A Guide to Staying Healthy When Helping Others with Infertility
Whether you’ve decided to become a sperm or egg donor, or you’re willing to be a surrogate for those in need, it’s important that you don’t sacrifice your own health and that you’re able to put yourself first. If you’re struggling to perfect the balance and are starting to feel under pressure, here are some of the top steps that you should take to stay as fit as possible when you’re helping other people to get the child of their dreams.
1. Get Financial Compensation
You might believe that you won’t be able to stay healthy when you’re helping others with infertility because you might believe that it will put pressure on your own bank account and that you’ll be less well off than usual. However, this isn’t the case, and helping others with infertility shouldn’t have a negative effect on your financial situation.
For instance, if you decide that you want to become a surrogate, you’ll be able to get some compensation, and this can become a great source of income for you. This will enable your good deed to be worth the risks and safety issues that falling pregnant for someone else could bring. In fact, you could make up to $72,000, although this depends on your location and where you currently live.
To make sure that you’re able to get the money that you deserve as a surrogate, it’s important that you research this thoroughly and find an organization that can sort out the surrogate mother pay that you need to thrive. This will enable you to get all the healthy foods and products that you require, to give up work to look after yourself, and will mean that you’re not constantly worrying about how you’re going to manage while you’re a surrogate.
2. Eat a Healthy Diet
If you are trying to help others get pregnant, it is important that you can stay healthy yourself, or else you might find that you are no good to them and that you need to take a break. This is the case even if you are just working for a charity that deals with infertility.
However, if you have taken your need to help others one step further and have become a surrogate or a donor, it is vital that you eat well. This will enable you to meet the requirements for these practices and will ensure that you are able to stay fit and glowing throughout the process.
For instance, if you are getting pregnant yourself, then you’ll need to eat foods that can benefit pregnant women, as well as those that are fresh. You should also avoid raw meat, unpasteurized cheese, and liver products as these could cause food poisoning or a bacterial infection and have an impact on the baby’s development.
3. Research the Risks
When you’re helping others get pregnant, it’s important that you thoroughly research the risks of the steps that you’re taking to do this. Not only will this help you to prepare for the risks and minimize them, but it will ensure that you’re aware of what could happen and how what you are doing could affect you in the future. For instance, if you are becoming a surrogate, you will be exposed to many of the usual risks of pregnancy, and these could impact your fertility in the future or become life-threatening.
Once you are aware of the dangers, though, you will be able to make the right decision for you and decide whether you are healthy and strong enough to commit to the actions that you want to take.
4. Look After Your Mind
Your mental health is important, and yet this can be severely affected by helping others with infertility. For instance, helping others might trigger difficult memories of your own journey with infertility. You might not even be able to donate eggs or sperm if you have mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, as these procedures might worsen your condition and leave you struggling.
If you have decided to become a surrogate, though, the effects on your mind can be even greater, and you might find that you develop antenatal or postpartum depression. For instance, you might develop mental health issues because you’ve hidden the surrogacy from others or have had to give up the baby that you have spent the last nine months carrying. You might also find that you’re constantly stressed, especially if you’re having second thoughts or if you have found that the family of the baby is interfering or trying to control what you do.
If this is the case, you should make sure that you follow self-care practices, like going for walks in nature and doing meditation for pregnant women, and that you also visit a doctor or a therapist to talk about how you’re feeling if it’s having a negative impact on you.
You should also try and get as much support as you can from others, including practical support in the form of completing chores like cleaning and cooking. This can also benefit your physical health as you won’t be rushing around so much.
5. Rest When You Need To
The pressure of helping others can put a lot of physical and mental strain on you, and this might leave you feeling tired. This is especially the case if you are a surrogate, as you will have the added exhaustion of growing a baby inside you.
This means that you should listen to your body and rest when it tells you to without feeling guilty or as if you are not being as productive as you would like to be. You should also take time off work when you need to, and even give up work altogether when you get closer to the predicted birth date of your child. This is especially the case if you have started to develop other health issues that are related to your pregnancy.
