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Helping Hands

Groups That Navigate the Infertility Roller Coaster

By Kelly Burgess

While advocacy and information are important aspects of infertility support groups, their core mission is to provide emotional support to infertile couples, especially women. Lisa Tuttle, Ph.D., a psychologist who specializes in fertility counseling, says that she provides support groups especially for women because infertility takes a higher toll on a woman emotionally. "Even the most sympathetic husband can't completely understand what his wife is going through physically and emotionally," says Tuttle. "A support group is great for a woman going through this because she can talk to people who really understand what she's saying."

Talking to other women who had also experienced multiple miscarriages is what Hemenway says kept her sane through her infertility treatments. "It's a very lonely kind of disease process because there's a huge amount of stigma attached to infertility," she says. "Women are very liberated in many ways, but if she can't conceive there's a huge amount of guilt and self-doubt that's hard for anyone to understand who doesn't have those issues."

Hemenway, who is now the mother of a 9-year-old daughter, also loves the fact that she's taken action to help others – so does her daughter. "When people ask my daughter what her mother does, she tells them I help people have babies," says Hemenway. "She knows her own story, and I think I now have the best job you can have."

Want to see more?

• Supporting Your Spouse: A Male Perspective on IVF
• The Infertility Marketplace: How Success Rates Are Advertised
• Sharing the Struggle: Should You or Shouldn't You?
• Talk about it!