The desire to have a child is the normal result of love between two people. It can be very frustrating therefore, to encounter difficulties in having the progeny you desire so much. You have probably avoided becoming pregnant for years and the moment you decide that now is the time, you are unable to conceive. Your common dream becomes an obstacle to your daily life. You try, you hope, you wait, you restart and each attempt becomes a little more difficult to manage.

Awareness of infertility

Most of the couples who have difficulties conceiving are stupefied at first. In fact, most believe that pregnancy is the natural next step once contraception is interrupted. When it is not the case, you begin to question a few things: family life, the direction of life, of marriage…

The psychological consequences of the discovery of infertility are often underestimated. “When bringing a child into the world becomes an obsession, when narcissistic hurt allies with a feeling of guilt and impotence, you begin to feel different from the others, excluded”.

Medical tests to determine infertility

Today, improvements regarding Medical Assistance to Procreation have allowed the increase in diversity and availability of interventions aimed at assisting couples to conceive. Thanks to a battery of different tests which will provide information to your doctor, he/she can identify the problem and propose the appropriate therapeutic direction. However, it is useless to close our eyes to the fact that these tests are often tiring and always too stressful, and they can very quickly become intrusive. However, despite its intrusive character, this phase is nevertheless essential. This stage can be accompanied by guilt, rancor, shame… It is perfectly acceptable. You can also look at the positive side: which is identification and appropriate treatment. Whether it is through artificial insemination with the sperm of the partner (AI), in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), the perspectives of real solutions is often reassuring. The decision of orientation is thus taken between you, your partner and your doctor

See article on gametes donation on the site of the association Maia

The importance of the psychological dimension

Today it is impossible to overcome the problem of fertility and sterility without invoking the psychological dimension.

Remember that according to some studies, close to 15 to 20% of the causes of sterility that is about 1 in 5, have an unexplained origin from the medical point of view.

Even if organic causes of infertility are found in more than 80% of the cases, it is not possible anymore today, to separate the organic and its medical causes, real of course, from the psychological state.

As in all illnesses, the psychological state interferes in one way or the other and especially so in this problem which represents the difficulty in having a child.

It is necessary to understand and accept that apart from the medical problem, another problem interferes most often in problems encountered by couples experiencing difficulty in having a child.

The case of women not having succeeded in having a child after numerous IVF attempts deciding to adopt and becoming pregnant naturally after a few months later is characteristic of what doctors and “psychologists” call “letting go”.

On the other hand, IVF practice which allows a number of couples to have a child has psychological repercussions that should be recognized and which the partners have to take into account.

• You must succeed in taking into account the psychological dimension of the problem of sterility that medicine which has become too technical, may put aside sometimes, without questioning enough the exceptional scientific progress which allows couples to have children.

• A person suffering from the problem of sterility has his own story and sufferings which can interfere in the process of this difficulty.

A number of psychoanalysts question whether it is not this suffering itself, a single cause that is at the origin of problems of difficulty in having a child, in some cases.

But to help more women and men trying to have a child, doctors and members of the medical staff should be listening to them and spending enough time with them to allow them to express and eliminate their worries, a proposition that is unfortunately not always compatible with the workload.

Consequences of these difficulties for couples

• Many people don’t realize that their case is not unique and that more than one couple in six experiences similar difficulties.

• Not succeeding in conceiving a child is also most often synonymous with shame and clandestine behavior: partners withdraw into themselves slowly, isolate themselves, visit their friends or family less and less, due to fear of being confronted with nagging questions which causes them to panic, like for example, “Will you not gift us this Christmas?”, “Where are you in terms of the baby?” or worse still “Are you still unable to conceive?”. They cannot bear meeting couples with children for this situation takes them back to what they are living painfully as a failure.

• The impossibility of bringing a child into the world is lived as a drama or a curse which makes the situation unbearable.

• All couples are not sufficiently stable to overcome this difficult experience and some among them end up separating.

Discovery of the medical universe

• The discovery of a medical universe, very technical, dehumanized as also a practice of difficult tests to conduct, sometimes drives people to not support these efforts anymore.

• Some women come to appointments “reluctantly” and take these tests under devastating psychological conditions.

• Confronting the total power of doctors, going for meetings early in the morning, declaring results of tests not always with the required diplomacy, does not reassure couples already extremely anxious by their experiences.

• The difficulties of these assessments are sometimes insurmountable: the invasion of privacy ends up being not acceptable anymore, masturbating in a “closet” at 8 in the morning, making love to order at a precise time, undergoing tests without break, being examined by strangers, waiting in a room with open thighs, with husband masturbating in the next room… these are extremely stressful situations to face.

My role as a specialist

• To prepare the partners to understand that they will be undertaking a long and difficult road, that they risk having to face numerous disappointments…

• To identify underlying psychological problems which can appear as unconscious fear of pregnancy, fear of having to live through old conflicts again…

• To identify conflicts in the couple which risk being aggravated during tests and along this long journey…

• To help the couple face a possible failure…

• To prepare the couple to look at other possibilities like adoption for example…

My contribution as a specialist in the psychology of being is situated here in the specificity of allowing couples to be complicit in finding the blocking symptom in the emotional brain. Through EMDR and rebirth, I succeed in making the link to the fear and anxiety originally caused by one of the partners. The diagnosis of the initial link generating the unconscious trauma having been established therefore, it becomes easier to talk of eliminating it and replacing it in the reptilian brain, responsible for reflexes with a new one of joy and positive love.

Assistance

• To be able to express your emotions and talk with a professional who will listen

• To be psychologically supported during this stressful period

• To be able to break the vicious failure cycle which results in stress and anxiety, situations which disturb the ovulation cycle and which can lead to another new failure

• To learn to overcome infertility

• To accept hearing that the chances of success are not very high

• To not remain immersed in your problems, to think of taking a break: travel, read, to pursue sports or artistic activity, to be involved in a humanitarian cause

• To be able to live better with the difficulty of not having a child

• To help the couple overcome guilt, women to overcome depression, men to not feel humiliated and not to undermine their virility…

• To address the problem of sexuality which is uniquely centered on the unique objective of “making a baby” and to help in recovering desire with erotic games

• To help the couple be more complicit, to love…

• To help them understand that their situation is not unique and that other couples know or have also known the same experience

Advice to avoid aggravating the situation

• The first advice is to accept to speak about it: free the speech, put into words your anxieties, it is to already take a step towards feeling better and not live this situation like a burden and a secret too heavy to carry.

Talking about it together, without taboo, nor guilt, is a fundamental step towards success of the treatment

• Speaking with friends, loved ones or family

• Accept the idea that the route might probably be long and difficult and it is imperative to express your anxiety

• Understand that stress and anxiety influence ovulation and aggravate difficulties, a notion that is perhaps not integrated enough by the members of the medical staff

• Attempt to think of other things: go out, watch movies, travel, take up sport…

• Remain welded

• Do not make guilty and maintain distance with respect to the entourage and succeed in smiling when you hear these kinds of statements, “When are you going to gift us the baby?”

• Engage in dialogue with other couples who know or have known these difficulties

• Do not reduce sexual relations and relearn to find desire

• And do not plan a pregnancy too late

“Symptomatic! Couples of today are focused on their project for one year, investing their time, money and energy. When the dynamism of the preparatory tasks ends, when the thrill of the festivities fade, and the pressure is released, young brides go through a period of feeling empty, They feel languor, and inexplicable sadness and doubt.” It is not just the extinction of the flame of over-activity that can bring on the wedding blues, but also that of the spotlight that was on the bride, who suddenly finds herself out of depth. “The return to reality is all the more rough when you were the queen of the ceremonies, you don’t wish to leave fairytale land”, she explained. Once the glitter and champagne bubbles vanish, the enchantment of the wedding gives way to daily routine which had not changed; the carriage of the princess becoming once again a pumpkin.” “For some months, you were at the center of attention, and hence it is not easy to re-descend to earth and accept not being anymore the queen of the ball”

The contrast between reality and the idealization of D-day with marital harmony that results is also the cause of many disillusions. “The man and woman, often doing housekeeping before marriage, are not able to recover themselvese after the wedding. They remain what they were before, in their good or bad habits. Many women then have to go through a period of mourning for unfulfilled expectations”. “Young people fantasize about this event like they do about their baccalaureate: however, marriage is not the result of something but a springboard project to design a new life”. If “after-marriage” is not always happy, it is also because it is the “time for painful awareness”, notably that of the “lack of liberty”.

Often, following the ceremony, this malaise can also hit months after, making it more difficult to “diagnose” and can settle into a real depression.

My work here consists of detecting the causes and effects of your stress and helping you avoid thus, depression and avoiding the ingestion of anti-depressants. (See My working techniques)

Learn to move your body to the rhythm of music in order to find your equilibrium and the letting go that you always wanted since your birth but which you ended up losing along the way. For any information, please contact me.