How do you console the woman who can't conceive a child?  Do you say, "Well,
you can always adopt." or "It must be God's will." or "Children are a bother
anyway."?  While all of those things might be true, the regret and maybe
guilt that the infertile woman feels are attached to grief.  Grief is an
emotion for which there is no cure.  It is something that makes you sick
(depression) if not processed.  When you emerge on the other side of the
experience, you are hopefully more or less in a state of acceptance, ready
to go on with life. The passage of time helps, and you just don't think of
the grief as often. But looking back on the experience may always trigger
sadness.

I have found that when I am grieving, I need to be allowed to express the
range of emotions that grief triggers.  I need someone to listen who doesn't
try to fix the unfixable, but will just validate my experience.  That allows
me to process with some emotional support and empathy close by.  Those women
who cry when they see another mother breastfeeding can be allowed to cry.  I
think its healthy.  I might say, "Gee, the sight of this baby nursing really
seems to have set off some strong feelings.  Would you like to talk about it?"

The trouble is, with breastfeeding, since it has been minimized and
undervalued by the culture, is it is seldom recognized as one of the 5-6
ways in which women experience their sexuality.  I loved that idea in Karen
Pryor's first edition of NURSING YOUR BABY when I first read it 19 years
ago!  We would sympathize with the sadness of a woman with chronically
painful menstruation, or who couldn't conceive or carry a preg. to term, or
a woman for whom intercourse was traumatic.  We now have support groups for
women who (like me) are in mental-pause :) !!  Yet the culture brushes off
the sadness of the woman who is disappointed when breastfeeding fails with
an, Oh Well.  I say, let 'em talk, let 'em cry.  Validate their feelings of
loss.  It IS a loss.   Part of why they are often so confused is no one else
acts like it makes any sense for them to be sad.

Barbara

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Private Practice, Austin, Texas
Owner, Lactnews On-Line Conference Page
http://moontower.com/bwc/lactnews.html