Infertility: Reaching “The Tipping Point”

Introduction

In this article I share a little about my own experience of reaching the point of knowing that IVF using our own eggs & sperm wasn’t going to work. I also reflect on how psychotherapy can help so many women and couples, who find themselves at this junction.

Let’s Not Think About It

While we are on the IVF path, we probably haven’t given much thought to alternatives.  When we are focussed on IVF we can become almost superstitious about jinxing things. This is perhaps an understandable response to a process that is largely out of our control.

Perhaps we might over-invest in positive thinking to protect ourselves from dwelling on the possibility of things not working out. We may do this for ourselves or more likely to buoy up our partner or even parent(s).

Then there is the fact that the IVF process becomes an end in itself. It is an all-consuming system of tests and processes and measurements that draws us into rational goal setting. We begin to define what we want by the possibilities (and limitations) of the medicalised process. How often have we not had sex even though we wanted to, ‘because the clinic said we shouldn’t?’

Everyone engaged in using IVF to make a baby has their own point of, ‘this much and no more.’ This stopping point might be financial, or linked to clinical guidance; or based on how many cycles our best friend had. Whatever influences us, this is real and terribly painful Point of Reckoning.

When we reach that point of dawning realisation that IVF for our own biological baby isn’t going to work, and that having a family in a different way might now need thinking about, it is a deeply emotional time. In my personal experience and professional opinion, this is a time to stop, take stock and lick our wounds.

“Stopping is a basic Buddhist practice of meditation. You stop running. You stop struggling.

You allow yourself to rest, to heal, to calm.” 

It is seductive to move quickly and seamlessly from having IVF to engaging in another fertility process – especially if you are a career person, used to just getting things done.

It’s hard to ‘stop running.’ I understand how terrifying that sense of ‘time running out’ can feel. But this is when it is vital that we listen to our body’s need for rest and reflection, as this angst is usually a subjective response to feeling afraid – which usually needs thinking about.

I believe that during this time of looking around and realising we are somewhere we hadn’t intended to be, talking therapy is absolutely vital.  I don’t mean an in-clinic counselling session for considering our practical options – that can come later.

I mean engaging in talking therapy such as psychotherapy or deep fertility counselling to reflect on what we’ve been through and how it has changed us. This is a period of intense emotion, and predominantly a time to begin, if possible, to process our losses.

My Experience

I was on the IVF Treadmill from 2006-2011.  Now as a psychotherapist with lived experience of medically unexplained infertility, I work with women and couples, at a time when they realise that the IVF promise (a baby with their own eggs and partner’s sperm) isn’t going to work for them. It’s the time to stop and face the music. One day I’ll collect women’s stories about reaching this point, or maybe someone already has! Here is a little about my own story.

As IVF and the various linked procedures progressed, I felt increasingly poisoned by the drug regime. I was also finding the IVF process physically draining and I was running on empty; but like so many people on this treadmill, I was putting on a brave face. For the first reason, I went to see a doctor who works both in the NHS and Harley Street, who was promoting ‘IVF Lite.’ I was 43 years old at this time and I’d been trying to conceive since I was 38.

This particular doctor made time to talk to me. She reviewed my journey to date and linked my test results together. My experience with other clinics had been less personal and largely led by over-busy nurses. Then she asked me how I was feeling and what I wanted to do. I remember just crying. I’ll never forget what happened next, as it was a ‘sliding doors moment.’ The doctor put down my file, looked me in the eye, and said,

“Sarah, you need to stop IVF. It is not working for you. You need to think about other ways to have a family, and to do that you need to be well. This IVF process is making you physically and mentally unwell and you need to be strong if you want to keep going.”

I will always be grateful to this doctor who saw the distraught, exhausted woman, not the ‘fertility case;’ and who put clinical care above any financial gain.

What Did I Do Next?

I talked with my husband about our options, which was difficult as it meant he had to stop hiding behind positive thinking too. He said he wanted children, but couldn’t face the adoption system. Surrogacy was less accessible back then, and for us unaffordable. So that left donor conception.

So I stopped IVF and put the gruelling process and the too many miscarriages behind me. It took me 18 months to return to health.  I did lots of research into egg donation and I’ll write more about the complexities of donor conception in another blog.

I then signed up with a clinic that offered egg-sharing, which was a process whereby the recipient paid for the donor’s IVF in return for donated eggs.

I’ll never forget taking a call from the clinic nurse, about 6 months after signing up, where she said she’d found a match for me. She explained that the egg donor didn’t look like me, but her mannerisms and sense of humour made the nurse think we could be sisters. I agonised over the fact that this woman had dark hair and green eyes (not brown hair and blue eyes) and then accepted her generosity.

Have You Reached Your Tipping Point?

I appreciate how it feels to wake up every morning not knowing whether today is the day you’ll miscarry; and to worry that your body ‘can’t be trusted.’  I know what it’s like to blame and hate your partner and want to run away from everything. I know what it’s like to shuck off that ‘skin of total competence’ and find yourself, emotional and frightened instead of the strongest woman in the room.

Have you reached that point in your IVF journey where you need to stop? Would you like to talk to someone who will understand that taking stock is a vital but painful process?

My own therapy journey started as a result of this period of rest and reflection after I stopped IVF. I’m not sure I would have allowed myself to go into therapy without these experiences. Now, so many years later, my life is entirely different to how I imagined it would be. I’m no longer a head-driven, high-flying Executive, but instead, I’m a psychotherapist who loves to write. Yes – I do have children: for me, egg donation (with all of it’s complexities) was the thing that worked.  

We don’t know a lot of the time, why we end up having certain experiences, but perhaps the best we can do is try to incorporate them consciously into our life. It’s hard to do that at the time, but a good psychotherapy relationship can offer a vital space to talk, cry, join the dots, begin to heal and start to imagine a fulfilling and creative life again.

If this article has touched you, do get in touch. I can see you individually or as a couple or in a therapy group to work on just this journey together.