In this video I would like to focus on chronic stress in a different way. I’m hoping it will shed a new light for you.

In the last video, I talked about internal and external stressor and how emotional the fertility journey is.

To give you alternative perspective on stress triggers, we can say stress is caused by a threat or an opportunity to our dreams, hopes and desires. Say what?? An opportunity can be a stressor? Yup.

Let’s start with understanding a “internal threat”.   It is the most predominant and triggering component on the journey.

An “internal threat” is actually not a threat to our survival nor your physical wellbeing.  You don’t need to be running away from the tiger.  Nothing from the outside is a threat to your survival.  Rather, a “threat” is perceived in how you thought of yourself, planned your life and how it should look as being a mother.

The threat is mostly felt and thought about in our heart/soul/being and mind.  For me, I define heart as the deep calling in our bodies and into our cells to be a mother.

Internal threat involves the mind and heart perceiving a thread to our wellbeing.

The mind part is more analytical and involves thoughts like:

  • How will I work and do IVF at the same time?
  • How do I put my life on hold while waiting to get pregnant?
  • What will happen if IVF fails?
  • What will happen to my relationship?

The heart component involves more of deep set of feelings:

  • Loss of hope.
  • Loss in trusting our bodies will work.
  • Loss of dreams, hopes.
  • Loss of who we will be or become.

These are very profound questions women are faced with as they try to conceive. Some women go on the journey for an extended period of time and are continually confronting these difficult thoughts.  The journey for them can be a challenge as they are under long-term stress.

I believe infertility stress is not properly acknowledged in our society.  These stress points can potential effect how you will move forward in your life.  In fact, the fertility journey is one of the top ten stressors – I believe around 3 or 4 – that a couple can experience.

Since conception is easy for many women, it can be hard for some to understand how hard the journey can be.  The calling to be a mother goes to the core of our being. It makes our cells vibrate. Our brain is overwhelmed with what is going on (depending on the internal or external trigger). This journey is a threat to our whole being. The consequences of not getting pregnant are HUGE. It means changing so much of who we are and how think we will be.

Interestingly, when we look at the internal and external stress list – we can see a cross over with internal threats. A threat is certainly a major contributor of stress.

In my next video, I’m going to discuss how an opportunity is a stressor in the fertility journey.