How to understand this when you cannot get pregnant Sometimes it happens that a woman suffering from infertility is very focused on getting pregnant, and does not think much about whether she needs a child at all and why. She once decided that she was needed, and was carried away by the implementation of her decision. It turns out that if you are unable to get pregnant, the wrong motivation can create the very tension in your body that prevents pregnancy. Let's first figure out what the motivation for having a child might be. Here are some of the most common examples: 1. Compliance with public opinion and the implementation of public or family attitudes such as: “There should be children in the family”, “Children are our everything”, “You need to live for children”, “A woman cannot be happy without a child.”2. Compliance with your own self-image, your “ideal picture” of yourself, for example: “I always achieve my goals”, “I deserve to be a mother”, “It’s time for me to give birth”, etc.3. A way of self-realization and increasing self-esteem, that is, a child is a way to increase self-esteem, so that there is something to praise oneself for and something to be proud of, or to feel no worse than others.4. A child as a way to influence a relationship with a partner: to achieve love and recognition, to save a marriage, to force someone to get married.5. A child as a gift, repayment of a debt or as salvation for older parents. Your parents are asking for grandchildren, and so that they can finally be happy and calm down, you want to give birth to a baby. Or so that your parents no longer suffer from loneliness and unfulfillment.6. A child is like an escape from loneliness, that there was always someone nearby.7. Guarantee of a comfortable old age, so that “there is someone to give a glass of water.”8. Improving the financial situation, for example, at the expense of the child’s father or maternal capital.9. Very rarely, as improving a woman’s health. Back in Soviet times, there was a myth that pregnancy heals and rejuvenates a woman’s body. Doctors have long come to the conclusion that this is far from true.10. The desire to have a child: to be with him, communicate, play, care, educate, help, guide, love. Psychologists believe that only the last option of motivation, i.e. for the sake of the child himself, contributes to the rapid onset of pregnancy. Numerous life examples indicate the opposite: pregnancy often occurs with completely inadequate motivation. My opinion is that motivation does not always play a key role in matters of reproduction. Moreover, this is a gainful matter - you can want a child for its own sake not only during pregnancy, but also after its birth and some contact with it. So... If you are faced with infertility, it is important to check what your leading motivation is to get pregnant and give birth to a child. Inadequate leading motivation can serve as a factor of extreme stress for your body, and thereby inhibit the onset of pregnancy. It can also lead you to postpartum depression, when it turns out that you have a baby, but there is no expected joy, because what you really wanted was something completely different. How does this happen, if through pregnancy it is planned to solve some other tasks, in addition to the birth of a child, and these tasks are very important, then perhaps it is this substitution that prevents the onset of pregnancy. Thus, pregnancy, necessary, for example, to retain a man, may not occur due to strong feelings about the departure of this man. The body cannot be deceived, so a woman’s resources will be unconsciously mobilized to solve the most important task - to keep a man, and there may simply not be any left for pregnancy. And the action, seemingly aimed at fulfilling this main task, actually distracts from it. Instead of solving problems in a relationship with a man, a woman spends effort on trying to get pregnant, and these attempts are rather an obstacle to the main task. For example: Imagine that you are really hungry. What does your body do at such moments? Notes in every possible way inthe surrounding world of grocery stores and donut stands, catches the aromas of fresh bread and lattes from the nearest coffee shop. And you decide that an excellent way out of the situation would be to buy new boots. And instead of a supermarket or cafe, you go to a shoe store. What will stop you from choosing and buying boots? Hunger, constantly reminding itself. Will you be able to forget about hunger while enthusiastically choosing boots? I doubt it. The situation may worsen further. Problems in relationships with a man are not solved because “the child will help us,” but pregnancy does not occur. Stress increases over time, and this factor, in turn, reduces the likelihood of pregnancy itself. And even if pregnancy eventually occurs and the child is born, problems in the relationship will most likely not be resolved and will even increase. The birth of a child is a test for a relationship as many aspects of a couple's life change. And this may not contribute to strengthening the relationship, but provoke its final break or lead to postpartum depression. What to do? It is important to note that too strong or excessive motivation, in which inadequate motivation predominates, i.e. points 1 to 9 above, may prevent pregnancy for this reason. If your expectations from life are such that the child must solve several actual problems at once, then the importance of your goal (getting pregnant) increases so much that failure threatens severe frustration. At the beginning of the last century, this pattern was independently described by American psychologists Yerkes and Dodson; since then this pattern has been referred to as the Yerkes-Dodson law. According to this law, to achieve success, an optimal (or, more simply put, moderate, average) level of motivation is required; an excess of it is just as bad as a lack of it. And the more complex the task to be solved, the lower the level of motivation is optimal for its successful solution. Thus, the body of a woman who is extremely focused on getting pregnant, instead of relaxing so that pregnancy can occur, reacts to tension as if it were a danger. As a result of stress, it is mobilized, and the functioning of the reproductive organs is suppressed. How to check what your leading motivation for pregnancy is, and whether you have that correct motivation “for the sake of the child”? Here are some recommendations to help you explore and adjust your motivation: 1. Start planning your pregnancy, namely, taking some actions that contribute to its onset. Go to the doctor, get tested, stop using protection. Sometimes, to understand whether we want something, we just need to start moving towards what we want and see how our desire changes: increases or decreases. If your excitement about having a baby diminishes as you do things to make it happen, then perhaps you don't want the baby all that much.2. Try to answer these questions: why do I want a child? Are there other problems in my life that my child is unwittingly destined to solve? Are there any other solutions without the child's participation? Try to take action to address these unmet needs. Notice how your emotional state changes and how your motivation for pregnancy changes.3. Imagine a future situation: you are already pregnant or have a child. Sometimes this is quite difficult without experience, but you can talk to a friend who has a baby, or watch mothers on the playground and try to imagine yourself in their place. Check your feelings: what emotions does this bring? If there is no joy in them at all or fears, doubts and other negative emotions are stronger, then this means that perhaps another need is more important. Then you need to realize it and find a more effective way to satisfy it.4. If you have identified your inadequate motivation, then try the following exercise. Introduce yourself.