Women's Fertility Journeys
There are a variety of reasons for seeking out a therapist to work through infertility challenges. It may be that your reproductive endocrinologist recommends or requires you to see a counselor before certain treatments.
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The emotional pain women experience when going through infertility can be severe and traumatic. (A research study from 1993 found that women with infertility experienced anxiety and depression at rates similar to those with cancer, heart conditions, and high blood pressure.)
 Coping with infertility is hard, and needing help is 100 percent normal. Seeing a therapist could help you cope with the emotional struggle of infertility.
Reason #1: Infertility Is Taking Over Your Life
While infertility isn't easy for anyone, some cope all right on their own. However, if you're finding that infertility is taking over your life, you might consider counseling.
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If your sadness, depression, worrying, or anxiety is prolonged and affecting many areas of your daily life, then it is important to seek professional help. A therapist can teach you coping skills and strategies to alleviate some of the depression or anxiety.
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Reason #2: Infertility Is Hurting Your Relationship
Our relationships are put under tremendous stress when going through fertility treatments. It's the kind of stress that can bring you closer together at times, and at other times pull you apart. The effect infertility can have on your sex life also adds strain to a relationship.
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On top of all this, misunderstandings between each other can make things more difficult. Often couples handle stress in different ways. Stereotypically, women express emotions more freely and need to talk out their thoughts. Men often focus on problem-solving and may not let themselves feel each monthly loss.
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Reason #3: You're Not Sure What to Do
A counselor who is specially trained in working with couples with fertility challenges can help you sort through your options. The counselor can help you make a truly informed choice and help you consider what your treatment options may involve, including the financial and emotional stresses of those choices.
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Reason #4: You're Considering a Childfree Life
Whether it comes after years of treatments, or early on with a realization that the available options aren’t right for you, realizing that you’re not going to have kids is extremely difficult. For some, counseling can help with processing the emotions that come with this realization.
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Making an actual decision to be childfree isn’t the same as deciding to “not prevent but not try” to have a baby. It’s also not the same as deciding that you’ll consider adoption “sometime in the future.” Or deciding that you “might try treatments again one day.”
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While there is room for all of these paths, they don’t allow closure. The possibility of having a child still exists in the minds of the couple. That makes it much harder to grieve their losses.
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Reason #5: You’d Like More Support
Maybe you’re not feeling particularly depressed or anxious, and you don’t fall within any of the above groups. But you feel like you could use more support, someone to talk to, who can give you more tools for coping. Counseling can be a good choice for you, too.
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You don’t have to have a reason. You don’t have to wait until you’re feeling so overwhelmed that you truly are depressed and having anxiety attacks.
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Unfortunately, seeing a mental health counselor is sometimes considered a sign of weakness. The thinking goes that if only you were strong enough (whatever that means), then you wouldn’t need help with coping.
This just isn’t true. Strong people know when they need extra help. Seeing a therapist is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, having the courage to ask for help is a sign of strength itself.