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How To Keep Your Relationship Strong When Dealing With Fertility Issues
Published by Fatherly. Read the full article.
The fertility journey can be a time of overwhelming stress and heartache. Here’s how to get through it together.
When a couple has trouble trying to conceive, it often comes as a shock, a complete derailment of plans. Loneliness and disappointment are common feelings. So, too, are anger and frustration. No couple facing infertility will experience it in quite the same way, but it is critical that they learn how to get through it together. After all, infertility is a disease, notes Dr. Jenna Turocy, M.D., an OB-GYN at Columbia University Fertility Center and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University. Though it’s often not spoken about enough in this sort of way, viewing it as such can help contextualize the many medical decisions, procedures, and emotions one goes through when dealing with it, not to mention the considerable strain it places on a relationship.
“When people have certain goals and realize those goals have to shift, it can be traumatizing to a couple,” says Turocy.
It’s common for couples to feel isolated or overwhelmed as they come to terms with infertility and seek other treatments or alternatives to biological parenthood. Social aspects add to the struggle and heartache: Seeing other couples out with their babies or reading birth announcements on social media tends to sting, leading to sadness and anger.
