Online infertility support in South Africa

by Tertia Albertyn
I would like to tell you a little about one of my latest projects. Something that started up and then had to put on hold while I sorted my life out. It is still on hold in terms of my time and effort, but the essence of it continues without me.
A big, big part of what got me through the darkest times during my infertility battle was the support I got from my fellow infertiles in the computer. I spent literally hours, and I mean HOURS online chatting and bonding and sharing with people from across the globe. These women I met on the infertility bulletin boards and online support groups became some of my dearests friends. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without them. I am still really close to many of them today, all these years later. Hey girls, remember TLOL! How long ago was that! Ages.
I wrote about this in my book and people often email me and ask where they can find good local online support forums and I feel terrible that I am unable to point them to anything that comes even close to what I had.
There are three main online support forums that exist in South Africa:
The one is very regionalized and specific to a particular type of ‘treatment’
The other is exceptionally quiet. No one ever posts.
The busiest one is a forum that is plagued with daily melodrama / trolls / infighting / bitchiness etc. I would hate to send someone new that way.
There might be a few others but I don’t know about them.
As you know, helping others deal with infertility is my cause, my passion and my self-imposed obligation and so I wanted to do something about it. So I set up the framework of a site where I could talk about infertility issues and facilitate a forum where people could get the same kind of support and love I got all those years back. And then the whole “Talk” thing happened and it was one of the casualties of my ‘quality time with husband’ thing. Rats!
I am still very keen on the idea and I will pick it up as soon as I have some capacity, but I am hoping that the forums will tick over in the meantime without too much of my intervention.
If you are South African and are looking for online support, please go have a look at http://www.storksisters.com/ and participate in the conversations that have started there. No trolls / bitchiness / melodrama tolerated!
Good luck and much love to all of you.
xxx