The Truth About Coping with Infertility

As you can imagine, coping with infertility is very, very hard. Research has proven that the stress that infertility has on a woman is similar to the stress that illnesses such as cancer, HIV, and chronic pain cause. You’ll often find yourself feeling overwhelmed, on an emotional rollercoaster and coping with the financial and emotional side effects of infertility treatment. Here’s more on infertility, and how to cope:

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Emotional Impact Of Infertility

You’ll feel a whirlwind of emotions when you discover you’re infertile. You shouldn’t worry, because your feelings are totally normal. Here are some of the emotions you’ll likely experience:

• Loss – you’ll probably feel a sense of loss. You’ll realise that you will never have the children you imagined having one day, and although they were never born you may feel as if you’ve physically lost them.

• Anger and jealousy – you could feel angry in your day to day life general. You could also feel jealous of others with children and wonder why it happens for others so easily.

• Denial – you might start telling yourself that next week/month you will have a positive pregnancy test. When the test comes out negative, you’ll still feel shocked and sad.

• Shame – some women might feel that being infertile makes them less feminine and womanly. Men can also feel as if their masculinity has been taken away from them.

• Lack of control – you’ll likely feel a lack of control in life and over the tests and treatments you could soon be having.

Your relationship may also suffer if one or both of you find out you are infertile. You might feel:

• Sexual tension – sex with your partner will probably feel like a chore. This can also lead to feelings of guilt or shame.

• Financial stress – fertility treatment can be expensive and the cost can build up quickly.

• Fear of abandonment – the partner that has been diagnosed infertile may feel as if their partner is going to run off and leave them for somebody else.

• Stress about treatments – you may argue with your partner over which treatments to try and when to take a break.

With everything you have to deal with during infertility, you’ll need to have good coping skills to help you. Here are some tips on coping with your infertility:

• Acknowledge your feelings – you shouldn’t hold all of your emotions in, and if you need to cry you should definitely cry. It will take you more mental energy to hold back your feelings rather than express them, and you’ll need all the mental energy you can get. Allow yourself to feel all the sadness and anger you want.

• Get support – you’ll need a good support network to help you through this tough time. You could confide in friends, join a fertility forum, have professional counseling, and more. There are plenty of options available to you so make sure you research them and get some support.

• Speak to your partner – men and women deal with this kind of issue in different ways. Try to talk to your partner and listen to their feelings, share your thoughts and try not to argue.

Infertility is a difficult time, but once you’ve found the right coping mechanisms that work for you and accepted it, you can begin exploring the rest of your options to have a baby.