If you’ve never heard of a fertility coach or you’re not sure exactly what one is, I’ll give you all the information you need. I’ve been a fertility coach for 3 years, so I’ve worked with many women to help and support them through their fertility journey. As someone who struggled to get pregnant, I understand how it feels and the frustration and anxiety surrounding infertility.
What does a fertility coach do?
A fertility coach works with individuals or couples who are trying to have a baby. These could be individuals or couples trying to conceive naturally or those using assisted fertility support (such as IUI or IVF).
Wherever you are on your fertility journey, a fertility coach will support you:
- To discuss your past experiences to help you focus on a positive future. While it can be soul-destroying and feel impossible to focus on the past disappointments, sometimes it’s important to work through and process these past experiences.
- To focus on the present. It can be a huge strain when people close to you announce their pregnancy. Or yet another celebrity seems to have fallen pregnant the first time they tried. Other people’s positive pregnancy news can be disheartening, upsetting and stressful. A fertility coach can support you to feel better prepared to cope with triggering situations like these.
- By understanding what you’re going through. Although you may have a supportive partner or close family or friends around you, often, they may not really understand what you’re going through or know what to say to support you.
- With the tools when the little things remind you that you aren’t pregnant yet, such as people asking you directly or putting pressure on you to conceive.
- To focus on being positive in the present rather than predicting the future or worrying that you’ll never be able to have a baby. They can build up your confidence and help you focus on other aspects of life, such as your partner or doing things you enjoy.
- Through listening. Whether you need a rant, a cry or a moment of despondence, a coach will be supportive and empathetic so that you feel heard. Sometimes you may just want to be understood rather than be offered solutions.
Does talking really help?
It does. A fertility coach is an expert who can offer priceless information and help you to get to decisions you may have struggled with on your own or with somebody else. By unburdening anxiety or worries, you will feel better afterwards.
If you feel stressed and are not dealing with it constructively or you’re burying it, it can impact your body in many ways. Your body and brain are connected, so stress can negatively affect your body, and you need to be at the healthiest you can be in your mission to conceive.
For example, if you are training to enter a marathon, you may consider using a fitness coach or a nutritionist to help you with your exercise and nutrition to give you the best possible results. So in the same way it makes sense to work with a fertility coach if you feel stressed or negative about fertility or have some difficult past fertility experiences?
When should I consider a fertility coach?
There’s no clear answer to when you should consider using a fertility coach. But if you have been trying to conceive for some time, have experienced pregnancy loss, or are considering IVF or going through fertility assistance, you may find it too much to cope with alone.
By speaking to a fertility coach, they can help you make sense of your specific situation and empower your mind and body to be strong and resilient. A fertility coach can offer support during any stage of your fertility journey and give emotional support as well as the tools to help you to balance your mind and manage your stress.
It could be that you’re holding onto negative past experiences or possess fear about pregnancy, which may be a cause or a factor in your struggles to conceive. A coach will review you as a whole and ensure your mind and body are working together towards pregnancy.
The difference between fertility coaching and counselling
Coaching and counselling share some similarities because they both focus on the client and have shared goals with each client. It’s essential for them to build trust, openness, rapport and respect with each client. Coaches and counsellors will also often share the belief that each client understands what they need to do to move forward, whether this is conscious or unconscious knowledge.
But there are also differences between what a coach and counsellor say and focus on (but this does not apply to every coach or counsellor!):
- In coaching, the client is encouraged to consider blocks that may be occurring and work to release them to move forward in a more positive way.
- Both areas will look at the past, present and future, but counselling will often go further into childhood on a deeper level.
- Often, coaching is about achieving potential and focusing on a client’s behaviour and thoughts and how they deal with things. Counselling tends to focus more on emotions and how a client feels.
- When it comes to problem-solving, counselling aims to tackle the root of problems, whereas coaching aims to solve problems in the now.
- One other key issue is that a coaching relationship focuses on an equal partnership between coach and client, but counselling tends to see the counsellor as more in control and the expert.
- And finally, coaching focuses on the possible, and counselling tends to be more focused on the problem and is therefore solution-focused. Coaching is also solution-focused but also goal and action orientated.
Are you feel like trying for a baby has become all-consuming and you’re exhausted from the anxiety and disappointment of it? If you can relate to those feelings then fertility coaching is an excellent way to help you manage resentment and all stress in order to restore hope for the future. I put my heart and soul into working with clients like you, because I know how difficult and overwhelming trying to conceive can feel. I believe that fertility coaching will give you the tools to manage your emotions to head towards a positive future on your fertility journey.
My 1:1 programmes are a unique mix of coaching, counselling and mind-body techniques to transform how you feel about yourself and your fertility. To find out more, please contact me.
Want to try out some of the tools I share with my clients? You can get my Free 3 step guide to dealing with the overwhelm of TTC, so that you can feel like you again, by joining my mailing list here.