Dianna Giles, our experienced Couples & Perinatal Counsellor, explains the processes involved in working therapeutically with couples to help them to navigate the challenges of infertility.
To understand a couple’s prolonged fertility story, it requires an understanding of 3 main themes that all revolve around Grief:
1. Grief and Loss
Understanding Grief & Loss during fertility is complex. Grief can be connected to several losses, and the longer the process, the more the losses pile up. These losses include:
Miscarriage
loss of pregnancy
loss of ideals and expectations
loss of an imagined family
loss of achieving your goals ‘naturally’ without intervention
loss of intimacy in the relationship
loss of control
loss of a sense of normal
loss of hope
loss of connection to others
loss of trust (people including medical professionals)
loss of a sense of safety and identity.
In therapy I support couples to understand their grief – to understand its process and to work toward creating a space where grief can co-exist with other experiences such as competing emotions and competing needs. We can be grieving and also allow space for intimacy with our partner, we can be grieving and making space for hope.
2. Hope and Hopelessness
Often couples are familiar with the rollercoaster of Hope and Hopelessness and often struggle in this space. Many couples report that hope is motivating and that it gives energy, purpose, meaning and light. It marks the beginning of a new cycle, intervention, a pregnancy, or scan. However, this energy co-exists with the fear of hopelessness which can be emotionally fatiguing, dark & isolating. It evokes feelings of vulnerability, anger & jealousy and one may be left feeling consumed by their grief.
Understanding this cycle creates some space for couples to prepare for how they will navigate and support each other through this process; in a proactive, connected, and shared way.
3. Trauma – exposure to traumatic events
Grief and Loss in this instance can co-exist with exposure to traumatic events associated with intervention, medical procedures & pregnancy losses. Understanding trauma allows us to learn how to manage emotional symptoms such as anxiety & fear. A couple’s experience of trauma in this space can differ, given differing perspectives.
Understanding that exposure to trauma is multi-layered and complex allows us to develop strategies and enhance communication. This enables a couple to support each other by cueing into each other’s needs at these times, rather than miscuing and perpetuating feeling of disconnect within the relationship.
Dianna is available now to help both individuals &/or couples to navigate through this process. You can book with her here: