Dealing With Miscarriage & Infertility

"I remember the moment my husband and I decided to have kids. After 6 years of marriage, the puzzle pieces of our lives were finally falling together. I remember the two pink lines exactly two weeks later. I cried tears of joy. I planned to tell my husband, sister, best friends, mom, and in-laws… I let the love and attention wash over me. I remember his little heartbeat: quick and eager. He always measured 3 days ahead at every appointment. I remember the gender reveal. Blue dye stained my hands and my clothes for weeks. I remember his name. Cullen, after where my husband and I met.
Then I remember the pain and the phone calls. Every day for a week I called. Every day for a week I was told it was normal. I remember, they said it was normal. Then I remember the Emergency Room and then the hospital room. And suddenly, I was holding my lifeless, 18-week-old child in my arms.
In the months that passed I felt betrayed by my friends, by my body, and by God. I felt betrayed by the time that it had the nerve to keep ticking by. My desire to exist in a world where my baby could die, withered along with the condolence bouquets and my friendships. At some point you need to get over it, they said. So I put on a brave face and got over it. I got over it in front of my friends, my husband, my family, my students… But the second my body fell into my therapist's couch, I was not over it.
There were sessions with my therapist in those early months where I would just sit and cry. All the anger, shame, and pain came out and were received with no judgment. In those early months, only she knew how I really felt as she helped me navigate how and why my relationships changed, what was my responsibility and what was not, what was in my control and what was not.
2021 became 2022 we had yet to experience the two pink lines again. As friends and family announced their second and third pregnancies, I was trying to mourn my first while trying to achieve my second. “At least you know you can get pregnant” was a phrase I had stopped hearing in December as the reality of infertility was slowly taking away my hope.
Consistently being in therapy has given me a place to organize all the thoughts in my head and separate the helpful ones from the harmful ones. In one powerful session, my therapist helped me make the decision to take the next medical step in my journey to become a mother. So, My Happy Ending is yet to be determined, but my Healthy During is cultivated through therapy."
~ Client

Infertility is a common medical condition that affects many couples trying to conceive. It can have a significant impact on a person's mental health, leading to feelings of sadness, anxiety, and frustration. Dealing with infertility can be a complex and emotional process, but therapy can play a crucial role in helping individuals cope and find ways to move forward. Here are some ways therapy can help individuals dealing with infertility:

Provides a safe space to discuss feelings and emotions: Dealing with infertility can be a highly emotional experience, often leading to feelings of sadness, anger, and disappointment. Therapy provides a safe and non-judgmental space to discuss these feelings and emotions, allowing individuals to process and work through their experiences.
Helps individuals navigate complex medical decisions: Infertility treatment can involve complex medical decisions, such as choosing between different treatment options or deciding when to stop treatment. Therapy can help individuals navigate these decisions by providing support, guidance, and resources.
Teaches healthy coping strategies: Therapy can help individuals develop healthy coping strategies to manage the stress and emotions associated with infertility. This can include techniques such as mindfulness, relaxation techniques, and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Offers ongoing support and guidance: Therapy offers ongoing support and guidance as individuals navigate the complex emotional and medical aspects of infertility. This can include regular sessions with a therapist, as well as access to additional resources and support groups.
Improves communication and relationships: Infertility can place a significant strain on relationships, leading to communication problems and tension. Therapy can help individuals and couples improve their communication skills and develop healthy coping strategies, strengthening their relationships and helping them move forward together.

In conclusion, dealing with infertility can be a complex and emotional process. Therapy can play a crucial role in helping individuals cope and find ways to move forward by providing a safe space to discuss feelings and emotions, helping navigate complex medical decisions, teaching healthy coping strategies, offering ongoing support and guidance, and improving communication and relationships. If you or someone you know is struggling with infertility, consider reaching out to a mental health professional for support.

ADHD

What is Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD? The shortest technical definition is that it is a treatable neurodevelopment disorder, which occurs in kids, teenagers, and adults. Now that we have that part out of the way, let's break this down a bit further and discuss the definition of neurology. Neurology is the branch of medicine that studies the treatments of disorders associated with the complex and sophisticated nervous system. This system regulates and coordinates the body's activities. It has two major parts of study; the brain and the spinal cord. When someone has ADHD, their brain has low levels of neurotransmitters. These transmitters (think worker bees) control the processing and sharing of information received from our senses. To put this in layman’s terms, picture yourself walking into a public library. Libraries are organized into sections based on the subject matter and then broken down by age, function, and genre. The brain works in a similar way because when information from our senses comes in, the brain identifies, catalogs, and assigns it to a place. When you have ADHD, you don’t have enough “workers” to properly do the job, so information gets incorrectly processed, jumbled, and categorized wrong.

Now that we know what ADHD is and the effect it can have on a person’s brain, we can move on to the types of symptoms and coexisting conditions that one might experience. As you read through these, keep in mind that you can experience all of them, some of them, or any combination of them. These symptoms represent the most common and they must occur frequently.

Disorganization and problems with prioritizing tasks
Excessive (energy) activity or restlessness
Frequent mood swings
Impulsiveness
Low Frustration tolerance
Poor time management skills
Poor planning
Problems focusing on tasks
Problems following through and completing tasks
Quick temper
Trouble doing more than one thing at a time
Trouble coping with stress

ADHD doesn’t cause other psychological or developmental problems, however, other disorders often occur or are exasperated by attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. These are known as coexisting conditions. These can make the management and treatment of ADHD more challenging. These can include:

Mood disorders, such as depression, bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder, or another mood disorder
Anxiety (excessive worry) disorders occur fairly often because of the challenges and setbacks often associated with ADHD.
Learning disabilities or issues with scoring lower on academic testing, problems with communication and comprehension.

Whether or not you have recently received a diagnosis of ADHD, know someone who has, or are wondering if you might need to have an open and honest conversation with your doctor, we hope this post provides you with enough clarifying information to give you a solid head start. Don’t give up hope because a positive diagnosis doesn’t have to mean you can’t be successful in life. While it may make things more challenging and frustrating at times, there are a number of different treatments, such as meditation, medications, certain exercises, or even individual tools and strategies to help you be your best self.