Infertility: cross the storm an impression of solitude<

For five years, she experienced uncertainty, loneliness, distress, guilt and disappointment that mark the journey of infertile couples.To break the silence that too often surrounds infertility, journalist Véronique Leduc tells her story in an essay that marries intimate story, testimonies and interviews with professionals.

"If I had been on the water, I would not have had rudder, if I had been winter, I would not have had a coat, if I had been in the desert, I do notwould not have had a compass.For five years, I took the water, I was cold, I was completely lost."This is how Véronique Leduc, tourism and agrifood journalist and co -founder of Caribou magazine, opens infertility: crossing the storm, a very personal work, poetically illustrated by Mathilde Corbeil, who will land in bookstores on September 15.

This book, we suspect, is the one that the author would have liked to read when her spouse and she received, after two years of attempts, an unexplained diagnosis of infertility (for which endometriosis is a factor considered).

"I needed to validate my emotions that I found negative and very intense," says the one who experienced five inseminations and an in vitro fertilization cycle (IVF).I needed to know that I was not all alone to feel that.It would have attenuated pain and the feeling of failure.»»

A taboo

Infertility affects one in six couple in Canada.Unfortunately, too little talk about it, deplores Véronique Leduc."I take out a book on the subject, but it took me two or three years before talking about it openly," she said.People live it as a failure.You are not able to carry out a project in the long term, while in life, it is not something that we like to say, that we are not able to do something.It creates a taboo because those around you don't know what to say, how to react.»»

Or he does it awkwardly, although without bad intentions.If this book is first intended to be a companion for people with a fertility process, the author hopes that he will also allow loved ones to better understand the feelings that inhabit them and the intensity of the test they go through.

“We all receive the same sentences when we are in there.“Have you thought about adopting?Have you raised your legs in the air?Stop thinking about it. "The psychologist that I interviewed explains that we are not used, in our society, not to have control over something [...] But, there may not be, a solution.To get one like that, on the corner of the table, it's a bit frustrating.»»

How to Light Artwork on Awall https://t.co/oenuyzLxim

— Boston Commons HTN Sat Jul 22 12:58:30 +0000 2017

"It is indeed difficult, it is unfair", that's what she would rather have wanted to hear."I just needed people to be frustrated with me.»»

In the event of her infertility, Véronique Leduc had not been prepared either.Around her, births followed one another without pitfalls.And we often think that it only happens to others."But I have never been prepared for the immense mourning not to be a mom," she writes.No one has ever told me about the inability to give birth, astronomical costs of treatments, plan B to be expected for the rest of my life, difficulties for the couple, of the shock in which I was going toFind, in my mood that I was not going to recognize, nor the best ways to make injections.I don't know how not to be a mom.And I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.»»

Difficult journey

This mourning to be a mother, she was in the process of doing so when the announcement arrived a year ago.She was going to be a mother.The last embryo that had been transferred during his attempted fertilization in vitro hung on.We would have liked to preserve the surprise for those who will read his book, but that is also part of its history.Little Camille is there, softening in the hollow of her mother's arms, in no way disturbed by the hubbub of the cafe where we are seated.

"Even if the outcome was positive for me, it remains a difficult journey.I will stay marked by that.Since several passages from the book were written when they were experienced, the story is never tinted by this happy end.Since the average success rate of in vitro fertilization is only about 27 % per cycle, Véronique Leduc did not want to display the positive conclusion of her approach."We put too much emphasis on success when there is plenty of which it does not work.You have to accept it too when you start this process.We try it to the end, but what is our end?It's a good question.»»

And for some couples, stopping is not a choice.Since 2015, IVF has not been part of the fertility treatments covered by the Quebec public regime.Electoral promise of the Coalition Avenir Québec, the reimbursement of an IVF cycle was included in Bill 73 adopted last March.However, its implementation is long overdue.Véronique Leduc and her spouse spent more than $ 10,000 for their treatment."It’s really not accessible to everyone.The fact that artificial inseminations are covered, but not IVF, it does not give everyone the chance to feel that you are going all the way.»»

Infertility: cross the storm

Véronique Leduc

Scent of ink

280 pages in bookstore Wednesday