OviflowOviflow
Blog
Get early access
Back to all posts
6 min read

The Emotional Weight of IVF That Nobody Prepares You For

Dan

Everyone talks about the medical side of IVF. Protocols, doses, blood work, ultrasounds. Nobody prepares you for what happens in your head and in your heart.

The lowest point wasn’t where we expected

We would have thought the hardest moment is after a failure. When you get the news that the embryos didn’t survive. When the pregnancy test is negative. When the cycle didn’t work.

And yes, those moments are devastating. But for my wife, the hardest moment was before each new cycle.

Before starting a cycle, there’s a preparation period. Medically, it’s simple - blood work, baseline ultrasound, waiting for the period. But psychologically, it’s a nightmare.

It’s the moment you realize you’re starting over. Again. With the same injections, the same drives to the clinic, the same fragile hopes and the same immense fear. And with the memory of every previous failure weighing on your shoulders.

What it looked like in practice

For my wife, the period before each cycle was marked by:

  • Constant anxiety - intrusive thoughts about what could go wrong, catastrophic scenarios, inability to focus on anything else
  • Emotional eating - food became a coping mechanism, the only thing that still offered a form of immediate comfort
  • Isolation - she didn’t want to see people, didn’t want to answer well-meaning but painful questions like “so, are you planning to have kids?”
  • Depressive symptoms - lack of energy, lack of motivation, persistent sadness, crying for no apparent reason
  • Insomnia - nights spent thinking about what will be or what has been

We’re not talking about “passing sadness.” We’re talking about a pattern that repeated itself, cycle after cycle, year after year.

The invisible pressure

There’s pressure that comes from the outside and pressure that comes from within. Both are crushing.

From the outside:

  • Family and friends constantly asking “so, when’s the baby coming?”
  • Friends getting pregnant seemingly without effort
  • Social media full of baby bumps, births, and newborns
  • Well-meaning but devastating comments: “just relax and it’ll happen naturally,” “maybe it wasn’t meant to be,” “everything happens for a reason”

From within:

  • The sense of failure - “why isn’t it working for us?”
  • Guilt - “maybe if I’d done something differently, if I’d been healthier, if…”
  • Loss of identity - IVF becomes the only thing you think about, the only topic, the only purpose
  • Fear of hoping - after multiple failures, it becomes increasingly hard to believe it will work

What happens to the relationship

We won’t sugarcoat it: IVF tests a relationship in ways you can’t imagine.

There are moments when you’re on the same page and moments when you’re not even speaking the same language. Moments when you both cry together and moments when one is “fine” and the other is falling apart, and you don’t understand why.

There’s also a fundamental physical imbalance: my wife was the one taking the medication, doing the injections, going to ultrasounds, lying on the table for retrieval and transfer. I was “the one who waits.” And both positions are terrible, each in their own way.

My wife felt alone with the physical pain. I felt helpless. And neither of us knew how to help the other, because both needed help at the same time.

What we would have done differently

1. We would have sought professional help from the start

Not after the first failure. Not after the third. From the start. A psychologist or therapist specializing in fertility isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. Just as important as the reproductive doctor.

2. We would have talked more openly with each other

We assumed for a long time that “the other one knows.” That it’s obvious how hard it is. It’s not obvious. Not because the other person doesn’t care - but because each person lives pain differently and expresses it differently.

The hard conversations - about fears, about each person’s limits, about “what do we do if it never works” - are the conversations that save the relationship.

3. We would have set boundaries

Boundaries with family: “Stop asking. We’ll tell you when we have something to say.”

Boundaries with the process itself: days when we don’t talk about IVF. Activities that have nothing to do with fertility. Reminders that we’re a couple, not just “patients.”

Boundaries with social media: unfollow, mute, whatever it takes to protect your mental space.

4. We would have been kinder to ourselves

We would have let go of guilt sooner. We would have accepted that sometimes a day spent in bed, crying, is okay. That you don’t have to be strong every day. That not being okay doesn’t mean being weak.

You’re not alone

If you’re reading this and you see yourself - if you feel the anxiety, if you eat when you’re not hungry, if you cry for no reason, if you feel lost - I want you to know one thing: you’re not alone.

Millions of couples go through this every year. And almost all of them feel just as isolated as we did. Because nobody talks about this part. Everyone talks about the “miracle of IVF” and nobody talks about the price you pay - not just financially, but emotionally.

It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to take a break. It’s okay to think about alternatives. It’s okay to decide that it’s enough.

The only thing that’s not okay is going through this alone.

References

This is the last in a series of articles about our IVF journey. We’ve shared what we learned across 6 cycles, three clinics, and five years - not as medical advice, but as the honest account we wish we’d had when we started.

If these articles helped you, share them with someone who needs them. And if you’d like to be among the first to test Oviflow - the app we’re building to make this journey easier - we’d love to have you on the waitlist.

Dan