How to Emotionally Deal With Infertility?
Navigating infertility isn’t just about a baby; it’s often grieving the life and family-building process that you pictured. It can include feelings of anger and isolation, hopefulness and disappointment, making you wonder, can infertility cause anxiety? These feelings may include grief or regret around past decisions or paths not taken. It so often involves the loss of a sense of predictability, and of agency as you navigate a medical process that can sometimes feel restrictive and impersonal. It may also include uncertainty around the decision to pursue or to end, certain methods of treatment, to pivot to other family-building options, or to pursue a child-free life.
No matter where you are in the infertility process, it is important to recognize the powerful impact that infertility often has on both partners’ emotions, to make space for self-compassion and self-care, and to seek support from sensitive friends and infertility-informed therapists in anxiety therapy along the way.
How to Grieve Infertility?
There can be so much to grieve in infertility, and unlike the death of a family member, so much of this grief is often invisible to the outside world. It can be especially jarring to experience grief in what “should” be a joyful process, particularly through happy stages - a viable pregnancy, the arrival of a child. Like any kind of grief, there is no one way to grieve infertility, but the first step is recognizing that your feelings are valid and natural and that they deserve space and time. Self-reflection, journaling, long walks, and conversations with supportive loved ones may sound cliche, but along with sleep, exercise, and nourishing food, they have a strong evidence base for helping us to process grief. If you find that your grief lingers or impacts your ability to enjoy your life, working with an infertility-informed therapist can help provide a safe, supportive space to work through your experiences. You have invested so much - emotionally, physically, and financially - in the dream of building a family; therapy can be a place to rebuild your depleted reserves and receive much-needed care in this challenging stage.
How to Make Peace with Infertility
Whether you are hoping to make peace with infertility as you continue to navigate the family-building process or are seeking to make peace with the decision to remain child-free, the path forward requires self-compassion, gentleness, and time. Infertility is as demanding emotionally as it is physically, raising a powerful mix of sadness, anger, frustration, hope, and disappointment. It can make you wonder at times, “How stressful is infertility?”.
Infertility can feel all-consuming, sometimes for years. It is understandable that other interests, activities, and even friendships can atrophy, but re-engaging with aspects of your life that help you feel like yourself, where you feel interested, excited, and confident, can help as you work to make peace with infertility. It can help to reflect on, or even write down, the areas of life that are important to you - partnership, family, friendships, hobbies, health, faith - and to spend some time considering which of these areas are in good shape, and which could use a little watering. Making specific plans for accountability can help push through the inertia of re-engaging, while also recognizing that you are still actively carrying or still healing from the grief, strain, and worry of infertility and that it is ok to move slowly and within your capacity as you rebuild.
Making peace with infertility also involves making active space for your feelings of grief, anger, resentment, sadness, shame, or guilt. The losses you have experienced are real, even if they are invisible. This process is far from linear, and it is normal for grief, anger, resentment, or sadness to flare up months, or sometimes years, along the way. It can be helpful to process this with an infertility-informed therapist who can provide a safe, supportive place to process your feelings, help you to make sense of your infertility story, and move forward.
As you begin the difficult process of making peace with your infertility, you are also making space for the joys and satisfactions that life will bring next. Not as a replacement or a consolation prize, but as a sign of your own resilience. Spending some time daydreaming, imagining, and watching where your excitement starts to flare can help you begin to imagine - and then work towards - a future where you feel at peace with your infertility, happy in the present, and hopeful for the future.
How Do You Deal with Infertility Trauma?
When we think of trauma we often think of an accident or violent encounter, but the experience of infertility is full of emotional, and sometimes physical, traumas. Making us sometimes think, “What is the psychological impact of infertility?”. There is the loss of the family-building experience you hoped to have and the pain of pregnancy announcements and family events all around. There is also often trauma related to the very real losses of unsuccessful transfers, non-viable embryos, or miscarriages, or the medical trauma of undergoing invasive, uncomfortable, stressful, and even painful procedures. It is important to recognize that infertility trauma is as valid as any other cause and that your mental health deserves the same support that would be offered to any trauma survivor. Support groups for individuals experiencing infertility, sensitive loved ones, and an infertility-informed therapist can all provide safe, supportive spaces for you to share your experiences and receive the help that you need to heal.
How Can I Enjoy Life with Infertility?
It can be hard to enjoy life while dealing with infertility. It can seem like life is on hold as you wait out each cycle, or for the next procedure. It can be difficult to travel or to make plans, not knowing if you’ll be pregnant by then, but also not wanting the sadness of hitting yet another milestone at which you expected to be pregnant or thought you might have a baby.
Enjoying life during an ongoing stressor like infertility can require a mental shift - a decision to prioritize enjoyment alongside the stress. This may look different from other stages of life - last-minute trips instead of planning further out, budgeting for refundable ticket options, or exploring new hobbies. It may involve temporarily shifting away from activities that feel painful, knowing that you can choose to come back to them at a later time.
Building a mindfulness practice can strengthen your ability to observe your emotions without judgment, to see difficulties as temporary, and to move through challenges with less stress. Self-compassion is also key; recognizing that you are navigating this time as well as you can, and giving yourself grace around difficult feelings or days when you aren’t able to find the joy or energy that you would like to. Therapy can provide support and guidance as you work to find enjoyment despite infertility. Together with an infertility-informed therapist, you can work to make space for joy and growth, clarify your values and purpose, and build a life that is happy and fulfilling while you also navigate your fertility options.
Strategies for Resilience and Hope
While infertility may be fraught with challenges and uncertainties, it's important to remember that you are not alone. By acknowledging and honoring your emotions, seeking support from loved ones and professionals, and engaging in continued growth and self-care, you can cultivate resilience and find moments of joy and fulfillment even in this difficult time.
Begin Healing From Infertility Anxiety With Anxiety Therapy in Washington, D.C.
Learn how to emotionally deal with infertility by seeking support through professional anxiety therapy. Our dedicated infertility-informed anxiety therapists at Dr. Dawn Johnson & Associates can provide you with effective coping strategies and a compassionate space to navigate your feelings. Begin your journey towards emotional healing and resilience by scheduling your therapy session. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
Schedule a free 20-minute consultation to see if Anxiety Therapy is right for you.
Begin meeting with one of our skilled anxiety therapists.
Start healing from your infertility anxiety.
Other Services Offered at Dr. Dawn Johnson & Associates in Washington D.C. & Virginia
At Dr. Dawn Johnson & Associates, we want to help you thrive. In addition to helping you manage your anxiety due to infertility with anxiety therapy, we also offer services for those struggling with depression, relationships, infertility, academic or work concerns, disordered eating, and more.