Infertility: at a time when we need the right words, others are unable to find them | Nuala McGovern

For me, better timing, fewer platitudes, less certainty and more listening and empathy are helpful ways of connecting with people in the loneliest of times

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ome things are easy to talk about; infertility is not one of them. I speak from experience – of miscarriage and unsuccessful rounds of IVF – and I’ve heard some clangers along the way. I forgive you all. Well, most of you.

But I also come at it as the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Three decades into live talk radio, I listen for a living. I’m adept at noticing micro-expressions, the pauses, the shifts in tone, the feelings that sit between the words on and off air. And I keep wondering: why are we so bad at talking about infertility? This is even something that, until now, I haven’t spoken publicly about.

Perhaps it’s because we still live in a society in which motherhood is, for many, the expected norm. When something is assumed to be inevitable, its absence can make people uncomfortable. That discomfort can spill into language that isn’t appropriate, helpful or even fit for purpose. Or maybe people don’t know how to broach a subject so complex.