Online Fertility Groups for TRIO Patients
As you are going through your fertility journey, it’s so important to take care of your emotional well-being. That’s why TRIO has created many free-of-charge online Facebook fertility support groups. In addition to the online comments and questions that can be posted 24/7, the groups offer live video chats several times a week.Benefits of Joining a Fertility Support Group
The purpose of TRIO’s support groups is to:- Offer a space to share your journey and listen to others’ experiences.
- Provide emotional support in order to decrease the sense of isolation.
- Bring together people with different backgrounds, treating doctors, and treatment methods. Hearing a variety of stories will likely introduce you to information that’s new to you.
- Learn more about infertility and the treatments.
- Engage with others who know the ups and downs of balancing treatments, and who can give support and suggestions.
- Help others. Everyone in a support group has a unique story to share. You may find that sharing your own experience helps someone else, and that simple act can often lift your spirits.
Find a Fertility Support Group
TRIO currently has a range of support groups which are safe and respectful spaces that welcome all patients.
Women’s Support Group
This group welcomes all women, including gender and sexually diverse patients, members who participate in this group report that they:
- Feel less lonely, isolated, and judged
- Better manage and reduce their distress, depression, anxiety, or fatigue
- Talk openly and honestly about their feelings
- Improve their skills to cope with challenges, including interacting with others socially
- Stay motivated to manage their infertility treatments
- Gain a sense of empowerment, control, and hope
- Improve their understanding of their infertility and their experience with it
- Receive practical feedback about treatment options
- Learn about health, complimentary or social resource
Men’s Support Group
This group welcomes all men, including gender and sexually diverse patients. This group helps individuals who are struggling to build their family to:
- Better manage and reduce feelings such as grief, loss, anger, depression, worthlessness, and anxiety.
- Discuss issues related to masculinity and sexual inadequacy when faced with a diagnosis of male factor infertility.
- Feel less helpless, isolated, or judged.
- Acknowledge and communicate their needs to their partner.
- Stay motivated to manage their infertility treatments.
- Gain a sense of empowerment, control, and hope
- Receive practical feedback about treatment options
- Learn about health, complementary and social resources
2SLGBTQIA+ Support Group
TRIO's 2SLGBTQIA+ Facebook support group is for TRIO patients interested in or already pursuing collaborative family building options such as:
- egg donation
- sperm donation
- surrogacy
- co-parenting
- Choosing a donor or surrogate
- Pros and cons of working with a known donor/surrogate vs. agency or independent
- Personal meaning of biological/genetic link
- Supporting each other (treatment & non-treatment partners)
- Disclosure/managing questions from friends and family
- Topics of interest to participants
Secondary Infertility Support Group
This group is open to patients having difficulty with a subsequent pregnancy.
People with secondary infertility, who already have children but who are having difficulty building their family tend to receive far less social support from others than those who have primary infertility. Individuals with secondary infertility can be extraordinarily thankful for their existing child but still long for more children.
In addition to the benefits noted by the participants in the other support groups, this group helps members to:
- Know that they have a sounding board with others who can empathize with the frustration and feelings of guilt, anger, isolation, depression, jealousy, and lack of control.
- Acknowledge and work through the feelings of sorrow and powerlessness to produce a sibling for the existing child.
- Better manage the complicated emotions involved in the current parenting role while still “working on” trying to have another child.
Relationship Support Group
This group provides support for relationships during fertility treatment. We discuss strategies to:
- Better communicate thoughts, fears, and other emotions.
- Maintain a sense of identity, meaning, and joy that is separate from infertility.
- Cope with marital stress and conflict.
- Set boundaries with others so that your needs are better met.
- Help relationships to maintain emotional and sexual intimacy.
- Address difficult decisions with regards to fertility treatments, such as what procedures you are prepared to undergo, and determining when you’ve reached “the end of the road” and no longer want to pursue further fertility treatment.
Pregnancy Support Group
This group welcomes patients who are pregnant. Transitioning from being a fertility patient to being an expectant parent is not easy. Although you’re excited and thrilled that you’re now pregnant, the pregnancy can be fraught with its own kind of concerns and anxieties. This group is designed for members to:
- Adjust to the “new normal” of no longer being a patient to being pregnant.
- Adjust to their body changes.
- Manage the worry that “something could go wrong” at any point in the pregnancy or with the baby’s development.
- Cope with the guilt that they are successful in being pregnant, but their friends with infertility are not pregnant.
- Understand that, while they are grateful that they are pregnant, they also may feel unwell, “hormonal”, anxious, and sad. Sometimes it’s a challenge to balance the “gratitude” of pregnancy with the understandable physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy.
Parents’ Support Group
This group welcomes TRIO patients who are new parents. After the challenges of finally bringing your baby into the world, now comes the reality of parenting. This group helps new parents to:
- Learn to adjust to the challenges involved in sleep deprivation, new routines, and your relationship
- Feel less lonely, isolated, and judged
- Better manage and reduce their distress, depression, anxiety or fatigue
- Talk openly and honestly about their feelings
- Improve their skills to cope with challenges, including interacting with others socially
Single Parents’ Support Group
This group welcomes patients who are, or will be parents. Members who participate in this group will benefit from:
- Feeling less lonely, isolated, and judged
- Talking openly and honestly about their feelings and thoughts
- Feeling more confident during pregnancy
- Improving their skills to cope with challenges of single parenthood
- Gaining a sense of empowerment, control, and hope
- Sharing strategies to improve their emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being
- Building a community of support and social resources
- Learning how to advocate for themself and their child
New Beginnings Support Group
TRIO is here to support you at every step of your treatment and beyond. We recognize that for many people, there is uncertainty whether or not they will have a successful outcome. And along with that uncertainty is the question, then what?
We have every hope that you will go on to achieve your family building goals. However, please know that whether you decide to stop this journey or if you find there are no other suitable options, there is a life beyond.
This support group helps people to deal with the grief and loss that accompany the decision to stop treatment, and ultimately supports people as they develop positive ways to create new beginnings.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I join a support group at TRIO?
- Your full name
- Your TRIO doctor's name
- The group(s) you would like to join