Reduce the damaging effects of stress on your fertility and fertility treatment. Overcome your sense of failure, loss and yearning, rejection, isolation and depression. Heal deep scars of past fertility problems.

The pain of infertility

It seems like the most natural thing in the world; grow up, settle down and have a family.

How hard can it be?

The world is full of mums and dads and it was natural to assume that this would be your journey too.

Perhaps your life has held a different path, illness and disease has meant that having children has not been an immediate possibility; that the process of recovery and keeping well has been your main concern.

For others, circumstance or career have taken priority, a decision consciously made to have children when situations improve or become more established. Though the time may now be right for you, your body now has other ideas and having a family – the event you looked forward too most of all, has become the ordeal you never imagined possible.

You may find it particularly stressful and frustrating that for all other areas of your life you have planned and achieved your goals, yet having a baby eludes you. You may feel helpless and no longer in control of your body or your life plan. Your sense of grieving for your unborn child may surprise you and cause you great distress.

You may fear that you will never conceive and you sense your “body clock” ticking and you feel the effects of social, cultural and family pressures.

Infertility tests and treatments can be physically, emotionally, psychologically and financially stressful. Many couples being treated for infertility have as much stress as those with life threatening diseases such as Heart Disease or Cancer.

Every month you may experience the rollercoaster of pregnancy hope, only to have all your dreams dashed yet again to be replaced with the disappointment of failure.

Stress and Infertility

The relationship between stress and infertility is still not fully understood. Whilst there is little doubt that infertility causes considerable stress, the question of whether stress can directly cause infertility in the first place remains controversial.

Many researchers believe that stress can interfere with pregnancy through direct hormonal effects. Stress boosts the levels of stress hormones such as Cortisol, which inhibit the body’s main sex hormones and subsequently suppress sperm count, ovulation and sexual activity.

According to some, stress leads to neurochemical changes that may affect timely and systematic release of hormones that regulate ovulation or the maturation and release of an egg.

Stress may also affect the sperm structure and the sperm count. Some infertility experts also give importance to the link between stress and insomnia as lack of sleep disrupts the daily rhythm of hormones related to reproduction.

Others believe that stress can affect fertility indirectly by suppressing libido, by causing erectile dysfunction or by impairing a couple’s capacity to have effective sexual intercourse.

Also, many people develop habits that contribute to infertility, for example over eating in response to the stress of infertility can lead to obesity which in turn disrupts the hormonal balance, thus further contributing towards infertility.

The whole process of infertility treatment is in itself hugely stressful; the constant anxiety, the numerous hurdles, the prolonged cycles of hope and disappointment all add to your stress levels.

In fact, some doctors say that the stress of treatment at times can be so great that it can stop even the most successful procedures from working. If you already have a problem with stress, then infertility treatments can definitely make a bad situation a lot worse.

The stresses of infertility on marriage has been shown to be a strong predictor of treatment failure and women with the most marital stress have been reported to require more assisted reproduction cycles to get pregnant than women with less stress in their marriage.

The same stresses that affect female fertility also affect male fertility and infertility related stress compromises sperm quality and other factors associated with male fertility.

It can seem that stress and infertility often have a “chicken and egg” type relationship.

For up to 40% of couples no discernable reason for infertility can be found and it is in this group that the effect of stress are believed to be most profound. Stress reduction amongst this group has allowed some women to get pregnant when they could not get pregnant before.

Whilst we don’t know the exact mechanism by which stress affects fertility, what we do know is that reducing stress levels definitely helps.

Psychological and behavioural interventions have shown to reverse the chronic Cortisol increases that put patients at an increased risk of many health burdens.

There is certainly much to be said for taking positive steps to reduce your stress and improve your quality of your life.

Take positive steps to reduce your stress and change your experience of infertility. Find out how by visiting ourconsulting website, orcontact ustoday to book your consultation.

Men and Infertility…

Discovering that you are infertile can at times seem so isolating.

From the moment of diagnosis it can feel as if your whole life has turned upside down. In an instant, your thoughts and dreams of family are snatched away and you are left to cope with the news.

For you perhaps there was the long nagging doubt that this was the case.

First there was the excitement of trying for a family. Then came a period of nagging doubt - maybe there was something not quite right; the period when sex had turned from pleasure and excitement into a chore, a test and a need to perform.

But you kept on trying, until the day you were left with no choice but to go to the doctor. It can feel that your manhood itself is in question, that you are being judged by your ability to reproduce. All your hopes and dreams hang on the news that you are OK; that you are a man.

For others the pressure to have children is overwhelming, the need to be a father is all consuming. The thought that this might not happen to you, that you will never be a dad, becomes a thought impossible to comprehend.

And then the results come back....

the count is not high enough, the sperm are not ‘active’ enough, they are the wrong shape; a myriad of reasons that confirm the cruel fact that you are infertile.

How do you cope?

Your sense of feeling a failure, of being rejected, of the utter sense of isolation leaves you feeling helpless. Your partner says that is it OK, that there might be other ways, you could adopt or use a Sperm Donor. But you are not sure. You have so many thoughts and doubts; it won’t be “mine”, but will it feel the same? How can it be?

She says that she still loves you and she is with you because of whom you are and that not having children is something she can do. But you are scared, you fear losing her, yet you don’t want to deprive her of her chance for a family.

You can barely cope with your feelings and how do you tell your family and friends?

You fear the tactless comments and sometimes cruel words, or worse their ‘pity’ that you can never have what they have; a weapon used against you both for ever more. It can feel that life is defined by the fact that you are infertile, that there is nothing other than this.

Coping with your feelings and thoughts surrounding male infertility can at times seem impossible. The sense of humiliation, frustration and the sense of failure can be devastating, the sense of loss unbearable. Find your way through your infertility and find the answers you need to move your life forwards in the way that you need. Find out how by visiting ourconsulting website, orcontact ustoday to book your consultation.

Even when the dream comes true, infertility leaves its scars…

The scars of infertility can run deep in ways that often surprise.

Even when successful, parents who have been through a painful path to pregnancy can struggle with their feelings. Sometimes it can show itself as jealousy or resentment; when you hear how ‘easily’ someone else became pregnant, you feel hurt and angry, even jealous.

It is as if their ease has made your difficulties the harder to bear.

At times it seems that no matter how happy you feel with your new family, you cannot shake off the emotions of the past; that your pain and suffering has left scars and damaging negative emotions that never seem to heal, that constantly hold you back.

Other times successful treatment leaves a different type of scar.

When having a child can be such a struggle, the fear of the ‘what if’s?’ can take over; What if something happens? Are they safe? Am I doing my best?

Sometimes this fear can become so overpowering it leads to changes in behaviour. Perhaps you feel that you have become over protective, fearful of something happening.

Maybe you cannot leave your child with anyone else; even the most trusted of family and friends cannot be ‘trusted’, for fear of the consequences of ‘something happening’ taking over.

The fears and anxiety of losing your child can become so great that they can start to affect your relationship; arguments, isolation, rejection felt by your partner and by you; tensions and stresses that can all too easily lead to the breakup of a once loving relationship.

Free yourself from the emotional hold that infertility has over you. Let go of the fear of loss, the frustrations and trauma of infertility and become the parent you always imagined you would be. Why let the infertility legacy affect your child's life, your life and your relationship? You can let go and leave these negative emotions and memories behind. Find out how by visiting ourconsulting website, orcontact ustoday to book your consultation.

The parent who never was…

Sometimes infertility becomes an endless strain. The sense of loss, of never being able to have the family you have always wanted, has become an intolerable burden.

You see children everywhere; laughing, playing, joyful and happy and every time you see them it feels like some part of you is missing.

The sense of loss is a never ending and constant reminder to your shattered dreams. The sense of hopelessness, of constant yearning has taken its toll on every aspect of your life. Everything else has become secondary; relationships feel incomplete or ‘missing’, and life feels hollow and empty.

Perhaps it feels like bereavement, the loss of the child you never had, an unending sense of emptiness and yearning that colours every aspect of your life.

Maybe you have started to fill your life with ‘stuff’; distractions and activities to take your mind off how you feel. Perhaps you throw yourself into your career but all the time you feel it a hollow substitute. Have you taken up hobbies and sports and fill your days and empty evenings? You show the world that ‘life goes on’. ’ I am fine – I don’t need children to be happy’.

You say these things to yourself in the hope that one day you will believe it, but you know it to be untrue. Are they little more than pretence, a defensive wall that you have built to hide the hurt you feel? Does your wall keep the hurt out, or keep the hurt in?

Your life does not have to be a constant battle with your grief and sense of loss. Tear down the walls of infertility. Live your life free to be the person you want to be, not the person who might have been. Find out how by visiting ourconsulting website, orcontact ustoday to book your consultation.

Change your life today … Live, don’t just survive

At The Naked Gene Juggler, we believe that wherever you are in your journey through infertility, dealing with stress, anxiety, negative thoughts, emotions and feelings is crucial.

Whether you are a man or woman, our integrative approach empowers you to take back control, reduce your stress and change your experience of infertility.

Take the opportunity to be the director of your own life

Ready to make a change?

To find out more and book your initial constulation, visit our consultancy sitetoday.