For You

This one is just for you. Not the logistics, not your partner, not what to tell your family. Just an acknowledgement of what you might be going through. IVF asks a lot of you emotionally, but there’s good mixed in there too. Here’s what tends to come up at various stages, along with a few things that might help. Jump to wherever you might be.

Jump to:

• Even thinking about it
• Fertility and infertility
• Getting started: the shots and the grind
• The two-week wait
• When a cycle works
• When it doesn’t

Even thinking about it

Before any of the medical part begins, there’s the deciding, and that alone can bring up a lot of feels. For us, we felt relieved at finally doing something, anxious about what we might find, excited for what the future might hold, and worried it might be too late. All of that can sit together at once. And none of it means anything is wrong, or that you’re going about it wrong.

There’s also a good bit that’s easy to miss. Choosing to even look into IVF is a big step. It’s one of the biggest steps! So be proud of yourself for that. Plus, deciding to actually do something can feel steadying, even brave. It still counts as a win.

Fertility and infertility

Somewhere during this whole process you may get answers about your body, or you may not. A diagnosis can land hard, even when part of you wanted one, because it makes things feel real and permanent. Not getting a clear answer, the dreaded “unexplained,” can be its own kind of frustration. You blame your body, or regret choices you made years ago. As best you can, try to talk to yourself how you might talk to a friend in the same situation. Your body isn’t a betrayal. It’s doing something genuinely hard.

And learning what’s going on, even when the news isn’t what you hoped, often comes with a strange relief. Being able to name something or put words to something takes away the mystery and gives you a starting point and direction. It turns this weird free-floating dread into something you can actually do something about.

Getting started: the shots and the grind

Once treatment starts, life can fill up fast: injections, early-morning monitoring, bloodwork, and all their physical and emotional side effects. The hormones can swing your moods in ways that catch you off guard. It’s a lot, and it’s okay to find it exhausting.

Give yourself permission to lower the bar. Some days the whole win is getting to the appointment and ordering takeout after. Once you find the rhythm of it, the routine itself can start to feel steadying. And celebrate the little victories along the way! Doing your first injection, finishing your injections, a good monitoring appointment, a follicle count headed in the right direction. A win is a win, no matter how big or small.

The two-week wait

After an embryo transfer, there’s a stretch of around two weeks before a test gives answers. People often say this is the hardest part. It sounds short but it does not feel short. And while waiting can feel like you’re doing nothing, doing nothing can often be the most tiring. Not to mention being physically tired!

Your care team will provide you with a list of common symptoms and side effects. Try not to Google every twinge you feel. Early pregnancy signs and side effects from the procedure and medications often look identical and won’t give much insight. If there’s something really out of the ordinary, of course always reach out to a professional.

Reddit is a coin toss. It can either be super helpful or super unhelpful. It can make you feel less lonely and more hopeful to hear other’s success stories, or it can amplify anxieties hearing about other’s anxieties. So take it for what it is. If it helps, great, keep reading. If it doesn’t help, it’s just other people’s experiences, there are plenty of other experiences not written on Reddit.

And try not to take a home pregnancy test during the wait. Testing too early can give a misleading result, since the trigger shot can still be in your system and read as a false positive. And it may simply be too soon to detect anything anyway. Stick to the plan you and your team came up with. Give your days some structure and distractions. Take walks, binge watch the show you’ve been putting off, order some McDonald’s fries, the time will pass as it always does. It’s just waiting. You’ve done it a million times. Just take it one day at a time.

When a cycle works

A positive result can bring a rush of relief and joy. Yes! Celebrate! Enjoy the excitement and the love and the win! It can also bring up feelings you didn’t expect: a guard you’re scared to lower, anxiety that it won’t hold, even leftover grief from everything it took to get here. If your happiness arrives with a knot of fear inside it, that’s totally normal. After what you’ve been through, cautious is a reasonable way to feel. As well as everything else going on for you.

Let yourself have the good moment, as much of it as you can hold. You’re allowed to be happy. And it’s also okay if the joy is quieter or more tangled than you once pictured it. Both of those can be true at the same time.

When it doesn’t

A failed cycle is beyond hard. You might feel grief, anger, numbness, or a flat nothing at all. People may rush you toward “next time” or “at least you learned something,” and even when they mean well, you don’t have to accept that framing or hurry past your own feelings to make anyone else comfortable.

Give yourself room to be a mess. Cancel things if you need to. You do not have to decide anything today, this week, or until you’re ready. If the heaviness settles in and won’t lift, or starts to feel like more than sadness, please talk to someone about it. You don’t have to carry all that by yourself. Know that you are not alone, even though it can feel like it.

If you’re looking for support beyond these pages, like fertility support groups or a counselor who specializes in this, we’ve gathered a few good places to start over on our Emotions page.