Psychotherapy
Research shows that coping with infertility can be as stressful as dealing with a diagnosis of cancer or HIV infection! Talking with a mental health professional can help increase your capacity to cope with the grief of infertility, marital strain, and the variety of treatment options available (or NOT available) to you. Therapy can also assist you in preparing for medical procedures and managing the tremendous stress of infertility treatment.
When is it time to ask for help?
- When you feel like you can’t do it alone.
- When you feel trapped, like there’s nowhere to turn.
- When you worry all the time, and never seem to find answers.
- When the way you feel is affecting your sleep, your eating habits, your job, your relationships, your everyday life.
- When it’s not getting better.
What are some common questions and concerns clients explore in psychotherapy? See if anything on this list sounds familiar to you:
- Should I stop or take a break from treatment?
- Are my feelings of fear, guilt, failure or jealousy normal?
- What if every waking moment is focused on having a baby?
- Could my husband still really love me if I let him down and can’t have a baby?
- Why can’t I go to baby showers and be happy for pregnant women?
- How do we handle friends, family, and coworkers who don’t understand?
- How will I recover from the pain of pregnancy loss?
- Could we really be happy if we used an egg donor, gestational carrier, or adopted?
- What if we decide not to have children?
Remember that talking with a psychologist experienced in working with infertility issues can help you:
- Understand and cope with your emotional reactions to infertility.
- Make treatment decisions.
- Collaborate more effectively with your medical team.
- Reduce marital strain and improve communication with your spouse.
- Explore family building options.
- Determine if using third party reproduction (i.e., egg donor, gestational carrier) is right for you.
- Learn how to manage the stress, anxiety, and depression that often accompany infertility.
- Regain a more balanced perspective.
- Find a way to move forward.
Psychotherapy is a special relationship in the eyes of the law, with specific rules and protections to make it safe for you to disclose confidential information without worrying about the consequences of doing so. If you work with Dr. Sharma, she will explain the parameters of confidentiality to you clearly before you begin and will work hard to make it comfortable for you to disclose the truth about your life and the difficulties you are facing.