Maybe we should wait….
Rebecca was 27 years old and had been married to Steve for four years; they lived in a modern two-bedroom terrace house close to Milton Keynes. Rebecca was a legal secretary and Steve worked as a logistics manager for a national freight company. They had been trying for a child for a couple of years with no luck.
Over dinner one night Steve told Rebecca he thought that she seemed a bit down, and asked what the problem was. She told him that every now and then she found herself worrying about her mum, who had been treated five years earlier for breast cancer, but was now in remission. When Steve confirmed that with Rebecca, she said: “Yes, I know she’s ok now, it’s just now and then my mind wanders off. Don’t worry. Anyway, how are you? Is work ok?” Steve told her that everything was fine, and that the firm was arranging a ‘corporate day out’ the following month to London, with tickets to see a show in the evening. He said that it was a shame that his friend Gary from work would not be going: he had been laid-off by Steve’s company a month earlier. Steve and Rebecca had become close friends with Gary and his wife.
Two years later, both Rebecca and Steve had undergone tests at their local hospital to investigate just why Rebecca had not conceived. The tests indicated that there was nothing wrong with either of them. From the waiting room they picked up a pack of leaflets to take home that explained the different treatment options open to them. Their GP had explained that infertility treatment on the NHS was available, but that they may have to wait up to 48 weeks; the other alternative of course was private treatment. A few phone calls the next morning confirmed that an IVF cycle at a private clinic would cost in the region of £5,750, the receptionist at the clinic stated that it was, of course possible that more than one cycle would be required. Rebecca felt that the only way she could even consider private treatment would be if she asked her parents for some financial help. Even though she knew how desperate they both were for a grandchild, asking them for a loan was something she was not happy with: her parents had experienced their own ‘money problems’ over the years, although they were ok now. She had never liked asking them, or anyone else come to that, for financial support, regardless of the reason.
Rebecca and Steve decided to think it through for a couple of months; after all they had waited this long, what difference could it make. During this time Rebecca was aware that she was suffering with a little anxiety: she kept repeatedly blaming herself for the situation they were in. Like many people in her predicament, she started to trawl the Internet for web sites that offered information about infertility, causes and possible treatments.
One night, when she was on the Internet, she came across a site that talked about psychological infertility. It explained that there are basically two reasons why a woman experiences difficulties falling pregnant: the cause is either biological/medical, which can only be treated with full professional medical care, or it’s psychological. She knew that she and Steve had no medical problems; the tests had confirmed it. The site went on to state that maybe it was because of the fast, stress-filled lifestyle women live today, or the increase in career wives, and the ever growing dependence on the additional income, but whatever the reason, incidences of unexplained infertility were on the increase, and the barrier to conception was increasingly found to be primarily psychological, or stress-related, both of which could be treated simply and inexpensively.
Rebecca came across a web site about an English-run Complementary Health Clinic in Spain, which specialised in helping people overcome psychological infertility, using a range of treatments, incorporating Hypnotherapy. Thefollowing Friday she and Steve flew out of Luton on an EasyJet flight to Malaga for a weekend break and to gain more information.
They had arranged an informal, initial consultation with a therapist at the clinic on the Saturday morning, which was free of charge. In the end it lasted over an hour and a half; there was so much to talk about. The therapist informed them that having the course of relaxation therapy would increase their chances of conceiving naturally, but even if that didn’t happen and they ended up going for some form of assisted conception treatment, all the relaxation and self-hypnosis techniques they had already learned would certainly help to increase the success rate. The relatively small cost of the sessions in Spain could potentially enable them to have a baby naturally as well as saving them thousands of pounds. Afterwards they were advised to go away and think it through.
Steve initially thought it all sounded a bit wacky, but when he understood more about the ‘mind-body’
Steve went with Rebecca for the first session, after which she was happy to go alone, while Steve had a beer and strolled along the beach. The approach at the clinic is geared to help women become pregnant naturally. They use a form of cognitive therapy, in conjunction with a very detailed set of diagnostic questionnaires, designed to direct the therapist towards any areas of stress, whether conscious or sub-conscious, or unresolved issues that people so often carry with them through their lives. Additionally, a form of Hypnosis that promotes very deep and natural levels of relaxation, and very focused, visualisation techniques are used to completely eliminate stress and anxiety. (The negative effects of stress in relation to conception have been widely researched, as has the interaction between biological and psychological issues in pregnancy. It has been reported that women who suspect they are infertile can have anxiety and depression levels equal to that of women with conditions such as cancer, HIV and chronic pain.)
The sessions with Rebecca and Steve went well and they returned to the UK, relaxed and tanned, not really sure what, if anything, had been achieved, other than feeling more ‘chilled’ than they could ever remember. Rebecca missed her period two months later, and is now six months into her pregnancy: all is going very well.
So what did the ‘therapy’ reveal? Firstly, that Rebecca was suffering with far more stress than she was aware. There was real anxiety concerning her failure to conceive, but it was felt that this was not the main contributing problem, the stress level she was experiencing was current, and certainly was not present during the earlier attempts at pregnancy.
During the subsequent hypnotherapy sessions, Rebecca recalled, in detail, sitting in a theatre in London two years earlier watching ‘Mamma-Mia’
At the same time however, she recalled being a little scared: she questioned whether they always have such a wonderful life style; she had a sub conscious fear concerning security? She remembered when she was a child; the time when her parents had nearly had their home reposed by the building society after her dad had been made redundant. Her mind wandered to thinking about their friend Gary and his wife, and him recently losing his job without warning. How safe were they? What if Steve suddenly was made redundant too? Would falling pregnant now be such a clever move? Maybe we should wait…….
