Our fertility clinic’s vision is to provide a holistic reproductive approach.
Our vision is demonstrated by our collective effort to constantly identify and implement the most updated reproductive techniques through multidimensional and personalized fer tility treatment plans. The psychological functioning of infertile couples is a significant influential factor.
We are driven by suppor ting the well-being of our patient.
Our medical team is committed in providing an understanding environment.
The service of psychological support and counselling for the medical team and the patients is incorporated into our daily operations. Our psychological services aim to accelerate the medical team’s ability to build trust and rapport with the couples during the entire IVF treatment cycle and to increase couples’ ability to sustain emotional balance and constructive resolution of potential mental and emotional challenges accompanying the IVF treatment.
Thereafter, couples increase the effectiveness of their coping mechanisms and subsequently are enabled to make the right decisions for themselves during the different phases of a fer tility treatment plan. Studies have shown that infertility is positively correlated to the existence of psychological strain expressed mainly as emotional stress both at intrapersonal and interpersonal levels.
As each individual and each couple are unique, stress is expressed in a variety of ways and reflects different levels of intensity. Acute stress tends to be related more at the phase of diagnosis and initial treatment, whereas chronic stress is more related to long-term fer tility treatment plans.
The counselor’s role is vital at all phases of an IVF treatment.
Specifically, at the phase of induction to an intervention program, the fundamental goal is two-folded: support the couple to develop cognitive acceptance in using a reproductive technique to achieve pregnancy and turn cognitive acceptance into emotional acceptance at an individual and couple level. During the phase of treatment implementation, the counselor aims in minimizing and safeguarding the couple in front of the emotional roller coaster typical of one or several phases of an IVF treatment. Emotions such as guilt, anger, grief, impatience, hopelessness and helplessness very often are present and interchange.
In this way, the couple reinforces the ability to make decisions as during an IVF treatment plan the couple often faces several choices that need to be addressed and decided.
Fear often holds a special place as the couple often feels that has no control over the outcome of an infer tility intervention.
At this stage the goal is to increase the couple’s capacity to adjust successfully to a variety of psychosocial pressures manifested intrapersonal and interpersonally. In this way, the couple is enabled to sustain quality of life, meaning to function effectively at all their roles, these as professionals, sexual partners and the rest of their social roles.
Above all, both spouses need to be able to derive joy and pleasure out of their daily activities, maintaining the quality of their lives without substantive changes. For the majority of couples, in-vitro fer tilization is characterized as a “psychosomatic tribulation”. Never theless, it can function for each of the spouses as a trigger for a deep self-awareness process.
Last, during the phases of treatment failure or success, the counselor’s intervention is crucial. Dealing with treatment failure manifested with one or multiple miscarriages, the counselor assists in copying with the triggered renewed emotional roller coaster and the trust of the couple in the experience and the exper tise of the medical team.
In the case of a successful pregnancy, the happiness of achieving pregnancy along with anxiety for the healthy development of the embr yo or sometimes the fear of a potential loss afflict the couple especially during the first trimester.
It is essential for the woman to be supported in order to constructively manage and diminish as much as possible these emotions that burden her daily. The couple is the core of the family. Hence, the par tner should be encouraged to find his own place to contribute to this process.
The physical changes in a woman during pregnancy, the delivery process, and the changes in the family structure with the coming of the child are included in the main issues addressed during this phase. In addition, emphasis is given to the smooth emotional transition to the parental role and the new pressures/pleasures as they are experienced in a unique way by each spouse.
Apart from any scientific descriptions and analysis, the personal journey of everyone in this process is absolutely unique as unique is the time of the first hug, the gift of life that IVF treatment offers in millions of couples.
The couple’s unique experience is our inspiration to share this journey.
