For many infertility patients, the achievement of an ongoing pregnancy is maddeningly elusive. The anguish of enduring repeated cycle failures creates overwhelming frustration. As time goes on, the prolonged cumulative effect of this stress can actually cause physiological responses counter productive to reproduction. In the paragraphs below the escalating stages of despair are described and relaxation ideas are suggested to help counteract the deleterious effects of stress.
Infertility strikes one couple in six.
The older a women the more likely she is to need medical intervention to conceive. In this most intimate area of a couple s life the stress of medical treatments demands escalating amounts of time, emotional investment and money. A woman, undergoing infertility therapy herself, wrote the following quote that eloquently expresses the anguish of an infertility patient. My infertility is a blow to my self-esteem, a violation of my privacy, an assault on my sexuality a final exam on my ability to cope, an affront to my sense of justice a painful reminder that nothing can be taken for granted. My infertility is a break in the continuity of life.