‘Tis the season to be jolly, but when loved ones cross the line with inappropriate conversations about your infertility, that holiday cheer suddenly comes to a grinding halt.
It’s like a blitz attack: you could be grinning with a cup of eggnog in front of the Christmas tree just as great-aunt-whoever decides to ask, “So are you going to be having kids soon or what?” Your grin then melts into an understandable urge to scream, which you instead have to suppress while scrambling to respond coherently and courteously.
When you’re struggling with infertility or pregnancy loss, joy is a fragile and hard-fought feeling. It’s so tough to compartmentalize for the sake of smiling in a group photo, cooking up a festive dinner, or—perhaps the hardest of all—seeing the nieces, nephews, and baby cousins whose beaming faces just make you want one of your own that much more.
Though most of them mean well, that dynamic is not fair to you, especially at this time of year. You deserve support during this difficult chapter, not a festival of unsolicited advice and triggering experiences—and you’ll be glad to know there are healthy ways to promote a positive holiday environment. Here’s our seasonal list for how to deck the halls without decking your relatives.
1. Set a Clear Boundary
It’s so much easier said than done, but it’s important to set healthy boundaries and outline your playbook with family and friends to avoid hurtful or uncomfortable exchanges this season. Folks are catching up with each other and may not know how to visit with you in a way that doesn’t hit a nerve, so boundaries do you both a favor. After all, even when they cut you to the core, causing you pain is probably the last thing on their mind.
If you’re open to it, anticipate the topic before anyone can even ask about it by saying, “We’re not pregnant yet, but hopefully we’ll be parents by next Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/New Year’s Eve.” Even a simple heads-up in your holiday card (“Hoping Santa brings us a positive pregnancy test for Christmas!”) adds levity and clarity to your circumstances.
But that’s a pretty generous use of your emotional bandwidth. If you’d rather it not come up at all, see if your partner or a trusted loved one is willing to intercept the issue by communicating your wishes to others who might be too nosy. It’s perfectly okay to shut down a discussion with Grandma or your baby-crazed friend that’s verging on unpleasant and threatening to ruin your mood. I had to do this myself quite a lot, and I don’t regret it one bit.
2. Take Breaks as Needed
This doesn’t mean hurrying into the kitchen for a long sip of wine and a minute of muffled silence—it means completely removing yourself from the gift exchanges and office parties for a structured break every once in a while. This could look like taking a hot five outside, going for a brief walk alone, or simply RSVPing “no” to the smaller events that you can stand to miss.
Unpopular opinion: you shouldn’t have to subject yourself to a barrage of holiday celebrations if you’re *this close* to breaking down over the green bean casserole. FOMO is real, but so is FOBIABATDT (fear of being interrogated about babies at the dinner table). If a passive-aggressive Facebook post from your mother-in-law is the worst thing that’ll happen, rest assured that your life is yours and you will give everyone many other bright holiday moments in the future—possibly with a child in your arms!
Besides, we all need breaks as part of a regular self-care regimen, and that includes prioritizing moments of zen during the busy spells. It’s the best way to prepare yourself and protect your sanity for the occasions you do want to attend. I’m not advocating for a blue Christmas here—I’m just reminding you to advocate for yourself when it gets to be too much, which brings me to…
3. Give Yourself Grace
It’s the season of giving, after all. Giving yourself grace amidst the chaos of Christmas is a minimum requirement, but it’s particularly necessary if you’ve been trying to get pregnant to no avail. Don’t blame yourself for feeling like a Grinch this year. Honestly, it’s warranted! And the people you lean on in life will understand. Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.
Infertility showed me how to stand up for myself and eschew the social etiquette that wasn’t serving me or my well-being at the time. For all of its misery and disappointment, my infertility journey taught me lessons that have stuck with me to this day through the highs (my two miracle babies) and the lows (the pregnancies we lost along the way).
My first child finally joined our family after almost a year and a half of heartache, thanks to a little home-grown ingenuity from my engineer husband and myself, a cancer researcher whose PhD in biology went on to serve a slightly different purpose. I turned my lack of holiday cheer into designing and patenting the first-and-only 100% sterile, FDA-cleared self-insemination kit, and it worked!
The Gift of an ICI Kit
PherDal is bringing lab-level quality science to your door (or down the chimney) with the highest-quality intracervical insemination (ICI) kit on the market. It’s a fraction of the cost of IUI/IVF, and it’s a great first option for people who are struggling with infertility or simply looking to start a family on their own terms. Our ICI kit worked so well for my husband and me that we had to share it with the world. Let me tell you why.
Wrapped with Care
The PherDal ICI kit is the only 100% guaranteed sterile kit on the market. Similar options don’t come close to our completely antiseptic manufacturing, packaging, and shipping process. From the factory to your front door, our dedication to sterilized contents for our kit to gives you the cleanest possible applicators and collection cups to use from the comfort of home.
Sterility in a kit could literally be the difference between a successful conception and another letdown because an unsanitized kit impacts the vaginal microbiome and brings many other factors into play. You need every advantage you can get, and with so many X factors involved in pregnancy, our 100% guaranteed sterile kit makes sure you always have the best odds on your side.
Good Tidings to You
Our commitment to quality doesn’t just stop with packaging. Following years of development and crowdfunding, we earned FDA clearance to further cement our commitment to the health and safety of our PherDal families. I’m a scientist in addition to the first PherDal user, and that’s why I’d never give anyone a kit that wasn’t thoroughly tested and certified to keep you safe and healthy.
Of course, it’s now the law that ICI kits are approved by the FDA, but the sad truth is, very few self-insemination products are FDA-cleared as of 2024. If you look at your options, you’ll see some very inexpensive kits out there from companies that are thinking profits first and your health and success second. That might just be icky when it’s something as low-stakes as a toothbrush, but with fertility, your fears, hopes, dreams, and future are all on the line every time.
An ICI kit manufacturer owes you every possible advantage they can deliver in that moment, and that’s why there are certain lines we don’t cross at PherDal. There are no guarantees when it comes to infertility, but we can make sure you’ve always got a kit that keeps you healthy and never introduces any unnecesary variables into your equation.
Our Holiday Wish for You
Your holiday story doesn’t have to be defined by this awful experience, though loved ones might need a gentle nudge away from that sore spot around the dinner table this holiday season.
Infertility, unexplained or otherwise, makes us feel like we have no control over our lives. But it’s just not true. Instead, let’s focus on what you can control: your boundaries, your breaks, and how you treat yourself, all of which should reflect the strong, deserving, and resilient spirit within. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you when it comes to taking control of your infertility journey.
And hey, the PherDal ICI kit fits perfectly in a stocking! Give yourself a gift that’s all about you this holiday season.
