Not long ago, I was a guest on Conceive on Air with Conceive Magazine founder Kim Hahn. The subject was “How to Deal with the Diagnosis of Infertility.”

Surprisingly, the first thing Kim said was, “I don’t like the word infertility!‘” and then both of us launched into a dialog about our associations with the word, including barren and empty. The upshot of the conversation was that getting the diagnosis of infertility can easily make a woman mistakenly feel as if she really is barren and empty, trying against all odds to conceive a child, when in fact, the opposite is true.

The diagnosis of infertility simply means that there has been an interruption in the fertility process that necessitates some type of intervention. This is validated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of women who receive this diagnosis go on to have normal pregnancies and healthy babies.

Words are powerful, and maybe we need another word, another diagnosis, to define what is just an unexpected detour on the road to having a baby. Fertile-pause perhaps?

Marina