Infertility & Hope
Infertility as a definition is the failure to conceive within 12 months of consecutive unprotected sexual intercourse. According to the WHO 1 in 6 people will experience infertility. What is more of a difficult assessment is just how difficult the journey within infertility is for those navigating the experience. The prevalence of major depressive disorder is 50% followed by dysthymia 25% for individuals going through infertility.
During the journey of infertility, one must suffer and endure much heart ache before identifying and or achieving support from a care provider that is able to assist with solutions that may result in a successful term pregnancy.
A key component of care that I have come to identify after working with those going through the difficult despairing journey of infertility is how integral cultivating and maintaining hope is within the experience and journey.
“Hope is anticipating possibilities through envisioning the not-yet, harmoniously living the comfort-discomfort of everydayness and unfolding a different perspective of an expanding view.”
Each individual’s meaning of hope is personal and not always expressed in words. Therefore the diversity and complexity of hope leave the meaning of hope still veiled. There was an analysis of hope completed by Stempsey (2015) and he differentiated between shallow and deep hope. Defining shallow hope as no more than a desire, and deep hope as having a spiritual or transcendental element. Deep hope involving the matter of the very meaning of human life, death and suffering. Deep hope creating meaning out of the embittered despair of the situation, seeing hope as a mystery central to who we are as humans.
During my over a decade of work with individuals in the health care setting I have personally witnessed the positive benefit of hope within circumstance of difficult situations.
Hope is not about getting the exact outcome of what we desire for it is when the outcome is relinquished hope is the by-product. Thus creating a renewed sense of possibility, and an expansion of imaginative possibility that propels us forward, onward, upward and into the purpose of our soul.
I will never forget my client emailing me after a session to say, “I have always been good at caring for my physical and mental health, yet I have not been good at caring for my spiritual health.”
This resonated for me as I realized the importance of the work I was doing; the delivery of spiritual health care. I am so passionate about this pillar of health care as it is allows for the exploration of relationship and connection to an energy and love that transcends time and space; transcends the here and now. Spiritual medicine activates potential and connects us to hope.
References
Doe MJ. Conceptual Foreknowings: An Integrative Review of Hope. Nursing Science Quarterly. 2020;33(1):55-64. doi:10.1177/0894318419881805
Ghosh Dastidar B. Depression and suicidality amongst infertile women: a hidden pandemic? Eur Psychiatry. 2022 Sep 1;65(Suppl 1):S183–4. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2022.484. PMCID: PMC9566938.