Fertility Challenges
Early in my career I worked as a Registered Nurse in a London hospital with a busy reproductive technology clinic. This gave me insight into the emotional roller coaster of fertility challenges and treatment. To this day, I truly believe that unless you have personally experienced fertility issues or been through fertility treatment, you can’t pretend to know how it feels. However, what this experience did teach me is the importance of access to empathetic, professional support for those facing fertility challenges.
Since becoming a psychologist, I have had extensive experience providing both supportive counselling and therapeutic counselling to individuals and couples going through treatments such as IVF (In Vitro Fertilisation) and ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection). I have also worked with couples going through altruistic surrogacy, providing the independent psychological assessments and reports necessary for the surrogacy process. This work further developed my knowledge regarding the stressors triggered by fertility issues.
When you are experiencing fertility challenges it can become all-engulfing and overwhelming, and it is common to experience feelings of sadness, grief, worthlessness, guilt, low mood, social withdrawal, anxiety, agitation, mood swings, and relationship strain. As many of your peer group start families, it is understandably very common to experience feelings of envy and anger, sometimes leading to social withdrawal and isolation just when you may need the support of close friends and family.
Although your GP and fertility specialist are the best people to explain to you the problems associated with infertility diagnosis and potential treatment, it can also be helpful to talk to a counsellor. Counselling offers the opportunity to talk with an experienced professional who can help you to process your feelings around fertility challenges, discuss your fears and anxieties, manage your stress, develop coping mechanisms, deal with associated relationship stressors, and consider your options.
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