These days we can find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place. We know a lot more than we ever did about children and their needs but our world has changed. Many of us want to have children but are passionate about a career, or really need to continue to work to meet all the expenses of modern life. Many really don’t want to have a family but find it hard to say so, or find themselves at odds with their partner. And many decide to wait until the time seems right, but then have difficulty conceiving.
These are just some of the issues that people face. Prenatal counselling can be a good idea to consider these and other problems, for example:
- Do we want to have a baby?
- What is the reality of a baby in the family?
- What do babies need from us?
- How can we prepare ourselves?
Maybe you made all these decisions, constructed a dream, and now the baby is here – but somehow the joy you expected has not come with this tiny creature. Life is hard, you’re always tired, there’s no space for you to be you any more. We can talk about:
- Finding it hard to love your baby
- Adjustment from the old life to this demanding new one
- Post birth trauma
- Postnatal depression
- Losses – in health, yours or your baby’s; of the perfect pregnancy; of the imagined birth; of the plan to breastfeed; of your life as a couple
- Being a Dad is lonely and there seems to be no room for me
- I am worried by all that is expected of me as a Dad
Or there may have come to you a great grief. The loss of a baby is an unspeakable thing but it must be spoken and it must be endured, perhaps for much longer or more deeply than those around you expect. Not alone though.
“Give sorrow words.
The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.”
(William Shakespeare)
