By Demetrius Dillard
National Infertility Awareness Week® (NIAW), celebrated this year from April 18-24, has an ongoing mission to empower individuals experiencing infertility and change the conversation regarding the matter.
Founded in 1989 by RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, NIAW is also centered around dispelling myths and misinformation disseminated in the media that “influence lawmakers and companies to enforce policies that create barriers for people who need help building their family.”
Oftentimes, families who have the misfortune of going through infertility struggle alone, but NIAW aims “to empower them to share their story and find a community that cares.”
Cindy Murdock, a partner physician at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut (RMA of CT), looks forward to NIAW. As a fertility specialist, she and her colleagues cherish NIAW perhaps to a greater extent than others in the medical community, being that they work directly with those who desire to build a family.
In addition to NIAW, Murdock feels that simply raising infertility awareness year-round is a much-needed form of emotional support while informing others on what countless couples experience on a day-to-day basis.
“I think it’s really important because a lot of couples, they kind of suffer alone with their infertility [issues],” said Murdock, a native of Southern California.
“Some people still feel stigmatized by infertility and having to do treatment, so many times they don’t share their struggle with other people. I think by bringing it out and putting it in the open, and making people more aware of it — I think the more that people talk about it.”
RMA CT, with offices in Norwalk, Trumbull, Danbury, Stamford and Westchester, N.Y., is one of the leading fertility clinics in New England with the primary goal of helping couples succeed in family-building.
Murdock, who practices out of offices in Norwalk, Trumbull and Danbury, said she has encountered numerous couples who are apprehensive of openly speaking about fertility problems they endure. However, after walking through the doors of RMA and expressing their struggles, patients often discover a support system that they thought never existed.
“Eventually, they’ll start to talk about it (infertility issues) and they’ll tell how many people in their close circle of friends or acquaintances really struggled with infertility as well. So they find that they have this support system that they didn’t even realize they had,” said Murdock, who has been with RMA CT since 2008.
Another major issue that Murdock and her colleagues run into are women who are secretive in the workplace about their infertility issues, fearful that it may have a detrimental effect on their careers.
Though NIAW was founded in 1989, it became a nationally recognized week in 2010.
Whenever NIAW weeks comes around, it’s a special week for RMA CT, with celebrations ranging from social media posts, to informative videos posted on its website to shoutouts to RESOLVE (National Infertility Association).
RESOLVE, based in Northern Virginia, is an organization “dedicated to ensuring that all people challenged in their family building journey reach resolution through being empowered by knowledge, supported by community, united by advocacy, and inspired to act.” Not only does NIAW mean a ton to RMA CT partners, but also to couples who either aren’t able to family build or are in the process of trying to build a family, added Murdock.
“I hope that it means to them that they’re not alone,” said Murdock, a graduate of Cornell University, Creighton University and the National Institutes of Health.
“What I hope with bringing awareness is that it makes them feel like there’s other people out there and there is support, and they’re not the only ones. I also hope that it brings attention to couples or people who have not struggled with infertility… maybe that will make them more empathetic toward those that are struggling, and bring attention to the issue for everybody.”
