I am having a lot of trouble becoming a parent. Why is this so hard?
I am sorry this is so damn hard and the answer to this question is not simple. Most women spend a good portion of their lives trying to avoid pregnancy only to find themselves struggling later in life to become or stay pregnant. Some women know the cause of their challenges with fertility, while for others this struggle is a mystery. What all women struggling to build their family can agree on is that infertility sucks.
I won’t be able to give you the medical answer to why you are struggling to become a parent, but I will listen, I will understand, and I will be able to help you cope with roller coaster of infertility. Together, we will talk about and learn how to manage the feelings that this struggle causes like sadness, anger, disappointment, fear and failure.
I am so sick and tired of putting on a happy face. I feel like no one understands what I am going through.
You put on a happy face, keep your secret, your pain & your suffering all to yourself. You bury your feelings and avoid talking about your pain with even with those closest to you. You feel isolated and alone.
When you do take the chance and talk about your pain, you find that people just don’t “get it” or they struggle to say “right thing”. Leaving you feeling misunderstood, feeling more frustrated and feeling even more alone in your struggle.
Problems with fertility are very common. In fact, 1 in 8 couples struggle to build their family. Yet despite this shared experience, these women and couples often struggle in silence because it simply doesn’t get talked about. As your therapist, I will not pretend I know exactly how it feels to be living your life. But I will tell you that my own struggles with fertility allow me to have empathy and a deep understanding of your experience.
I am so sick of everyone giving me advice. If one more person tells me to “just relax and it will happen” I am going to scream.
I know. If you need to scream right now go ahead. I’ll wait.
Friends, family, coworkers, and even the woman you met in line at the supermarket, they all mean well. But quite frankly, being told to “just relax” is the worst possible advice.
This isn’t the right advice because maybe you are already doing all the “right things” to relax like meditating, going to yoga, taking walks, going to bed early, practicing deep breathing and you are sure it is in no way possible for you to get any more relaxed. I hear you.
Or maybe you don’t do anything relaxing at all because this fertility stuff is sucking up all your time and energy. That is okay too.
Therapy will not be a place where you come only to be told to “just relax”. In therapy, you will learn ways to cope with feelings of depression and anxiety as well as learn new ways to cope with the stress that comes with infertility. Through this work, you may even learn tools and strategies that lead you to experience more relaxation in your day to day life.
The key to surviving infertility is having someone to listen and understand your own unique journey and struggle. I will listen, I will understand and I promise I will never, ever, tell you to “just relax”.
Acupuncture, herbal medicine, fertility drugs, IUI, ICSI, IVF, donor conception, and adoption. I don’t know what the right choice is for me and it all feels so confusing.
Yes. Thanks to both eastern and western medicine there are lots of ways you can choose to build your family. You, your partner and your medical team will work through these options and only you know what the best choice is for you. But having so many options can also cause you to feel confused, overwhelmed and anxious. Taking on such major life decisions can be stressful and so can going through multiple medical procedures on your journey to parenthood.
Together we can help you get clearer about what you want for yourself and your body, and work through the complex feelings that arise from making decisions about your options. You will also learn strategies to manage both the physical and emotional stress that often comes with fertility treatment and alternative family building.
The emotional and physical roller coaster each month is killing me. The two-week wait is the worst and everyone on Facebook is pregnant! Baby showers, family gatherings, and the holidays are becoming harder and harder to handle.
Watching the days tick by on the calendar as you wait to find out if “this is finally the month” is torturous. The disappointment month after month is awful. And to make matters worse, everyone around you seems to be getting pregnant. You may feel like you have to avoid certain people or events. Remember the part about infertility sucking?
It is really hard to cope with the highs and lows of trying to become a parent. In our work together we will help you find ways to manage this emotional roller-coaster. Therapy is also a great place to learn ways to cope with the “happy” events that feel bad…like baby showers. Together we will learn to identify what you need in each of these situations and develop strategies you can use to navigate all of these occasions.