Single Biggest Piece of Advice from an LPC

An excerpt from Fertility & Beyond: Join the Conversation

By Tara Joyner, LPC

Here’s the single biggest piece of advice from a licensed professional counselor: It’s important to be patient with yourself and show yourself compassion.

Allow yourself to be angry and feel really intense emotions without judging yourself.

When you find out your sister’s pregnant and you get angry about it, allow yourself to be angry and understand that anger is okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person. Don’t judge yourself or your feelings while you’re going through treatment. Be kind to yourself and give yourself some space to feel things that you didn’t think you’d ever feel.

You may say things you don’t mean. There are going to be disappointments involved.

Infertility is going to be one of the most difficult challenges you can go through as a couple. Don’t let it divide you. Rather, let it to bring you closer and lean on one another for support.

This experience can create – or build upon – a foundation for your relationship that once you get through this, you can get through just about anything.

In addition, managing expectations is one of the most difficult aspects of undergoing fertility treatment.

Most people expect that starting treatment is the “golden ticket” because, statistically, the odds are very good. There are some people that experience success on the first try. However, there are some that do not.

It’s important to stay grounded and cautiously optimistic.

Attempt to balance hope with understanding that it may take more tries than you would like. Patients tend to worry about not being positive enough, but fear is impossible to remove from your brain.

Acknowledge your fear, understand it is valid, but try to stay in a mindset that embraces your commitment to the treatment process, and trust that you are doing all that you can for a positive outcome.

About Tara Joyner, LPC 

Background:  

When Tara was an undergraduate at Texas A&M, she worked in a women’s health facility processing difficult topics with patients. Later, she moved into clinical research while in graduate school. There she discovered her passion for women’s health and the associated emotional components. This motivated her to go to into private practice.  

Tara began seeing a variety of patients in her practice. Having gone through infertility herself where she had in vitro resulting in twins, she became involved with a fertility clinic and became a fervent advocate helping people through their process.  

With her firsthand experience and training, she found that she had the necessary level of empathy and knowledge of all the acronyms and industry terms, nurturing people as they navigate the waters.  

Contact Information : http://www.TaraJoynerLPC.com

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