Pregnancy & Baby
Around 1 in 6 people in Australia who want to become parents experience
difficulty either conceiving and maintaining their first pregnancy or getting pregnant after having their first child. A physically and psychologically stressful and demanding process, many people find their resources stretched, their coping mechanisms under pressure and their vulnerabilities amplified. This may also affect treatment outcomes if they are on IVF. To many, this is unexpected, confusing and not at all the way they thought their life would go often leaving them feeling like the rest of their life is on hold. By Kellie Edwards
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Often, we become obsessed with every possible path to be at our rying to have a baby and finding it harder than we would healthiest and maximise our chances of conception - and yet this very like it to be can be one of the loneliest pains of adult life. It understandable preoccupation can find us feeling more stressed and can be hard to put into words, and we might not even want to. overwhelmed than we were before this whole journey began. Adding this It can feel like it follows us around as we move about our day. The sadness, the longing and the confusion. Gradually dragging to an already busy life can become overwhelming. us down and robbing us of the joys we used to find in our work, “Most of us treat ourselves rather unkindly when bad things happen to us. our friends, our leisure. Curling up on the couch can become Rather than offering ourselves the same sympathy and support we would our comfort zone as we withdraw ever so slightly into our own give to a loved one, we tend to criticize ourselves (“What’s the matter with private suffering. you!”), we hide from others or ourselves in shame (“I’m worthless”), and
And then the questions come: Why? Why me? Was it something I did? What can I do? How can I fix this? Like doing laps in hell, trying to think our way out of this unwanted reality, our mind goes over and over the same questions, as if somehow this time we will miraculously think of something we haven’t before. 72
Peninsula Kids – Winter 2017
we get stuck in our heads trying to make sense of what happened to us (“Why me?”).” Christopher K. Germer PhD, and Kristin Neff, Assoc. Prof of education Psychology.