clients who have been through this.
Keep in mind: just like the rest of the care we provide to our clients, it is not a one-size-fits-all situation, and some clients might feel like it is more or less important to talk about and integrate their preconception journey into their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care. However, I always work within the mindset that being more prepared is better than being underprepared!
Who Accesses Fertility Treatment
The short answer is: anyone! While it is impossible to tell from the outside which families might have needed additional support to build their families, there are certain populations who may be more likely to access fertility treatment, including:
Queer families
Older parents
Solo parents by choice
Why People Access Fertility Treatment
People access fertility treatments for a variety of reasons. The most commonly known one is because someone is experiencing some type of infertility. However, people might also access fertility treatments because of a lack of genetic material within their family structure, such as a same sex family or a solo parent. Fertility treatments can also be useful for multiple other purposes, including:
Doing IVF with pre-implantation genetic testing for those who are known carriers of genetic conditions
Using fertility treatments as a means to conceive after experiencing recurrent miscarriage
Accessing it as a tool for fertility preservation when undergoing medical treatment
Some people might know ahead of time that they will need to use fertility treatments to get pregnant, and for many it will be a surprise. For some, fertility treatments will be straightforward, but for many, even those who expected to need the added intervention, there will be many twists and turns in their journey.
If you’re new to the fertility world, it can all feel a little overwhelming at first. There are so many different options and acronyms to go along with everything.
The first thing to know is: fertility treatments are varied and should always be customized to the person receiving them. That means that even if you have supported a family before who, say, used IVF (in-vitro fertilization) to get pregnant, that doesn’t mean that the next client who you support using IVF will have the same story, experience, or feelings of it. Just like in birth, two fertility journeys can look the same on paper, but that does not mean that they will be experienced in the same way by the people going through them. While we won’t get into the nitty gritty of what each fertility treatment is in this piece, you can read more about that in a previous blog post here.
When showing up for your clients who became pregnant through fertility assistance, know this: the transition from trying to conceive into being pregnant can be tough. It can feel like a permanent state of being when one is continuously managing fertility treatments: navigating sometimes daily appointments and the impact that has on daily life and routines, taking medications that can affect your physical and emotional wellbeing, and the emotional toll of wanting a baby but not having one. It can often take people some time to adjust to not only being pregnant but also to believing that they will have a baby at the end of the journey.
As someone who has been on the receiving side of doula care following a long fertility journey, I know that what I wanted was for someone to show up and support me through difficult feelings that emerged and to not have to explain what my journey to getting pregnant had looked like. Informing yourself with information about what fertility treatments can look and feel like will prepare you to show up and support your client as their full self.
Interested in learning more? Join our Fertility & Conception CE Course to take a deep dive into fertility, conception, and supporting clients who are currently navigating or have navigated a TTC journey.
Lara (they/them) is the Project Manager and Core Teacher here at BADT. A full spectrum doula specializing in supporting queer and trans folks through fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum, they also offer lactation support, childbirth education, and mentorship for other birthworkers. Lara is the parent of a baby who they conceived through the help of fertility treatments. You can connect with Lara on their website or social media @theplanteddoula.