Merkaz Panim provides support for those suffering from infertility and pregnancy loss.
By HANNAH KATSMANKady Harari at the yoga studio(photo credit: MICHA PAUL)
Merkaz Panim is located in a quiet, renovated apartment in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Rehavia. There’s no sign on the door and no reminder of the qualifications required to enter.Rachi Hain spoke with Metro about the non-profit organization she helped found in 2011.“My husband and I had our own small, brief and easily resolved glimpse of infertility,” recalls Hain, now a mother of nine.“Infertility can take over your body, your soul, your couplehood. There was very little out there for getting emotional and physical support. I wanted people going through treatment to have a place where their needs were recognized.”A trained social worker, Hain worked for seven years in the fertility clinic at Bikur Cholim Hospital. There she learned about the procedures, medications and the long process of conceiving through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).“For most couples, conceiving a baby is a private affair,” explains Hain. “But a woman undergoing IVF might have contact with 22 staff members – from the receptionist, to the lab technician, to the various doctors and nurses. Also, most treatments take place in a hospital, with everything that entails: the gowns that don’t close in the back, feeling sick, getting shots, side effects. Patients forget that they are healthy and strong. I have a lot of respect for doctors and nurses, who truly care, but they lack the time or resources to provide for other aspects of their clients’ needs.”Merkaz Panim founder Rachi Hain (photo credit: MICHA PAUL)Hain called the center Merkaz Panim because of the double meaning of the Hebrew word panim.“Over the years I have heard ‘no one looks at my face (panim), only at my belly or my charts,’” she told Metro.“I am saying that you have a face, you are someone.
Panim also means inside, and we want to remind clients that they have a world, they have a soul, a self.”The center receives three to six inquiries daily from individuals going through infertility treatment, or who have suffered pregnancy loss. They learn about the center by word of mouth, or are referred by fertility clinics or the Puah Institute, which specializes in Jewish laws relating to fertility. If eligible, clients can schedule up to six private yoga sessions, two sessions of holistic massage therapy, and seven sessions with a social worker. They pay a minimal fee to Merkaz Panim per session, while the therapists earn about 25% of their private fees. Afterward, clients can continue privately if they wish; the door is always open.Merkaz Panim is grateful to Joseph Gitler, the Jonas family and Yedidut Toronto, among others, who provide not only funds, but also encouragement and advice that help the center grow. The Knesset recently recognized Merkaz Panim for its contribution to women’s health in Israel .Hain emphasizes that the goal of Merkaz Panim is not to help women get pregnant.“Of course, we celebrate with them when they do,” she affirms. “But our aim is to help women cope with whatever difficulties they are having relating to infertility, medical treatments, pregnancy or loss. If a woman needs long-term or psychological therapy, we refer her elsewhere.”All treatment is one-on-one. Men are eligible for sessions with a social worker, including guided imagery offered by Sharon Bernstein. Guided imagery therapist Sharon Bernstein (photo credit: MICHA PAUL)“I’m not of the school that if you’re stressed you won’t get pregnant,” notes Hain. “Women feel guilty about being stressed. One client even showed me her ‘calming-down checklist.’ But infertility treatment is a stressful process. Coping doesn’t necessarily mean that the tension has gone away. I try to help them see the areas of their life in which they are functioning, and to accept themselves even when feeling stressed.”Nine therapists and teachers provide treatment to Merkaz Panim clients.“All of the staff understands the female body and the unique needs of our clients,” Hain says. “They know which physical symptoms to expect, and what areas might be particularly sensitive. We don’t offer touch therapy at all to pregnant women.”Couples going through infertility also face a paradox surrounding privacy.“They don’t want to talk about it,” Hain acknowledges.“But when couples keep their treatment a secret, they can’t get the support they need.”Hain recommends sharing with a carefully selected few, while maintaining boundaries. “Someone in treatment can say, ‘I want you to know we’re going through something, and we’ll let you know if there’s anything important,’” suggests Hain.Yoga teacher Kady Harari made aliya from Brooklyn in 1999. After yoga helped her with back issues, she attended a teacher training course.“I only wanted to help myself; I wasn’t planning to teach,” recalls Harari. “I sat quietly in the back of the class. But after the course I couldn’t keep it to myself, and my teacher suggested Merkaz Panim. Rachi sends me women going through fertility treatment, or after miscarriage or stillbirth.”“Merkaz Panim speaks to me because my husband and I don’t have children ourselves,” says Harari.“I know the tension all too well. It gives me a lot of satisfaction that I’m helping women release their stress, tension, sadness, failure, anxiety, anger. Every emotion in the gamut. I want to give them tools for life, whatever the outcome.“The yoga that I do is very gentle, very restorative,” she says. “We don’t want to give them another challenge in their life. I see the difference, the calmness in their face, their body language at the end of a session.”She praises Hain for the creation of Merkaz Panim.“Rachi is amazing and so inspiring. These women don’t have cancer or debilitating disease. It’s not something to take for granted, I know it firsthand. I’m very proud to be part of her organization.”A former client, Talia (not her real name), heard about Merkaz Panim from a friend going through fertility treatment. “I’d been struggling with infertility for a few years,” Talia told Metro, “but I felt I was managing okay. I finally succeeded with IVF, but my twins were born too early to survive. Then I had to somehow gain the courage and stamina to return to fertility treatments after my loss, and that’s when I turned to Merkaz Panim.“I desperately wanted a living child after losing my twins,” says Talia, “but my fear of being pregnant, and also whether I would even be able to get pregnant again and what getting to that point would entail, was pretty overwhelming. I was also trying to cope with my grief at the same time and feel physically like myself again.“Going to Merkaz Panim was something I was able to do for myself to work through these feelings. Rachi really helped me to reach the point where I was able to walk back into the fertility clinic. It also meant a lot to me and gave validation to my struggles that such a service existed and that other people had recognized the need for such an important support service.”Since then, Talia has given birth to three healthy children, including twins.Minda Miller, who made aliya about 15 years ago from Miami, has provided massage treatments to clients referred by Merkaz Panim in her Jerusalem clinic over the last five years.Like Hain, Miller stresses that Merkaz Panim does not offer fertility treatment.“Women come in and say, relaxing will help me get pregnant, right?” quips Miller. “My answer is to stop being so willing to take the blame! Tense women get pregnant too! Of course everyone will raise a toast if something we do brings them closer to bringing a new baby into the world, but our work is supporting their process.Elana Mizrachi, massage therapist (photo credit: MICHA PAUL)“They are dealing with their fertility, their cycles and their doctors, the stresses of waiting and wishing and wondering. And so often it is a story of dealing with loss. My work helps women remember to love themselves, stop blaming themselves, connect to themselves, and remember that it isn’t only about the end results. This time now is important too.”So how can a massage accomplish all that? “Just making the appointment through Merkaz Panim is saying yes,” replies Miller. “By recognizing that there is a framework of care for women going through things like this. ‘I am being helped, people have gone through this before, I am not alone.’ That is an important message. Then there is the ‘one-two punch’ of talk therapy and the bodywork, yoga and massage, offered by Merkaz Panim. According to Dr.Bessel von der Kolk’s work on post-traumatic stress syndrome, the two are a powerful combination for deep healing, and accomplish together what they cannot accomplish alone.”Miller points out that women undergoing treatment are inundated with invasive procedures.“Medical thinking says their body needs fixing,” she explains. “One client said to me, ‘I come for a massage after every doctor’s appointment so that my body doesn’t get the wrong message. I want it to remember that touch is kind.’” Merkaz Panim’s clients come from a variety of backgrounds.“One day last summer I serendipitously had three Merkaz Panim women back to back,” remembers Miller.“One was a single woman living with her boyfriend in the Tel Aviv area, beginning her third round of fertility treatments. The second was a married religious woman who had just had her third miscarriage, and the third woman was an extremely observant woman who’d given birth to a stillborn baby a few weeks before. That really drove home the importance of the work we’re doing, the need across Israeli society.”Infertility doesn’t have to be the focus of a couple’s existence.“Even though you are using intervention,” Hain reminds women suffering from infertility, “it is still you getting pregnant. Our clients are about more than their infertility. Your body is still a healthy body, a beautiful body.”Contact Merkaz Panim at 050-430-0147 or info@merkazpanim-fertility.org.il