Infertility Grief Counselling. Coping with Secondary Infertility
Primary and Secondary Infertility
Whether you're trying for your first baby or your second, infertility doesn't discriminate does it? It doesn't care that you've given your all, your time, energy, hopes and dreams on the line to have what other's seem to get so easily.
The grief of trying to get pregnant
Please note* These counselling services *are not* medical advice, a substitute for medical advice or in any way addressing the clinical and medical aspect of trying to conceive. I can't help you chart your cycle or give advice on what hormones may be used to stimulate ovulation - all of that information must be discussed with your health care provider.
Perhaps one of the hardest parts of TTC is dealing with triggers, meaning daily situations that trigger your grief. Before TTC, these daily activities and occurrences weren't a problem, and maybe you even enjoyed them. But now, these have the ability to trigger grief at the drop of a hat.
Some of the worst culprits are:
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pregnancy announcements,
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mothers + fathers day
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baby clothing sections in shops
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baby shower invitations, just to name a few...
If you're experiencing secondary infertility, daily reminders of the child that you do have can sometimes create difficult emotional triggers and situations to navigate.
Infertility Anxiety and Depression
Before we know it and without any encouragement needed, anxiety and depression often come knocking at the door of the women with infertility.
A variety of feelings can show themselves, some of the most common relating to anxiety are; panic, feeling like you're running out of time, feeling fixated on your cycle, your behaviour around food and 'eating healthy' is negatively impacted as you try to optimize your fertility. Periods of binge eating mixed with episodes of being really strict with food. You find anticipating and living through the two-week-wait is excruciating. You avoid intimacy with your partner during your fertile window because you know the pain of a negative pregnancy test will break you.
Some common feelings relating to depression are; loss of interest in activities you previously enjoyed or any other aspect of your life, goals, ambitions, friendships, relationship with your partner etc. Sometimes you have thoughts like 'what's the point if I cant be a mum?', 'what value does my life have if I can't be a mum?' etc. Uncontrollable weeping and becoming overwhelmed easily. You'll no longer go to events that children are attending or are marketed as family events.
The terrible grief of fertility treatments
For a lot of people, being told that IVF is their only option sets them on a path to try cycle after cycle until they either have a successful pregnancy or they run out of money, time and emotional resources. Sometimes everything runs out at once.
So many losses occur through the IVF process that people are often caught off guard about just how deeply and widely they're grieving.
Please note: *Many women (but not all) identify with the losses mentioned below. If you resonate with these losses you *may* feel that working through them could be the right step for you.
Many women (and couples) who start IVF treatment can feel that they haven't been properly informed by their doctors (fertility specialists and gynecologists') about the scope of the losses that are likely to occur throughout all stages of the process.
This is not even to mention the fact that a lot of doctors don't or can't give any time of day to the emotional health of their clients. They don't seem to care too much that every failed cycle marks the end of hopes and dreams.
You might feel like you went into the process somewhat blind and the losses you've experienced have never been validated as real losses.
You might feel like your zygotes and embryo's weren't ever recognised as chromosomally complete human beings, either by your loved ones or by your doctors and nurses.
Maybe your fertility doctor and their staff were super positive that things would work. The thing is, they don't have to live with the grief and the pain, you do.
The losses connected to IVF are pretty massive, so it's no wonder that on top of everything else, this kind of grief throws us for a loop. There's several areas of the IVF/ICSI process where loss of human life often occurs is;
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the loss of zygotes/blastocysts during grading,
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the loss of embryos during grading,
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the loss of embryos during freezing and
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the loss of embryos during thawing.
On top of the trickly nature of become pregnant in the first place, miscarriage rates are really high, a lot of doctors fail to mention this reality. Why is that? Miscarriage is a living nightmare no matter how early it happens and it's yet another compounding loss with grief that needs to be processed and healed.
