We speak with Fertility Coach Tanja Faessler-Moro about her work and how she supports individuals and couples who wish to conceive, whether they have been trying for a while or just want to take a more holistic approach to conception.
Fertility is a complex topic. Fertility challenges are become increasingly more common worldwide. They are also talked about more these day with more and more couples seeking help. The road to conception can be more bumpy and emotionally-charged than some people realize. This makes fertility coaching a valuable service to women and men wanting to be biological parents or co-parents.
Seeking help, especially outside conventional mainstream allopathic medical field, also allows individuals and couples to address underlying non-medical imbalances and issues. This is an opportunity for people to gain a wider and different perspective that can only enhance their overall well-being.
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What is a Fertility Coach?
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A Fertility Coach supports both individuals and couples with their fertility-related mental and emotional challenges that might be part of the reason for unsuccessful pregnancies.
Clients who come see me can have an explained or unexplained medical issue. It can be feeling tired of the whole fertility journey, irregular menstruation, irregular ovulation, low follicles growth, low sperm and/or egg quality, post-natal depression, burn-out..
I have lots of practical solutions and models and so I am a resource centre for any fertility-related topics.
As a Fertility Coach, I am genuinely interested in my clients as individuals, and the baggage they carry.
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Why Did You Decide to Do Fertility Coaching?
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I discovered my passion for coaching others in one of my previous roles within the Finance industry. Ever since I truly enjoyed coaching others and seeing how they achieved those incredible results that made them feel so much better. Be it career, change management, leadership or relationship/family topics.
After my own fertility struggles, I realized how much it isolated me and affected my quality of life. Only when I started talking more openly about my challenges, I suddenly discovered that I wasn’t alone but in fact, so many of my friends and colleagues had faced similar challenges during their fertility journey.
When the opportunity came up, I just had to go for it as I wanted to offer women and couples the kind of support that I didn’t have when going through my own roller coaster ride.
After my own fertility struggles, I realized how much it isolated me and affected my quality of life. Only when I started talking more openly about my challenges, I suddenly discovered that I wasn’t alone but in fact, so many of my friends and colleagues had faced similar challenges during their fertility journey.
Tanja Faessler-Moro
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What are the More Common Challenges You are Seeing?
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I see two main challenges. First, the delayed family planning due to better career opportunities for women. Second, a general assumption that there will be a pregnancy as soon as couples start trying for a baby. Conception cannot be controlled. So when there is no pregnancy after trying for some time, the uncertainty might give way to anxiety and eventually stress. Stress can be then further exacerbated by the social environment (expectations of family members, friends having kids, etc), intensive job situations, and the numerous appointments with medical specialists during a fertility journey.
Stress is definitely the number one challenge, followed by the decrease of life quality and inner balance.
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What Do You Feel are the Top Misconceptions About Fertility?
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Some of my clients have put their lives “on hold” for years while trying for a baby. They have eliminated all kinds of things they liked to do because they think it will prevent them from getting pregnant. For example, they stopped doing sports or going out for dinners with friends. Or they may have quit their job to stay home and wait for the pregnancy to happen. If the fertility journey remains unsuccessful over a long period of time, people often start feeling frustrated and unhappy.
Fertility should not be about elimination but rather embracement.
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Women are always reminded of their biological clock. How Do You Address That and Do You Have Any Cases That May Add a Different Perspective?
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As always in life, there are different perceptions and perspectives. Statistics and correlations between age, egg quality, and successful pregnancies might be of help to get a broad picture about the meaning of the “biological clock”. I always remind my clients that we are all individuals with individual biological clocks.
Some people may feel guilty because they have emphasized their careers over the past ten years instead of thinking about family planning. During our sessions, we discuss the meaning of time, get the focus back on their current and future life, draft a plan, and look at things that need to be in place to let them enjoy life again. Once they start feeling happier with their life, perspectives start shifting on their own.
I remember in particular one client who was feeling despair and hopelessness when told she was basically in a menopause state. At 31. She had gone through six rounds of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Only few of her follicles grew despite taking the highest hormone dosage. There were no eggs for retrieval at all in her last two IVF’s.
The gynae advised her to think about other options like egg donation, surrogacy, and adoption. This put her even more into a panic.
When she came to see me, she was so under pressure with her biological clock that she wanted to continue with IVF the next month to not lose time. At the end of the first session, we agreed to take a break of three months from any fertility treatments and to focus on her follicles as a primary goal by applying clinical Hypnotherapy to ease the mental and emotional stress.
In her next round of IVF, she produced seven beautiful follicles, of which six fertilized. We were all so excited about it and her gynae even called me to ask what I had done!
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Your philosophy is holistic and you have a network of practitioners you work with. How Do the Other Modalities You have Chosen Support Your Clients?
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Depending on the support that is needed, I have seen very positive results with Traditional Chinese Medicine, meditative Yoga, herbal teas and treatments, nutritional consultation, Jin Shin Jyutsu, etc. The network of the practitioners I work with all have experience with fertility challenges and have gained positive results with their clients. They are experts and are honest about how they can help and what their limitations are. As a rule of thumb, I always like to try out a session first with these practitioners, before referring my clients.
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How Do You Know You are Ready to Take up Fertility Coaching?
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People are motivated by different reasons. They may have heard about positive results from a friend or they are simply curious how Fertility Coaching can help. They may just be ready for a different approach, maybe becoming more empowered to make informed decisions. A way to find a relief and a break from the mental and emotional roller coaster.
It is never “too late” or even “too early” to look after one’s well-being. Feeling serene and calm is both possible and positive when on a fertility journey.
Tanja Faessler-Moro of Fertility Coaching offers support to individuals and couples who are planning to conceive or have been trying for some time, either naturally or via fertility treatment.
Her 1-on-1 sessions focus on the mental and emotional support, as well as empowering clients with a set of tools to make informed decisions.
Enjoy a What Therapy Reader Promotion with Tanja – receive a free 30-minute consultation and an additional 60 minute session (worth S$260) when you sign a 6-session package. Offer valid until December 20 2013. Just let her know you are a What Therapy Reader.
