Five ways to manage your emotions while trying to conceive

Complementary medicine doesn't have all the answers, but where it is outstanding is in supporting you through the emotional impact of not falling pregnant.

The path to parenthood can bring up many feelings; anxiety, hope, frustration, anger, sadness, isolation, fear, despair, or inadequacy. A particularly painful emotion is grief - this can be the loss of the life you thought you would have - the cute bump, your partner's hand on your belly, the feeling of your baby breastfeeding and on it goes. The fear that it may not happen this month can soon spiral into the fear that it may never happen.

Women become very practiced at hiding this, and they often feel like they will begin to unravel if they stop to feel their feelings. But the price of holding heavy emotions causes stagnant energy, a lack of trust in your own body, and a feeling of disconnection from yourself, and over time can spill into your relationship affecting your sex life, and if there's one thing you need to make a baby, its lots of sperm!

Although managing your emotions can be the hardest part of baby-making, it will enable you to get out of that cycle of hope and despair, become more positive, and help to rebuild trust in your body, so you feel more in control.

My heart-womb approach to managing your emotions

Honesty audit

I use tools from somato emotional release to help you get real about your layers of stress. How is your relationship with your partner, parents, or boss? How is your job satisfaction, are you lonely, how do you see yourself? What was your childhood stress or trauma? Do you allow yourself to receive? Do you chronically say yes when you mean no? These are just some of the questions that I ask clients so that we can find out where she is giving away her energy, and we can focus and how to re-fill her tank.

Acknowledgement

Another important step is to acknowledge how you are really feeling about not falling pregnant. Once you have acknowledged your pain and had it witnessed by someone else (a friend, your partner, a therapist, a piece of paper), it shifts the weight of it from your body. Even something as simple as identifying an emotion - especially the less pleasant ones like jealousy, resentment, or blame, can be enough to free up space in your heart to allow in joy.

Compassion

There is inherent guilt and shame around infertility, some of the thoughts my clients have about themselves are tantamount to bullying. When you notice those thoughts, stop and ask yourself if you would say those things to a friend who was in the same situation, then afford yourself the same compassion. Being gentle with yourself is a bridge to healing, and I would say is non-negotiable while navigating your fertility journey.

Connection

I use fertility acupuncture and fertility massage to help my clients connect with their womb. You can do this yourself by placing your hands over your pelvis, imagining your womb, and noticing the first thing that comes up. It may be a colour, texture, word, sensation, or emotion. Notice what feelings you have towards your womb. Then imagine if your womb could hear you, how would she feel about the way you connect with her? Sometimes women don't realise the hurtful way they have been thinking about themselves, by renegotiating the way that you relate to your body you will be removing one more stressor from your life.

It is also important to connect with your partner, they may be feeling helpless, or sad that they don't know how to support you, or that they are not much more than a sperm factory. Men especially have been taught to push feelings aside to be pragmatic. Let him know what you need from him, and give him permission to share how he is really feeling too.

Find joy

All of the Googling, ovulation apps, and timed baby-making sex suck the joy out of life. Take a break to reclaim that part of yourself that was full of wild abandonment. Do all of the things that you used to do that made your heart glow. Daily micro-doses are better than one-off grand gestures. Remember or find that thing that gets you in your flow, it may be jigsaws, swimming in the river, baking, LEGO, or making out without penetration (I know, it feels like a waste of sperm right!).

Although uncertainty, lack of control, and a lack of information are all considered the most stressful stimuli, by being honest about the full spectrum of emotions you are feeling, and finding out where your needs are not being met you will free up energy for the 9 months of pregnancy, 3 months of the 4th trimester, and years of the post-natal period.

Alison is a registered acupuncturist and co-owner of Blossom Natural Health in Chelmsford. She has been specialising in fertility and women's health for the last 20 years and is the fertility acupuncturist for Bourn Hall fertility clinic in Wickford. She loves combining Acupuncture, Cranio-Sacral Therapy and Somato-Emotional Release to help her clients with stress, digestive issue and pain relief.