Counsellor Fiona Caine tackles your dilemmas

I have just started a new job and although I like the work, one woman is really getting on my nerves.

She’s in her 40s and spends her entire day going on about all the lovers she’s had, or is having. She even goes into pretty graphic descriptions, and frankly, I am finding it all very boring and disgusting. I have tried walking away but she follows me and carries on much as before. I don’t want to create a scene as I have just joined the company, but what can I do to get rid of her?

Fiona says

This isn’t an easy situation to deal with, especially as you are so new to the company. Unless you can make it clear to her how you feel, though, it won’t change. The next time she starts, say something like, “Please stop. It makes me uncomfortable hearing you talk about things I think should be private.”

Say it calmly but firmly and hopefully that will be the end of it. Also, talk to your other colleagues as it may be she’s picking on you because the others have already blanked her.

I’m desperate to have a baby

I’m 43 with two grown-up children from my first marriage. After the younger one was born I was sterilised but my marriage failed and two years ago I married again.

Because we both want children, we paid for me to have the operation reversed. I was warned there was no guarantee of success, but two years on and I am still not pregnant.

We can’t get any sense out of my doctor or the specialist and neither seems able or willing to say whether or not I will conceive. Is there anything else we could try?

Fiona says...

Sterilisation reversal is a tricky operation and even if everything is put back in place, it’s possible that things still don’t work as they used to. Successful reversal will depend, in part, on how the original sterilisation took place and how the reversal procedure was done. I suggest you ask your GP to refer you for a second opinion. It would be worth getting in touch with the Infertility Network – see infertilitynetworkuk.com which has all manner of helpful information that it would probably benefit you to browse through. You might, for example, be a suitable candidate for IVF.