Life during IVF

With some words from a real life IVF patient

Although the IVF experience is unique to everyone we wanted to bring attention to some elements that have seemed to be consistent with many of our clients and IVF patients.  Your loved one who decided to go through IVF may appreciate you knowing what they may experience, and perhaps they don’t have energy to communicate it to you themselves.

The journey is physical and mental. 

Here are the common elements at a glance.

• Physically the journey can take a toll. There’s a demand on time, appointments, and unknown effects to the body.
  • Medications/Side-effects
  • Blood Tests
  • Dr. Appointments/ultrasounds 

• Mentally a patient can experience a wave of emotions, thoughts, fears, and more. In addition to the physical elements there is another set of mental strain to consider.
  • A level of excitement/anxiety
  • Guilt/Shame
  • Loss/Disappointment

The experience is different for everyone and these common traits can come and go. Educate yourself, communicate, be open, and patient. 

A real life experience

We had a candid conversation with, who we’ll refer to as, Patient 💜, about her IVF experience.  She was thrilled to have a platform to share her experience. She wanted to share a few elements that could help others and their families as they embark on the experience.  Patient 💜, and her husband had one egg retrieval and two transfers, she said her purpose in sharing this message is to remove the shame and secrecy from the IVF process. Here’s her insight:

What’s the most helpful thing family/friends can do or say while their loved one is going through IVF? Something that was really helpful was when my friends and family would ask me questions about my Fertility treatments. It sounds so simple but talking about the process with people helped me cope. I think a lot of the time people are afraid to ask about what’s going on because they don’t want to offend or they don’t know what to ask.  It was so therapeutic for me to talk about the process 

What are the most annoying things family/friends can do or say while their loved ones are going through IVF? There is nothing more annoying to someone dealing with infertility than to tell them “just relax and it will happen.” In my case we were dealing with male factor infertility and my husband has zero sperm.  No amount of relaxing could make that happen for us, and without IVF we wouldn’t have our little miracle baby. 

What are your words to someone who is thinking about doing it? Something to keep in mind when deciding to go ahead with IVF is that it is not a guarantee of pregnancy or a baby.  I had in my head that this was a last resort situation that would absolutely result in a baby, and that is not the case for about half the women who do IVF.  That would be my advice to someone… keep an open mind and a positive outlook because you are in for a long process. 

After 3 years of trying to conceive naturally, 1.5 years of IVF, 1 unsuccessful transfer here is Baby 💜.

At the end of the day don’t be afraid to ask. You may be surprised what they’d like to talk about and share about. As we read in the case of Patient 💜, she wanted to discuss the process. Thank you for sharing this moment with us. It’s our honor and privilege to be part of this amazing process. We don’t take it lightly. 

If you’d like to share your story (anonymously of course) please message us hello@cryocourier.com.