What to do when you’re consumed by infertility

Infertility can feel all-consuming. It’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning, and it’s the last thought you have when you close your eyes at night. It changes the way you’re able to socialise with other people, it affects your relationship with your partner, it impacts your finances, but more than anything, it changes YOU. Your thoughts become negative. Your confidence takes a hit. Your time is spent researching the magical cure, and trying to find the answer to the question ‘why me?’.

It's not healthy. You know it’s not healthy. But you feel powerless to stop it.

But I’m going to share something with you that’s going to change it all. A way to move your fertility struggles from the front of your mind, to the side, and then to the back.

So how do we stop it being so consuming?

By talking about it.

Now before you stop reading, I have proof! And I’m going to explain why too.

This was reinforced for me when I was speaking with one of my clients recently. When we first started working together, she was completely consumed. Having a baby was all she thought about. She was singularly focused and couldn’t eat or sleep or exercise or go to work, without it being at the forefront of every decision or action she took. 

After our fourth week together, she seemed more at peace, so I asked her how she was feeling. She told me she was feeling less consumed, like she had more purpose outside her fertility journey, and that she was feeling stronger and lighter.

I asked her what had happened. What did she think was the thing that had gotten her to where she was? To which she replied – talking to you about it.

For four weeks, she had a place to go to speak her truth, and feel seen and heard.

Now I know this goes against everything that we’ve come to believe as true. We’re taught to just stop thinking about it, and to be positive. So, how is thinking about it, going to get you to stop thinking about it? How is feeling it, going to get you to stop feeling it? And how is talking about it, going to get you to stop it consuming you?

Let me explain this using an analogy, so you can picture what I’m talking about.

Now before I give you the visual, it would be remiss of me not to observe that a lot of the analogies I using in my coaching practice, revolve around balls. Whether it’s putting down the balls that are plastic as opposed to glass, or whether it’s not holding onto the balls of responsibility that don’t belong to you - there’s a lot. If you told me 10 years ago that I would have so many conversations in a day that revolved around balls (both the physical anatomical kind, and the metaphorical kind) I would have told you that you were nuts (pun intended 😊).

Picture yourself with a tennis ball, throwing it against a brick wall. The ball hits the wall and you catch it again. The ball represents something to do with you trying to conceive. It could be a fear you have that this may not happen for you. Or a decision you need to make about whether you move from IUI to IVF. It could be a conversation you’re recalling with your sister-in-law who said that you should be able to celebrate her pregnancy, regardless of what you’re going through. I could go on and on here with examples. But you know the millions of thoughts and emotions and decisions you’re holding onto right now.

Every time you think of something, you are throwing that ball, and it’s coming straight back. And each individual thought represents a different ball. It’s constant. Bounce catch. Bounce catch. Bounce catch. Around and around. The ball has no where else to go, but land back in your hands.

This analogy also works when we share our truth with people who either don’t hear us, or try to fix us. Let’s say you have a vulnerable moment, and you tell your mother-in-law that you’re scared that this next cycle of IVF won’t work. And she responds by telling you about a friend of a friend who did IVF and it worked out great, and to just be positive, and that everything is going to work out fine.

Or when you share that you’re struggling to get pregnant with a work colleague, and they ask you if you’ve tried monitoring your cycle (ugh!), or acupuncture, or herbs or….relaxing.

In these circumstances, you’re still throwing that ball at the brick wall and it’s coming straight back. And in some cases, it's creating an extra ball for you to hold and bounce around - because now you need to think about researching the herbs your work colleague suggested. 

When you’re able to speak about it, in circles where you feel heard and validated however, it’s like there’s a hole in the wall, or even a door that opens up. And every time you throw that ball, it doesn’t bounce back, and you don’t have to catch it. You release it.

Our fears, our thoughts, our emotions need somewhere to go. I know it feels uncomfortable, because that’s not what we’re taught AND its hard to find people who can hold your truth without throwing it back at you.

But it is SO important. Here are just a few of the benefits of sharing your experience, your story, your truth in safe spaces where you feel heard –

1. It helps you (and others who are going through something similar) feel like you’re not alone. This journey is incredibly isolating, because when we’re not heard, we tend to shut down, and close ourselves off for self-protection.
2. Sharing allows you to process your emotions in a healthy manner.
3. Talking about it gives us the language and the ability to make sense of what’s happening. It creates understanding in what we’re experiencing. Infertility is complicated. It’s hard to explain, because we can’t make sense of it ourselves. We’re experiencing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We’re feeling conflicting emotions all at once. We want to feel hopeful, but we don’t want it to hurt more. We want to get pregnant, but we’re scared of getting pregnant at the same time. When those balls keep bouncing around and around our head, we become even more confused. But when you share it, it helps you form clear thought processes.
4. It helps us discover the real reasons why we’re feeling how we are. The argument you had with your partner about why you don’t like the way he hangs your shirts on the clothes line from the shoulders, and the blind fury you felt because now it’s out of shape, may not really be about the shirt. And while it’s still not the right way to hang a shirt, there’s probably something else that needs to be discussed or dealt with.
5. It creates separation. When we internalize, there is zero space between where our problems begin and we end. But when we talk about it, we can see ourselves separate from our problems. And because of that, it loses its intensity.
6.  It empowers us. Feeling heard is directly connected to your sense of self-worth. And when you’re on this journey your self-esteem takes a huge hit. Being heard allows us to form a healthier sense of self. As Brene Brown says - language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.
7. AND, most importantly, which is why we’re here – it helps us feel less consumed. It takes it from the forefront of every thought we have, and gives it somewhere to go.

So I guess the next question is, where do you find safe spaces to share your truth, feel heard, and receive all the benefits above? Because that’s incredibly rare!

I’ve created that space for you.

In 2020, I published my book, The Injustice of Infertility (which recently won Best Fertility Book at the Fertility Care Awards hosted in Amsterdam). This is a raw and real account of my 7-year battle with Infertility.

Since then, I’ve had hundreds of people message me over that time, telling me that it’s changed the way they view their journey, and themselves. Because they were able to see themselves in the pages of my book. This taught me the importance of sharing our stories.

So now I’ve created Beyond the Book, an opportunity for you to share your truth, but in a much more intimate setting.

I’ll be inviting 10 women to join us for 4 weeks of sharing, connecting, and learning.

This is for you if you’re currently trying to conceive and you’re feeling completely consumed by your fertility journey. You’re a shell of your former self. You’re just going through the motions. You’ve shut down, and shut yourself off from the rest of the world. And your quest for a baby has become more than just an obsession – it’s become your life.  

AND, this is for you if you want to get back to YOU. To start living your life again, instead of putting it on hold. If you want to feel more confident in the decisions you make. Stronger in setting boundaries and standing up for yourself. And more empowered in who you are, so you can hold your head up high again.

I guarantee that at the end of the 4-weeks, you will feel lighter and equipped to handle the ups and downs, so you can continue on this journey, without burning down everything else in the process.

If you’d like to know more, click HERE, or email me at [email protected]