Sara Stahl and her daughter. (Facebook)

By Nigel Maxwell

Health

Prince Albert woman shares infertility story, vows to help others

Apr 18, 2022 | 5:00 PM

Prince Albert’s Sara Stahl can vividly recall the crushing feelings she felt after being informed by her doctor she was unable to have any more children.

On Saturday, she’s literally going the distance to help other women who find themselves in a similar situation. A 42 km run will take place along Prince Albert’s Rotary Trail.

“My biggest focus for this whole run is raising awareness,” Stahl told paNOW.

Stahl’s daughter was born in 2017 and for two years, Stahl and her husband tried to have another. After a number of medical appointments and surgeries, the couple found out they could have not have any more children.

“I felt very isolated with it. It just feels like everybody around you is getting pregnant and so many people get pregnant without trying to quite often, which is really hard when you are battling month after month,” she said.

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Stahl explained her decision to run 42 km is as much about her cause as it is about personal healing. Back when she was going through her medical appointments, people would say to her that her favourite pastime was perhaps the cause of her struggle.

“It got to the point where I really struggled with running mentally. If I had a good run, I would feel like why can my body do this but it can’t grow a baby. And if I had a bad run it was just a whole lot of negative feelings that went with it,” she said.

Stahl explained that as she shared her own personal story, she learned that there were people in her life who had gone through something similar, and never talked about it. Even people Stahl had known for quite awhile.

“So it just kind of made me wonder how many people there are out there that battle through this in silence because it’s not something we just talk about openly,” she said.

Members of Pure Athletics recently raised funds to help Stahl’s cause. (Facebook/Pure Athletics)

In addition to her awareness campaign, Stahl is also helping money for a first of its kind Family Fertility Fund of Saskatchewan. The fund is for people who are pursuing medical treatments, and face, for example, a minimum $10,000 cost to pursue a full course of In vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments.

“Sometime you only get one embryo out of it so you are putting a whole lot of money in that one hope,” she said.

According to statistics provided by Infertility Saskatchewan, one-in-six Saskatchewan families struggle with infertility.

And while some other provinces provide health coverage for these types of medical procedures, Saskatchewan currently does not and only pays for services such as infertility investigation, ultrasound and consultations.

“They view IVF as a kind of like a privilege, rather than a physical ailment or illness that needs to be treated. So it can be very costly for families,” Stahl said.

The run on Saturday will begin at 1 p.m. at the Alfred Jenkins Fieldhouse. Stahl plans to run south to Marquis, then west until she reaches 21 km before turning around and coming back the way she came.

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nigel.maxwell@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell