Fertility Counselling
I have been practicing as a Specialist Fertility Counsellor since 1996. Whilst working for the first twelve years at the Centre for Reproductive Medicine, a private clinic in Bristol, I gained a wealth of experience in the field of fertility counselling.
Since then, I’ve provided fertility counselling services for the Bristol Fertility Clinic at The Spire, for Bristol for BCRM, a state-of-the-art specialist fertility unit in Aztec West, North Bristol, and for CREATE fertility, a fertility clinic in central Bristol.
Experiences associated with being unable to have the baby you desire :
Undergoing fertility investigations and treatment or experiencing the loss of a much-wanted pregnancy can engender powerful and sometimes overwhelming feelings and can affect so many aspects of your life. If you recognise any of the experiences listed below, you might find it helps to discuss your situation with someone who is impartial, experienced: -
- Tearfulness, unable to control emotions
- Overwhelming feelings of sadness and loss
- Distress and jealousy when friends, relatives and colleagues become pregnant
- A sense of failure and inadequacy, loss of confidence
- Feeling left out, left behind, isolated, not part of the mainstream of life
- Anger, bitterness and frustration at a situation you cannot control
- Sex is no longer fun — it’s a baby-making process
- Feeling out of control of events and emotions
- Loss of identity, purpose, meaning
- Stress and strain within your relationship and communication difficulties
- A sense of being punished, singled out
- Not able to decide when to stop treatment
- Being in limbo, life on hold
- Earlier feelings of disappointment or loss resurfacing
- Family pressure to have children and/or produce a grandchild
How I May Be Able To Help You
Talking things through with an impartial person who has expertise in this specialist field can help you find ways of coping emotionally; explore the way forward when you don’t know what to do; make difficult decisions and gain understanding and insight into yourself, your relationship and your situation.
The experience and empathy I have developed from my work over many years may help support you as you face and manage the worry and anxiety, the frustration and disappointment and the stress and grief that is associated with trying to have a baby – or having to move on if the longed-for baby does not arrive.
- Exploring and improving your own natural coping mechanisms
- Developing strategies to deal with particularly challenging aspects of fertility treatment or pregnancy loss
- Looking at ways to cope with other problems in your life, work, family etc, that are impinging on or affecting your fertility treatment or your ability to have a baby
- Relaxation techniques
- Mindfulness for stress reduction and helping you to live more in the moment
- If you are in a relationship, exploring the differences in the way you and your partner cope to understand yourselves and each other better
- Communication techniques to help improve communication between you as a couple to help reduce any stresses and strains in the relationship
I use hypnosis both to heighten the therapeutic benefit of counselling and as a stress management self-help tool.
In particular, hypnosis can help:
- Alleviate the stress, distress and worry that can accompany fears that a baby will never come after a miscarriage or multiple miscarriages
- Improve difficulties with sleeping due to worry and anxiety
- Work on your self-esteem that may have been damaged by the inability to become a parent in the way that seems so effortless for others
- Build self-confidence in anxiety-provoking situations
- Reduce and even eliminate self-limiting fears in a simple, natural and effortless way
What will happen in the session
Our conversations will give you some time for yourself, time during which you can think about what is happening, try and find solutions to your problems, and identify ways to navigate the complex issues you are coping with.
The benefit of having such time is that it gives you a chance to express your feelings and be heard without being judged. It provides an opportunity to find ways to cope; develop ideas on how to move forward and evolve the skills to work through the issues that underlie the problems you are facing.
How counselling can work for you
I offer counselling as a resource which you can access in accordance with your needs. The frequency of sessions would be agreed upon together.
If you would like to work on a particular aspect of yourself or your life and you think that weekly counselling would be beneficial for you, then we can arrange a certain number of sessions either for an agreed period or on an open-ended basis if you would like to work longer-term.
Alternatively, you can simply book in to see me as-and-when you feel it would be helpful for you.
Issues associated with infertility that you may be experiencing
Having counselled people who are undergoing tests and investigations or who are going through various fertility or assisted conception treatments, I have developed a considerable understanding of the emotional difficulties that fertility investigations, diagnoses and treatments engender and the way in which it can affect so many aspects of your life.
If you are in a relationship and you’re feeling the strain, I can help you understand yourself and your partner better - and explore how the different ways in which you may be coping with what you are facing are affecting you both.
I support women who have chosen to try for a baby without a partner, using donor sperm. Often the decision to go it alone comes about from having delayed parenthood for various reasons until their mid to late thirties or early forties. Finding yourself without a partner is tough when the desire for a child is growing by the day and will not go away. Sometimes this may result in the need for double donation (donor eggs and donor sperm) if her own fertility is now waning.
Deciding on single motherhood can be a difficult and sad decision for some, and emotional support may be helpful to work through the various ethical, emotional, financial and practical issues associated with such a major life decision.
I can offer you support whilst you think about what to do, and which clinic to use, and help you explore your feelings about being a single mum using a donor. This can include how you plan to balance your family life with your career, what support you have, and your hopes that, despite having no partner at this time, a relationship can and will still happen in the future.
It is extremely shocking and distressing to discover that you will never be able to have a baby using your own genetic DNA.
This can come after a diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) whereby a woman's ovaries are no longer able to produce eggs of good enough quality to conceive a healthy pregnancy; or after a diagnosis of Azoospermia whereby a man discovers he is not producing sperm at all. Or you may be informed that it is extremely unlikely pregnancy will ever happen naturally or even through assisted conception.
Having to relinquish something as fundamental as having a baby that is genetically yours and to consider using the genes of another man or woman (sperm or egg donors) can be extremely difficult and can involve a lengthy period of grieving and adjustment.
I can support you through that mourning process and help you explore any fears, concerns or worries you may have about embarking on such a path.
If you are using donated sperm, eggs or embryos whether in the UK or abroad, it is highly recommended that you speak to a counsellor about the emotional and ethical implications of your decision before embarking on treatment. These structured conversations help you explore the many and varied issues that arise during your decision-making about this treatment.
Implications counselling provides you with an opportunity to explore the many aspects of having a child in this way and what such treatment means to you and those close to you. These can include: -
- How you feel about having to let go of having your own genetic child and the losses that this invokes
- Any thoughts and feelings you might have about a child that’s not genetically yours or your partner’s
- If you're single, what it means to have a child without a partner
- How your family and friends are responding to your intentions to try and conceive a child through gamete donation - and what their thoughts may be about this (if you are telling them)
- Your views about telling the child of how it was conceived - the ‘how’ and the ‘when’
- Any concerns you may have for a child who will have been conceived in this way - when it is young and as it grows up
- The feelings you may have about the possibility of the child being able to contact the donor when they’re an adult – if they might be curious about their origins. Or the opposite, what will it be like for them if they can’t contact the donor, perhaps if they have died in the meantime.
Often clinics abroad do not offer counselling. There are some important issues and implications that need to be considered if you are having or considering treatment outside of the UK. (See ‘Implications counselling for treatment involving a donor’).
You may feel you don’t need to speak to a counsellor about your decision, but there may be things you’ve not considered - or feel you can face later if ever the need arises. However, it never hurts to have a counselling session just to ensure you have thought things through before going ahead with such an important step.
Each year 1,800 pregnancies are terminated due to foetal abnormalities but those who have faced such an agonising decision find it is rarely discussed. And yet couples do want to talk about it and so find themselves feeling lonely and isolated in this tragic experience.
No couple wants to make such a decision and the depth of pain and guilt can be indescribable – and even more so if the couple had finally conceived having undergone successful VF treatment.
Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) offer specialist support in this field but I am very happy to offer counselling if it can be helpful to you.
I offer counselling to women and their partners who have one child but for whom a longed-for second child eludes them. This is an emotionally complex position to be in because a woman will often feel guilty that she already has one child and feels she should be grateful for that (after all, some people are struggling even to have one baby).
And yet, I know the desire for a second baby - and a sibling for your existing child - is the most natural thing in the world. The feelings of grief can be almost as powerful and palpable as they are for someone trying unsuccessfully for their first baby.
Women with a toddler or young child cannot avoid witnessing the joy all around them as the mothers of their child’s friends get pregnant with their second and sometimes third babies.
There is little recognition for women and couples who find themselves in this situation and so I can offer a chance for you to express your sorrow and guilt – or whatever feelings you may be having - about not being able to have another baby.
It can be very difficult if you find you are unable to conceive a child. There can be many reasons why this may be the case: you may have decided not to have treatment; or you need to decide to stop having any more fertility treatment for financial or medical reasons; or you may find that for some reason you’re unable to have fertility treatment at all. All these possibilities can be hugely challenging emotionally and so you may find it helpful to talk everything through with someone who can support you through such a difficult time while you grieve and then find a way to move on.
I have a great deal of experience working with couples on the emotional difficulties facing them if their wanted baby never came, and exploring with them the grief they experience for the lost family of their own.
Although well-meaning people may assume that if you can’t have a baby the natural solution will be simply to adopt, this does not acknowledge what it means to have to let go of ever having a child or family that is genetically yours, or for a woman to accept that she will never experience pregnancy or birth and that she will never be able to share the joy of that life-event with all the friends and family around her.
Nor does this simplistic piece of advice recognise that creating a family by adoption is not necessarily an easy decision to make, or a simple step to take – or even that both of you want the same thing.
in terms of adoption. If you and your partner find yourselves in this position, I can support you as you work your way through the emotional issues associated with this difficult decision and process.
Some couples may decide at the end that adoption is not for them or may sadly not be accepted as adoptive parents. And so, after many years of trying for a baby, they find themselves having to face the fact that they will never have the family they wanted or be the parents they always imagined and hoped they would be.
The grief of finding yourself in this position whilst all around you are giving birth to their first, second and sometimes third children, cannot be underestimated. And if I can offer emotional support at such an incredibly difficult time, I would be very glad to do so.
If you never had a child and you are finding it hard at a particular stage of your life, then please don’t hesitate to contact me to talk through what it means to you not to have had a family.
Miscarriage Counselling
I support women and their partners who have had a miscarriage, a missed miscarriage, recurrent miscarriages or an ectopic pregnancy loss. People’s feelings vary after a miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy, so what the loss of your baby means to you will be very personal to you. It can be extremely sad and may also be traumatic and frightening, and for some, the grief is very hard to bear. So, I offer you the opportunity to talk freely and openly about the loss of your longed-for baby or babies, and to mourn that loss in your own way.
I have specialised in miscarriage counselling since 2014 when I helped establish the counselling service for St Michael's Hospital’s Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic and Endometriosis Clinic. This includes support for those who have experienced ectopic pregnancies or the tragic termination of a pregnancy on medical grounds.
Experiences associated with being unable to have the baby you desire :
The loss of a much-wanted pregnancy can engender powerful and sometimes overwhelming feelings and can affect so many aspects of your life. This can be especially hard if that pregnancy was conceived after many years of trying, or after successful fertility treatment.
If you recognise any of the feelings or experiences listed below, you might find it helps to talk it through with someone who is impartial, experienced and who understands:
- Tearfulness, unable to control emotions
- Overwhelming feelings of sadness and loss
- Terror at the idea of getting pregnant again
- Distress and jealousy when friends, relatives and colleagues have a baby
- A sense of failure and inadequacy, loss of confidence and self-blame
- Feeling left out, left behind, isolated, not part of the mainstream of life
- Anger, bitterness and frustration at a situation you cannot control
- Sex is no longer fun — it’s a baby-making process
- Feeling out of control of events and emotions
- Loss of identity, purpose, meaning
- Stress and strain within your relationship and communication difficulties
- A sense of being punished, singled out
- Being in limbo, life on hold
- Earlier feelings of disappointment or loss resurfacing
- Family pressure to have children and/or produce a grandchild
Miscarriage Support
Many people feel considerable pressure and stress when trying to conceive or when suffering a miscarriage, multiple miscarriages or ectopic pregnancy (especially if it involves the loss of a tube). Talking things through with an impartial person who has expertise in this specialist field can help you find ways of coping emotionally; explore the way forward when you don’t know what to do; make difficult decisions and gain understanding and insight into yourself, your relationship and your situation.
The experience and empathy I have developed from my work over many years may help support you as you face and manage the worry and anxiety, the frustration and disappointment and the stress and grief that is associated with trying to have a baby – or having to move on if the longed-for baby does not arrive. These can be tailored to suit your own situation and needs and include:
- Exploring and improving your own natural coping mechanisms
- Developing strategies to deal with particularly challenging aspects of pregnancy loss
- Looking at ways to cope with other problems in your life, work, family etc that are impinging on or affecting you as you keep trying for a baby
- Relaxation techniques
- Mindfulness breathing for stress reduction
- If you are in a relationship, exploring the differences in the way you and your partner cope to understand yourselves and each other better
- Communication techniques to help improve communication between you as a couple to help reduce any stresses and strains in the relationship
I use hypnosis both to heighten the therapeutic benefit of counselling and as a stress management self-help tool.
In particular, hypnosis can help:
- Alleviate the stress, distress and worry that can accompany fears that a baby will never come after a miscarriage or multiple miscarriages
- Improve difficulties with sleeping due to worry and anxiety
- Work on your self-esteem that may have been damaged by the inability to become a parent in the way that seems so effortless for others
- Build self-confidence in anxiety-provoking situations
- Reduce and even eliminate self-limiting fears in a simple, natural and effortless way.
What will happen in the session
Our conversations will give you some time for yourself, time during which you can think about what is happening, try and find solutions to your problems, and identify ways to navigate the complex issues you are coping with.
The benefit of having such time is that it gives you a chance to express your feelings and be heard without being judged. It provides an opportunity to find ways to cope; develop ideas on how to move forward and evolve the skills to work through the issues that underlie the problems you are facing.
How counselling can work for you
I offer counselling as a resource which you can access in accordance with your needs. The frequency of sessions would be agreed upon together.
If you would like to work on a particular aspect of yourself or your life and you think that weekly counselling would be beneficial for you, then we can arrange a certain number of sessions either for an agreed period or on an open-ended basis if you would like to work longer-term.
Alternatively, you can simply book in to see me as-and-when you feel it would be helpful for you.
Get In Touch
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about counselling and how I work, or to arrange an initial appointment. This enables us to discuss the reasons you are thinking of starting therapy and whether I can help you. You can also call or text me on 07847 263 794 if you would prefer to leave a message or speak to me first.
All enquires are usually answered within 24 hours, and all contact is strictly confidential.