Starting an Infertility Support Group {Fertility IQ Basecamp Takeaways!}

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you might have seen me posting about Fertility IQ Basecamp a few weekends ago. I’m so excited to finally share a little more about it with you.

Along with five other amazing infertility bloggers, I spent three days in San Francisco learning more about the issues that affect infertility patients and talking about how we can better serve our readers. We were hosted by the incredibly gracious founders of Fertility IQ, Jake and Deborah Anderson (more about them at the end of this post).

Over the course of the three days, we spent time with several experts in the field of infertility services, including a RESOLVE-trained therapist, a billing coordinator from a major infertility clinic, and owners of a donor search service. We also visited Instagram headquarters and chatted with one of their team members about the best way to build community online. And we toured the facilities and met with doctors of Stanford Fertility and Reproductive Health. It was a whirlwind weekend!

I’ll be blogging a lot more about what we learned in the coming weeks, but today I wanted to give you my top takeaways from our session with Beth Jaeger Skigen, a RESOLVE-trained therapist. We talked about a lot of things with Beth, but I’m going to focus on some advice she shared about leading infertility support groups.

Anyone who has suffered from infertility understands how difficult it is.  But Beth also talked about how not dealing with the trauma (yes, TRAUMA) of it can affect other areas of our lives.  Everything changes- our perception of ourself and our body, our relationship with our spouse.  Even our views on career and death can be affected.  So, support and encouragement during this tough time is crucial for our mental and emotional health.

I’ve been inspired by other women who lead groups (Elisha, Caroline, and Lesli, to name a few) and I personally hope to start my own group soon. Here’s some advice Beth had to share. (I’ve added in some of my own resources and ideas).

Set expectations for what the group is and what it’s not

Without expectations/rules, support groups can quickly turn into a complain-fest or group therapy. One person may monopolize the conversation or the tone of the group can be negative and bitter. It’s important to take the time to think about the goal of the group and how to keep it a positive, encouraging experience for everyone.

Have a topic planned if it’s an open group

If your group is open to anyone to join at any time, have a planned topic. First-time attendees might not feel comfortable with just open chatting and “sharing”, so it can be helpful to have some structure.

Always have a Plan-B

Even if your group consists of the same people every time, it might be wise to always have a Plan B prepared. Sometimes, your members just might not want to talk much that week. They could be grieving a recent loss or failed cycle and aren’t ready to talk about it. Or, it just may be a rough week in general. If this happens, a thought-provoking article, podcast, or video might be what’s needed to foster discussion.

Use resources available to you

The following resources weren’t mentioned in our discussion with Beth (except the first one), but I’ve found them to be very helpful.

• Elisha has an EPIC post on her blog about starting a faith-based infertility support group.

• I interviewed Lesli awhile ago about starting a group at church.

• The Fertile Body has a paid webinar available about how to start a group.  I haven’t seen the webinar, so I can’t endorse it, but it looks interesting.

So, those are my top takeaways from our conversation with Beth about leading a support group. If you want to read more about what we learned at Fertility IQ Basecamp, be sure to check out these blog posts published today from the other ladies who attended:

• Caroline from In Due Time is sharing how to build community and awareness on Instagram.

• Elisha from Waiting for Baby Bird talks about the ONE thing we need to let go of during infertility.

• Chelsea from Trials Bring Joy is giving you an overview of the weekend, including our agenda and how we decided which questions to ask the experts we talked to.

• Nikol from Not Just a Beauty Blogger will share what we learned from the doctors at Stanford Fertility & Reproductive Health.

• Katie from Fourtified Family will tell you what a billing expert from a top-rated fertility clinic told us about saving money on medications and procedures.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, our Fertility IQ Basecamp hosts were Jake and Deborah Anderson. They brought us all to San Francisco without asking us for anything in return. (This blog post and all the other bloggers’ posts today were completely initiated by us. Jake and Deborah didn’t ask us to post). They’ve created a fantastic, FREE resource that allows people to read and post VERIFIED reviews of fertility doctors. They take the time to make sure that people who rate the doctors are actually patients, and not just competing clinics posting bad reviews (or the doctor’s mom posting fake good reviews- HA). They are very good about protecting your privacy, and are passionate about helping infertility patients make informed choices.  So if you’re looking for a doctor, check it out.  And if you’ve already been treated by a doctor, leave a review!  By leaving a review, you’re also helping other infertility warriors make an informed decision when it comes to their doctor.

They recently launched Fertility 101, but also have video courses on topics like PGS Genetic Testing, IVF, IUI, Endometriosis, The IVF Laboratory, Lifestyle Choices, and Male Factor Infertility, just to name a few.

All in all, it was an unforgettable weekend!  I can’t wait to post more about it soon.  If you want to see pictures from the weekend, just head over to my Instagram or search #fertilityiqbasecamp on Instagram to see the other girls’ pictures.  

---

If you’re looking for more encouragement during infertility, be sure to check out my book, 31 Days of Prayer During Infertility.  

First photo courtesy of UnSplash. All other photos mine.