Fertility treatment does not succeed all that often. Mostly it disappoints; only a minority get what they hoped for.

I understand. From the moment we step in here to be treated — hope, dreams, worry, anticipation, joy, shock, sadness, grief, confusion, pain — every one of these feelings arrives within the space of a few days, and then we have to go back into the same whirlpool all over again.

Some are lucky and do not have to meet all of these feelings.
Some go round the loop only a few times.
And some are unlucky, and are hurt over and over — where walking on means being hurt again, and stopping is not possible either.

Try stepping back a pace, and look at the picture of your life from a wider angle.

We are swimming through our own pile of problems, trying everything we can with all our strength, in body and in mind. And we still do not know what to do with the bad feelings left by old experiences — things that are over and done with, and that we are still sad about.

I think that sometimes we need someone to help us with this part too.

It is like a patient with a fibroid that may be standing in the way: the surgeon still has to take it out. Pain from being hurt again and again, until it becomes a wound in the heart that reopens and reopens, needs someone to treat and heal it too. Otherwise it may be the thing that makes us not want to walk on at all — don’t you think?

With any treatment, when we have tried it and it still has not taken us where we wanted to go, even the doctor has to adjust this and change that. Feelings are hard to change and hard to fix — but the way we look at them can be adjusted.

Whatever happens, I am cheering for every couple. Look after the body — and do not forget to look after the mind as well, both your own and that of the person beside you.

With love — Dr. Patsama Vichinsartvichai

Hands up if you are feeling disheartened