Infertility is one of the biggest challenges any woman can face. When all you want in the world is a little person of your own, being unable to conceive naturally can be extremely distressing. The key to getting through this challenging time is to allow yourself some grieving space- bottling up your emotions and attempting to go on as normal will only make things worse in the long run.
Don’t suffer alone, help is on hand and there are many different counseling routes available to you. Let’s explore some options.
Implications Counselling
This style of fertility counselling provides an emotionally sound environment for you to explore the different treatment options available to you. During implications counseling you will be able to discuss the option of fertilisation via donor sperm, eggs or embryos.
In a nutshell, the typical fertility treatments are:
Sperm donation – When a female doesn’t have a male partner or the male partner cannot produce sperm, she may choose to enlist the help of an anonymous sperm donor. If the female has eggs of her own the sperm can be used to fertilise an egg via Intrauterine Insemination or IVF treatment.
Egg donation – This method is most commonly chosen when the female is unable to produce her own eggs. This type of fertility issue can often be attributed to age when the ovaries begin to run out of eggs. Egg donations can be anonymous, carried from partner to partner (in female relationships) or from an otherwise known donor.
The usual course of treatment in this case is IVF where both females are given a course of fertility drugs, eggs are fertilised, the eggs become embryos and later the best embryos are selected for transfer into the uterus.
If you are already confident on which route to go down then this style of counseling is routine and will take place before treatment begins.
Support Counselling
Support counseling is all to do with coming to terms with your situation, exploring thoughts, feelings and looking at different coping mechanisms to move forward. This style of counseling also provides an opportunity to talk about relationship or family issues which may have arisen as a result of your situation.
Support counseling is an open book and you can choose to have this at any stage of your treatment whether it’s 3 months before treatment or 3 months afterwards.
Therapeutic Counselling
Therapeutic counseling is available to help you accept your situation and can provide longer-term support in cases where the situation particularly distressing. This counseling method is usually chosen in cases where patients have tried a particular fertility route and been unsuccessful.
Therapeutic counseling therefore allows patients to deal with the consequences of their treatment and move on to alternative options.
The Bridge Centre has over 25 years of experience in delivering advanced fertility treatments to women. Whether you’re looking for targeted fertility counseling or advice on egg donation, head on over to The Bridge Centre website to find out what they’re all about.
