Don't Tell Her to Relax

Twelve percent of all women of childbearing age struggle with infertility, or 1 in 8 couples. Despite these statistics, and the fact that so many women struggle to have a child, most of them feel alone, in part because those closest to them don’t know what to say or how to say it. Perhaps you are one of these people. You don’t want to offend your loved one; you don’t want to make her sad; you don’t want to intrude on her privacy. But you also don’t want her to feel alone. You want to offer love and support and the opportunity to discuss what she is going through. Don’t Tell Her to Relax: 22 Ways to Support Your Infertile Loved One Through Diagnosis, Treatment, and Beyond can help. In these pages, you will find: • Information about fertility tests and treatments. • Insight into how it feels to go through the process of infertility diagnosis and treatment and how it feels to interact with loved ones during the process. • Vocabulary for discussing infertility and fertility treatments. • All the ways it is possible to build a family, including surrogacy, gestational carriers, embryo adoption, and traditional adoptions. • Specific instructions for how best to support an infertile loved one through all of these treatments and explorations.

Twelve percent of all women of childbearing age struggle with infertility, or 1 in 8 couples. Despite these statistics, and the fact that so many women struggle to have a child, most of them feel alone, in part because those closest to them don’t know what to say or how to say it. Perhaps you are one of these people. You don’t want to offend your loved one; you don’t want to make her sad; you don’t want to intrude on her privacy. But you also don’t want her to feel alone. You want to offer love and support and the opportunity to discuss what she is going through. Don’t Tell Her to Relax: 22 Ways to Support Your Infertile Loved One Through Diagnosis, Treatment, and Beyond can help. In these pages, you will find: • Information about fertility tests and treatments. • Insight into how it feels to go through the process of infertility diagnosis and treatment and how it feels to interact with loved ones during the process. • Vocabulary for discussing infertility and fertility treatments. • All the ways it is possible to build a family, including surrogacy, gestational carriers, embryo adoption, and traditional adoptions. • Specific instructions for how best to support an infertile loved one through all of these treatments and explorations. Don’t Tell Her to Relax helps you walk the line between being supportive and intrusive during a woman’s experience of infertility diagnosis, treatment, and beyond. It goes through both what to say and do and what not to say and do while your infertile loved one is struggling to build her family. "In clear and candid prose, Zahie El Kouri has written a valuable how-to guide for family members and friends of women dealing with fertility issues. With practical advice on a multitude of topics, she demystifies the emotions surrounding conception difficulties and provides us with tools that enable understanding and compassion." --Melissa Hart, Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family "Don't Tell Her to Relax is an invaluable and powerful resource for the millions of friends and family who wish to support their loved one through the crisis of infertility. I am grateful that Zahie El Kouri has chosen to bring forth purpose from her own painful journey to provide such a meaningful, much needed guide on this topic. It is simply a MUST READ!" -Dustyn Williams, LMHC Founder of Infertility Counseling Center of Jacksonville “So often, people experiencing infertility are overwhelmed and overstressed; they do not have the mental and emotional energy to educate their friends and family about what they are experiencing, and perhaps more importantly, what they need. This book does an excellent job of explaining it all for them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be supportive of someone struggling with infertility, and I plan to use it as a resource in my clinical practice.” --Lisa Rouff, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, former member of Board of Directors for Illinois Chapter of Resolve, member of Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. “A concise, easy-to-read book, providing valuable first-hand experience on how to approach and emotionally support your loved one going through fertility treatment.” --Dr. Michael L. Freeman, Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine

ahie El Kouri writes about infertility and immigrant culture, sharing her experience of surviving infertility through personal essays and articles that address with humor, intellect, and empathy the needs and concerns of infertile women. Zahie has taught creative writing at the University of North Florida and the University of Oregon Law School, and legal writing at Santa Clara University and Florida Coastal School of Law. She holds a JD from Cornell Law School and an MFA in creative writing from New School University. Her work has appeared in Mizna (a journal of Arab American writing), Memoir Journal, Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction, Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, and FullGrownPeople.com. If you’d like to learn more about her experience as an infertility patient, as a parent, and as a writer, please visit www.zahieelkouri.com, and sign up for occasional updates.