Infertility and its impact on mental health
Although the medical piece of infertility and fertility treatment is increasingly talked about openly, the emotional piece of infertility and fertility treatment is often left out of these narratives. Experiencing infertility/fertility challenges can significantly impact a person’s mental health. This experience can increase a person’s likelihood to experience depression and anxiety. Even when there is not a “clinical” level of depression or anxiety present, there is often sadness, worry, and a sense of loss present.
Loss and Grief
Experiencing infertility often requires grieving the loss associated with not being able to conceive “naturally” (without fertility treatment or an alternative family building option such as adoption). There can also be a sense of loss felt during unsuccessful IVF cycles and unsuccessful IUIs. If a person does become pregnant through fertility treatment or an alternative family building strategy (such as using a gestational carrier or egg donor), there can sometimes be a loss of the “typical” or “normal” pregnancy experience. Unfortunately, sometimes the loss can be quite literal, such as in cases when a person experiences the loss of a child after becoming pregnant through fertility treatment.
It is important to find ways to acknowledge the sense of loss you may feel, find ways to grieve, and allow yourself to grieve for as long as you need. Grieving can be particularly difficult as a person experiencing infertility because you are grieving the loss of someone you never got to meet (your future child) and you may also feel like you’re the only experiencing it. This type of grieving is prospective grief (as opposed to retrospective grief); you’re grieving the hopes, dreams, and wishes you had for your future child.
Emotions, Thoughts, and Beliefs
Experiencing infertility can bring up overwhelming feelings, such as sadness, anger, envy, frustration, powerlessness, isolation, and loneliness. These emotions can be present after unsuccessfully trying to conceive for a long time, after receiving an infertility diagnosis, while going through fertility treatment, while exploring alternative family building options, or at any other point during your fertility/family building journey.
Infertility can also influence the way you view yourself and the world around you. Infertility can significantly impact self-esteem and lead to you perhaps holding unhelpful thoughts and beliefs about yourself, your fertility challenges, and what it means to be a woman (or man or person) with fertility challenges. For example, you may hold the belief that you are ”not enough”, the belief that you are “failing” your partner or family, or the belief that you are less of a woman (or man) because you’re experiencing fertility challenges.
Social Support
Experiencing infertility/fertility challenges and going through fertility treatment both require a great deal of emotional support, and isolation can be a major risk factor for depression. If you are a person experiencing fertility challenges, you may feel you do not have the support you need in the form of a supportive friends/family or a supportive partner. Or you may have the support but have trouble turning to your friends and family for support for many reasons. Sometimes, friends and family can have good intentions but say comments that can be quite insensitive to you, as someone with fertility challenges. As a result, you may feel judged or misunderstood and may isolate yourself from family and friends, even though this is a time when you need their support more than ever. Having a sense of community and connection in the form of caring family and friends, a support group, or an online community with people experiencing similar difficulties, can all be incredibly helpful in making it through your fertility/family building journey.
Seeking help
To overcome these difficulties, it is vital to find ways to express your emotions, develop coping strategies, and learn to challenge the unhelpful beliefs you hold about yourself and your fertility challenges. Individual therapy can help reach these goals. As mentioned above, social support can be part of your healing process and may include leaning into your existing support network, joining a support group, or joining a supportive online community.
Also, this screening tool can help assess the impact fertility challenges (and fertility treatment, if you are going through that) are having on your quality of life: https://www.fertistat.com/fertiqol/
If you’re struggling with your mental health as a result of infertility or family building challenges, please do not hesitate to seek help
If you are interested in working with me as your therapist, reach out to me here
Here are some resources specific to infertility, fertility treatment, and family building challenges: www.katieaguayolicsw.com/perinatalmentalhealthresources.
