Vicky Parkin

Vicky is a specialist infertility counsellor. She trained as a general counsellor and is a member of the BACP.

After completing her training she undertook additional learning to specialise in infertility and is an accredited member of BICA (British Infertility Counselling Association).  She is  also on the BICA executive committee.

Vicky feels counselling can be seen as a scary word – some people think feel it implies they can’t cope – this she feels couldn’t be further from the truth. She prefers to think of it as support at a very difficult time, her own personal journey taught her just how helpful this type of help can be.

She believes the diagnosis of infertility can often feel like a life crisis. It may be very difficult to come to terms with and it is completely normal to experience feelings of distress, loss, grief, anxiety, sadness, isolation and frustration. Vicky feels all these feelings can be overwhelming and difficult to deal with. Infertility can affect all your relationships – including the relationship with you partner, with relatives, friends and even colleagues at work. Additionally your self-esteem and sexual relationships may take a battering.

Counselling is vital, it gives you a confidential safe space and some support during what may be a very difficult time. Furthermore Vicky strongly believes infertility counselling can often be a great stress reliever, which, of course, can only help during a treatment cycle.

It can be quite practical, she will look at strategies that can be put in place to cope with a treatment cycle, things that will make it more manageable, including making a plan for the infamous two week wait. As an infertility counsellor Vicky has observed that men and women often deal with fertility issues very differently, it seems to her that women often feel very isolated and have a great need to talk about “things” again and again. It’s a way of coming to terms with what is happening and a way of processing information.

Counselling can provide the support to enable this to happen. Men on the other hand Vicky feels seem to like to talk about something briefly and find it hard to understand why this rather painful “thing” needs to be discussed again and again. This is of course a huge generalisation and each person is different – there is no right or wrong way of coping!

Counselling can be a way of acknowledging you have different needs and getting the support that is right for you. Vicky realises when you are having treatment time is often of the essence and with this in mind she offers Skype and telephone sessions. She feels this makes counselling much more accessible and flexible, she offers early morning and evening sessions to help accommodate your needs.

If you are a CRGH patient and would like to arrange an appointment with Vicky, please contact us at [email protected]