Infertility Can Feel Out Of Your Control
At Tribeca Maternity, we talk to patients about how infertility isn’t a mental illness, but it can make you feel that way. The situation is crazed: daily doctor’s appointments, figuring out when your body is ovulating, blood work, and rounds of treatment. This can go on for months or years. It can feel completely uncertain and out of your control, and it can also bring up past or current traumatic experiences.
When you don’t have control, being mad is a reasonable response. We help patients work through the anger, sadness, grief, and disappointment, and help you come up with a plan moving forward.
We Will Keep You Sane Through an Insane Process
While you’re going through this process, we don’t want you to avoid your emotions, feel like there’s something wrong with you, or think you can’t “handle” it. It’s okay to wail, to pound your fist, to express every last worry. We don’t want you to perform as the “good” IVF/IUI patient. We will be with you through the loss, the anger, and feeling out of control. Together we’ll talk through this difficult and emotionally complex process. And yes, you can call us at 6:30am screaming and crying to let us know what you’re going through.
You Don’t Need A Cheerleader: You Need to Have Power In Your Decisions
In therapy in our offices in Lower Manhattan, as well as our phone and video therapy sessions, we will help create a plan related to your needs rather than the needs of the clinic. You get to choose to keep going or take breaks, not your doctor. We’ll help you regain that control over your decisions where you can, and help you process those you can’t control.
We can also talk about if and when you want to stop getting fertility treatments. In therapy, we make space for both individuals and couples to have that messy conversation about what it means to be childless or have fewer children. It may not be your choice to not have a(nother) baby. But you can make the choice to end treatments with intention and power, while we pay attention to your grief and the care you need.
Infertility Can Take Over Your Relationship: Couples Need to Talk About It
Infertility can take over your relationship, creating emotional, financial, and sexual roadblocks. So what can couples do? Talk about it. A couple cannot operate as a self-driving car. You get mad together. You grieve together. You’re in it together. And if you’re not, that’s where we come in. In couples therapy at Tribeca Maternity, we help you get connected through this uncertain process.