Fertility
About 1 in every 5 couples experience problems in falling pregnant at some point. The cycles of hope and disappointment can painfully dominate the lives of women and men, often silently, sometimes for many years. Fertility problems may shake both women’s and men’s sense of themselves and their bodies and affect the way that they see their partner.

Coping with difficulties with fertility may cause depression, anxiety and difficulties in your relationship. It may also cause you to withdraw from others with children or from those who enquire about why you do not have any, or any more children, or who you imagine will not understand your feelings. Secondary infertility, when you have one child or more, but long for another, can also be a source of considerable and enduring pain. Knowing you have pre-existing conditions that may compromise your fertility can also affect your confidence in making relationships.

Sometimes, difficulties in conceiving brings couples closer together, particularly when they are able to talk openly together about their feelings.  For many couples, it puts their emotional and sexual relationship under considerable strain.  Even if couples start by both wanting to conceive, over time, partners may diverge in the priority and importance they attach to creating a baby and the lengths they are prepared to go to in order to have a family.

Decisions about whether to go for treatment, contemplating using donor gametes, wondering about adoption, are all complicated and sometimes fraught issues.  Undergoing fertility investigations or treatments, or applying for adoption, are very challenging experiences, emotionally , that put huge pressures on women and men and the couple relationship.

If you are feeling distressed about issues around fertility, thinking about  treatment, or maybe when to give up treatment... it can be helpful to have some  consultations or therapy.   Couple therapy may be helpful if fertility concerns are affecting your emotional or sexual relationship with your partner, or you need help thinking about options for trying to create a family.
Parenting children that are not biologically your own

Raising a child that is not biologically your own can stir up difficult and complicated feelings, about yourself, the child, or your partner and may be difficult to talk about as a couple.  It can also feel very painful to know how and when to speak to children about their biological origins. Sometimes parents feel embarrassed, humiliated, scared or bewildered about how to go about this and keep finding reasons to put it off.

Professional help can be useful, if you are struggling with your own feelings about parenting a child who is  not biologically your own; wondering how to talk to your children about their biological origins; or finding that issues around not being a child's biological parent are causing strains in your couple relationship or in your ability to parent jointly.

Alongside offering individual, couple and family consultations to help with these emotional challenges, we run groups to help non-biological parents talk to their children about their biological origins.
Day time evening and weekend appointments available
Fees may be recoverable under medical insurance
We are recognised registered providers with leading U.K. Health Insurance Companies
Service covers North and Central London
020 8444 9160
All Facing Parenthood therapists are registered with their respective professional bodies.
www.facing-parenthood.com      Daytime Evening and Weekend Appointments.      020 8444 9160