The journey of infertility involves the psychological as well as the medical, the emotional as well as the physical, the mind and the body.

We, at the MRC, are committed to ensuring that all these aspects of a patient’s well-being are met. We therefore have onsite a Reproductive Health Psychologist who is an expert in infertility counseling and a psychiatrist.

Psychological services include couple and sexual counseling, stress-management, cognitive behavioral therapies, infertility-related counseling, interventions for depression and anxiety disorders, assessment and evaluation and psycho-education.

Our mental heath team will help patients reduce the level of stress associated with treatment and infertility. Psychosocial research has shown that the most stressful points during the IVF process are days leading up to retrieval, waiting for pregnancy results, dealing with an unsuccessful cycle and decision making regarding next steps. Even a positive pregnancy test can cause anxious feelings in concert with obvious excitement. Specific counseling strategies have been designed to help patients cope with these stages of IVF, which our patients are encouraged to avail themselves of.

In addition, counseling can facilitate coping with such overwhelming feelings of sadness, anger or blame, modify maladaptive lifestyle choices like smoking or poor nutrition and address the short- and long-term implications of having children with donated gametes or other alternatives to natural conception. Compelling research evidence has indicated that higher pregnancy rates occur in patients who are less burdened by the emotional challenges of infertility and its treatment.

The law in Canada mandates that all patients using assisted reproductive techniques must see an infertility counselor prior to treatment. To demonstrate our full support of this requirement we offer a one-hour couple or individual session with our counseling expert at no additional charge to the patient. Subsequent sessions are offered at a reduced rate.