THE EMOTIONAL SIDE OF INFERTILITY 1

During the journey of dealing with infertility, maintaining your emotional health is just as important as taking care of yourself physically. Every day can be an emotional struggle, and for that reason it’s important to have tools for keeping your spirits up. Here are five ways to help you deal with the emotional side of infertility:

Prioritize your relationships. This includes your relationship with your partner and your community support system. Infertility is a difficult process. It’s important to communicate with your partner about your feelings so you partner can help you be sad when you need to be. It’s nearly as important to prioritize your relationship with your community. Many couples choose not to tell their community, but if selected family or friends who you trust and love are aware of your struggle, it can be easier to deal with it.

Let yourself feel your emotions. We lead busy lives, and often this means we are tempted to keep your emotions inside rather than dealing with them – especially when we are dealing with emotionally difficult struggles like this one. Rather than keeping your emotions in check, let yourself feel them. It doesn’t matter if you’re feeling sadness, anger, disappointment, hope, or even jealousy. Feel the emotion, and when you’re ready let it go.

Trust yourself, and trust the process. Dealing with infertility can be especially difficult when many of your friends or colleagues are getting pregnant seemingly effortlessly. That’s why it’s important to trust that the process you are going through is ultimately one that will make you a better person and a better parent in the long run. Succeeding in all aspects of life is about trusting yourself and trusting the processes you have to go through. This one is no different.

Remember to do something that makes you happy every day. This is one of the most important things you can do when you’re going through this process. Do at least one thing that isn’t related to fertility or conceiving that brings you happiness. It can be as simple as going for a walk with your partner, or something very special like a night out with friends. Life can be emotionally rich and rewarding even amidst its struggles – but we have to take time to make it so.

Don’t be too hard on yourself. This can be one of the hardest things to do whether or not we’re struggling with infertility. It’s so much harder to forgive ourselves than it is to forgive others – but it’s also so important. When we’re struggling with infertility, we can feel like our bodies are failing us. But we have to avoid focusing on negative feelings and instead be ready to work towards building our emotional health every day. Remember to let go of anger and hold on to hope.