Elin & Mario - How to take care of the relationship when you struggle with infertility

At Tilly, we’re passionate about helping anyone who is struggling to have children. Together with Linn Heed from Coupleness, we’ve put together the guide "Doing anything to have a child; how do you take care of your relationship?" which contains a number of concrete tips for couples facing infertility.

Download the guide HERE.

1. How long have you been together?

Almost five years.

2. Elin - what do you like most about Mario?

His humor. We laugh a lot together and that's really important, especially when you go through something difficult.

3. Mario - what do you like most about Elin?

Boring perhaps, but the answer is the same for me. Not a day goes by without us making each other laugh and that's absolutely magical!

4. When did you realize that having children was not going to be easy? Did you react the same way?

After about nine months, Elin began to suspect that something was wrong. She started reading up on how how we could optimise our fertility on our own while we waited to get help from the health system. Each cycle and round of PMS became worse than the last because they all meant that we hadn't become pregnant - again. After a year and a half (it took a little longer due to the outbreak of the pandemic) we finally got to do a fertility investigation at the Reproductive Medicine Center in Malmö. They told us that Mario didn't have any sperm in the semen, so-called azoospermia. It was a huge shock for both of us. Mario felt that life was drained of all meaning and both of us just felt it would never work out for us. We would never have children. It took a while to get past that shock and eventually we began to look into which help was available.

5. Fighting for a child can mean a lot of stress and grief. What are your best tips for supporting each other?

It's been really special to struggle with infertility while there is also a pandemic going on in the world. Infertility is one prison and the pandemic yet another. Still, we tried to stay activated and to continue to make fun memories. Of course, that's easy to say and harder to do - we were also very sad and talked to a lot to each other about that.

We went to the summer cottage and renovated, we started a sauce club and cooked us through all the classic sauces, and we went on a road trip. Our best tip is really to try to create great memories. If, for example, a day is filled with anxiety - accept it but try to do one little thing like driving to the ocean for a dip or have a cup of coffee in a park. Then you can remember that one little happy thing instead of the anxiety even though you actually cried on the sofa most of the day.

Another tip is to make time for walks that you dedicate to talk about the fertility process, your feelings around it and your relationship.

"It's easy to assume you understand how the other one is feeling because you know each other so well, and therefore forget to ask. But a question can open so many thoughts and bring you closer together."

6. Is there anything you've felt completely different about along the journey and how have you handled that?

More than feeling differently, many times we have been at different phases of our process. When something felt ok for Elin, Mario struggled and vice versa.

It can be both positive and negative not to be synched. Positive in the sense that you can support the one who is feeling down, negative because it's easy to come off as you don't understand. You simply have to try to really listen and understand each other, let each other feel anything.

And hug each other - often.

At Tilly, we’re passionate about helping anyone who is struggling to have children. Together with Linn Heed from Coupleness, we’ve put together the guide "Doing anything to have a child; how do you take care of your relationship?" which contains a number of concrete tips for couples facing infertility.

Download the guide HERE.