The Grief No One Warns You About in IVF
What I thought IVF would be
When we started IVF, I thought of it as a plan. There would be appointments, medications, and procedures. We would spend the money and take the steps, and at the end, we would have our baby.
I'm a nurse. I'm used to protocols. I think in steps and timelines. So I approached IVF the way I approach everything else: learn the process, follow it carefully, and trust that doing everything right would lead to the outcome we wanted.
I was not prepared for how much grief would come along with it.
There are no guarantees
What no one really tells you is that IVF doesn't come with guarantees. You can do everything right, including every shot, every appointment, and every supplement, and still get news you never expected.
Our journey to grow our family took three years. When we learned I had a very low egg reserve, we chose donor egg IVF, thinking it would be the faster path. It wasn't. Every step we thought would move us forward seemed to come with a new question, a new wait, or a new heartbreak.
[Add a specific moment here, such as a phone call, test result, or appointment, when you realized this wasn't going to go the way you planned.]
That's when I started to understand that what I was feeling wasn't just stress or disappointment. It was grief.
The detours no one warns you about
IVF is full of detours. Some are big, and some are so small that you almost feel silly for being upset about them. But they add up.
There's grief in:
The timeline you had pictured slipping further away
A canceled cycle, a delayed transfer, or a test that has to be repeated
Numbers that come back lower than you hoped
Letting go of the way you thought you would build your family
Another month of waiting while the world keeps moving
Pregnancy announcements that you're genuinely happy about and that still hurt
The version of yourself who believed this would be simple
None of these moments might look like loss to someone on the outside. But each one asks you to let go of something you were hoping for. That's what grief is.
You're allowed to call it grief
For a long time, I didn't give myself permission to call it grief. I told myself I should be grateful that we had options. I told myself to stay positive and keep moving forward.
But grief doesn't go away because we ignore it. It shows up anyway, in the car after an appointment, in the shower, or in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday.
If you're feeling this too, I want you to know that it makes sense. You can be hopeful and grieving at the same time. You can be grateful for your options and still mourn the path you thought you'd take. Naming it doesn't mean you're giving up. It means you're being honest about how hard this is.
Making room for the grief and the hope
There isn't a way to skip the hard parts of IVF, but there are gentle ways to carry them:
Name each loss, even the small ones. Writing "today I'm grieving ___" in a journal can take away some of its weight.
Tell one safe person. You don't have to share everything with everyone, but you shouldn't carry it all alone.
Give yourself soft days. After a hard call or appointment, it's okay to cancel plans and rest.
Find people who understand. Support groups and online communities are full of people who know exactly what this feels like.
Consider talking with a therapist. A counselor who specializes in fertility can be a real help during this season.
I started The Hope Post because I know how lonely this road can feel. The detours changed me, and the grief was real. But hope was there too, sometimes in very small ways, and it carried me through.
If you're in the middle of your own detour right now, I'm holding hope for you until you can hold it for yourself.
With hope,
Meghan
