CARE
FOR FERTILITY
CAREGIVERS
Being a fertility care provider is important work. Whether you’re manning the front desk, processing labs, are part of the nursing team, or the MD calling the shots, this page is a heartfelt thank you from me to you!
I invite you to explore the custom resources below that I’ve curated especially for you. I hope they lighten your workload and make your life feel a little more zen.
Please feel free to share this page with your colleagues. The more health, balance, and abundance each of us has, the better work we do and the healthier the world we share.
With gratitude,
TIPPING YOUR SCALES
Turning off work or life stress is not an option. But the good news is I’ve got a technique that works nearly as well and it can be done — easily! Check out this video for a way to rethink stress. It’s totally customized for fertility pros like you.
SETTING WORK BOUNDARIES
In just a couple of mindful minutes each day, you can dramatically decrease the amount of stress that comes home with you. If you internalize or take home work-stress, give this exercise a try!
Try these steps.
Pick an item of clothing or accessory you’ll only wear to work
As you put on your item briefly pause and take one or two breaths
Imagine the item becoming your magical armor or protective amulet*
Go to work
When facing your work stressors remember you’re wearing your magic item
Remind yourself that stress doesn’t have to sink in or go home with you — if it’s helpful you can picture the item giving off a force-field or protective bubble
When work is over take off the item
Pause for another breath or two
Take a moment to appreciate feeling less stress and how this item helped you.**
Repeat whenever you work
Eventually you may not need the item anymore — good boundaries are a habit worth cultivating
* This may feel a bit “out there” at first, but you’re really just setting an intentional boundary and using a prop to help you hold it. Obviously the item is just a pair of socks, or a bracelet, or even scrubs. There’s no real magic here aside from how much better it can help you feel!
** If you’ve had an especially hard day and some stress has still managed to follow you home, consider a second ritual to release and let go. Wash your hands or take a shower and visualize the stress going down the drain, or take five minutes to journal and purge the thoughts and feelings onto the page.
COMPASSIONATE LANGUAGE GUIDE
Do you wish you could more easily connect with and support patients? Preferably in a way that doesn’t add to your workload? Using compassionate and validating language is a simple way to do just that. Check out this simple guide to get started.
Try compassion and validation.
When fertility caregivers choose compassionate and validating language, it's both protective of their patients’ emotional health and conducive to strong patient and provider relationships. Too much cheerleading and positivity on the other hand, tend to further distance and isolate patients from their caregiving team and can cause unintended emotional harm.
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Try “This is intense. How are you doing?”
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Try “None of this is effort-based or fair.”
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Try, “It’s ok to feel sad or guarded or afraid. I promise, hard feelings won’t jinx this.”
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Try, “Crying is a powerful release. It’s ok to have a good cry.” [then hand tissue}
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Try, “These hormones are intense. You deserve lots of TLC right now.”
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Try, “What you’re feeling is totally normal.”
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Try, “It’s so hard to not know. The unknown is the worst.”
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Try, “No matter how this ends, you’re resilient and brave and doing everything you can.”
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Try, “It’s important to give yourself permission to grieve.”
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Try, “Fertility treatments are a powerful tool, but no one wants to go through infertility.”
Compassionate and validating language can feel vulnerable at first. Stick with it and practice. The many benefits will be abundantly clear and well-worth the temporary growing pains! And if you like this idea, look up the online article Please Don’t Tell Me To Look On The Bright Side | by Amy Spencer.
A GUIDED MEDITATION
Some days are harder than others. If you’re feeling particularly overwhelmed, frazzled, or just want to build up your buffer for future hard days, this Finding Your Roots guided meditation is worth a listen.
BIG-PICTURE PATIENT SUPPORT
If you feel like whole-person support, education, reframes, and resources like the ones you’ve learned here would be great for your patients, I’d love to invite you to share my online fertility courses and the many accompanying fertility-specific resources I’ve created.
Shareable Videos
Specifically for fertility patients
IVF Insider
In-depth online IVF course
The Baby You Want
Whole-you online fertility course
And if you’d like to connect with me to arrange holistic virtual or in-person education opportunities for your caregiving team, have a topic you’d like to suggest for future videos, pitch a guest author article for my blog, or otherwise collaborate — send me an email.