If you have been diagnosed with infertility, it does not mean there’s no hope.
Infertility comes with a lot of stress. It touches every aspect of your life from the way you feel about yourself, to your relationship with your partner to your overall perspective on living.
As overwhelming as your situation may seem at times, you need to know ways to reduce anxiety.
Here are some tips that can help you overcome infertility in 2020:
- Acknowledge your feelings: You need to understand that what you are experiencing is completely normal. In an environment like ours where a high premium is placed on childbearing, for many couples, it’s been a life-long dream. But infertility is now threatening that dream so it can be emotionally and physically draining —–Take professional counseling.
- Share your questions and fears: Surround yourself with people who can answer your questions and be sensitive to your feeling and understand your fears and concerns—Counsellor/Peer Group.
- Allow yourself to cry and be angry: Don’t try to repress your feelings of anger, guilt, or sorrow. If you need to cry about the unfairness of another pregnancy or birth announcement, go ahead.
- Allow yourself to grieve: Even though you hope to have a successful pregnancy, you sometimes go through a period of mourning, maybe of a dream. You may choose to talk to your partner or a trusted friend or simply write down your feelings, be sure to acknowledge and work through your grief and then let it go.
- Keep a journal: Keeping a journal is important because it allows you to pour out your feelings instead of bottling it up. It is always available and accessible even at 2:00 am at midnight.
- Stay connected to family and friends: You might need to educate Family and friends on how you want to be treated and explain how certain remarks are insensitive (even if they are unintentional). For instance, you might let them know that it’s okay to cry when you are upset.
- Communicate with your partner: Infertility can take a toll on your relationship and create tension between the two of you. Don’t forget that both of you are likely to respond differently to the crisis. You need to communicate with each other and if need be, seek counseling.
- Spend time together: Enjoy meals together. Go to the movies, concerts or athletic events, Go for walks, massages. Also, try not to let it affects your sexual life.
- Get Informed: Infertility comes with uncertainty about the future. To alleviate some of your questions and uncertainty, do your own research about your present situation and possible treatment options e.g. age, specific success rates. You might not be able to gaze into a crystal ball to see the future, knowledge gives a positive peace and not wishful thinking.
- Find ways to reduce stress: You need to find what works best for you or what has worked for you in the past. Walking, meditating, praying, seeing a therapist, joining a support group, exercising, doing yoga or collecting information about their problem helps to reduce stress.
- Breathing exercise: Another good way to calm down is by practicing deep-breathing techniques either alone or with your spouse. One exercise involves sitting comfortably with your eyes closed and taking long, slow, deep breaths. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, filling your chest with air. Feel the pleasure of you filling yourself up and slowly, calmly releasing the air. Do this for 5 minutes whenever you are anxious as you need to discuss infertility with your partner.
- Diet: It is generally important to cut down on your intake of sugar, salt, saturated fats, and white flour. You also want to reduce or eliminate chemical additives, alcohol, and caffeine.
