How do you deal with the pain of infertility?

[Anonymous]

In your experience, does it get easier or harder? If you are still trying, how do you keep mentally healthy each cycle? Any tips on distracting yourself during the days leading up to your period?

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Have you considered joining a support group? That helped me immensely.

[Anonymous]

Gratitude journal
CBT to force your mind away from the topic
Mindfulness and meditation to calm your mind
Staying busy with planned activities and hobbies

[Anonymous]

Therapy
Journaling
A few people you really trust to talk to when you need
Good communication and vulnerability with spouse (or partner if there is one)
Muting or unfollowing any social media accounts with pregnancy announcements etc... (it's not personal! I just can't handle it sometimes!)
A good cry when I feel it
Self care - do all the good stuff for yourself that your time and budget allows for!
Exercise
Support group

I cannot say it has gotten easier or harder but I have grown in the experience.

[Anonymous]

These are all good ideas.

I did acupuncture once a week that I found very calming and sort of nice to do for myself.

My husband was really supportive and that was amazing. For example he came to all my appts and even when there was nothing for him to do and he was just in the waiting room, I never felt alone and it was nice to have even the ride and company rather than waiting for the metro and feeling sad.

Tried to stay occupied as much as possible, whether that was social plans, short trips, even TV shows that were really gripping, etc. I basically tried to take care of myself / treat myself as much as possible.

There was a book I really liked about IF, I think the author was Jessica Halpern.

I luckily liked my job and I stepped up because it was good to feel engaged and accomplished at something else but sometimes it was hard to keep my head up there too.

I did tell a few close friends and stumbled on others who were going through it too. That part was amazing.

Honestly I sort of curated my life a lot. I tried to minimize spending time with ppl with kids and hearing about them etc, especially ppl who would complain about how hard parenting is and such. Just too painful. I also muted a lot of friends on FB for that reason. I deleted FB from my phone so I'd just look at it more occasionally on my laptop (if you have more restraint, you can just get rid of social media obviously). I had a number of single or childfree friends and spent a lot of time with them, going out, etc.

But it was just really hard. Good luck to you, OP.

[Anonymous]

I'm PP. Sorry the book was The Pursuit of Motherhood by Jessica Hepburn.

I was picky though - I didn't like any books, podcasts, shows etc that made light of the situation.

[Anonymous]

I got off social media. We adopted a dog. Some days were harder than the others.

[Anonymous]

Took a step back from friends with babies. Traveled. Did volunteer work and side hustles and leaned in at work in ways I wouldn't have with a kid. Did some therapy. Hiked a lot. A few years on, with several possible routes to parenthood attempted and now ceased, things are better. Sometimes I am sad. Sometimes I am relieved. I think my friends who did have kids also sometimes wonder about the road not taken; that's only natural. We now have good relationships with some of our friends' kids and relatives and I can enjoy them for themselves instead of hurting that we don't have our own kids. I also do volunteer work and donate money to help kids in my community figuring if we don't have our own we can help the kids who do exist. Good luck op. I hope you find peace however things turn out.

[Anonymous]

I did 6 retrievals for my first successful transfer. Travel kept me happy (and is much harder to do after baby…), an in person support group was nice for solidarity (as was IG- lots of infertility accounts) and a supportive partner was key. Feeling like I was unable to plan my future (childless v. having a kid) was the most frustrating part, but I tried (!) to believe that I would be OK with either. Good luck to you!!

[Anonymous]

In some ways, I think it gets easier because after you fail a cycle you realize, even if you’ve been warned, that IVF isn’t a guarantee for getting a baby, even if you have a “perfect” embryo or uterus. We had unexplained infertility and after numerous failed cycles of TI then IUI we figured we’d easily have our “grade A” embryo implant. It didn’t. We had success a few transfers later and my ability to apply statistics and probability helped me manage expectations versus going purely off emotions from that first round. Wishing you luck.