The emotions you’re ashamed of are the ones that will transform you most.
Let’s not pretend. Because if you’re on this journey, you already know; infertility is not just a physical experience. It gets into your head, your relationships, and the quietest parts of your heart. And sometimes, what it brings out of you doesn’t feel very pretty.
The fear. The jealousy. The hollow ache when you scroll past another pregnancy announcement. A flash of something that feels a lot like anger; directed at someone you love; simply because their body did the thing yours hasn’t yet. And then, almost immediately after: the guilt. Oh, the guilt.
“You are not a bad person for feeling this. You are a person in pain. There is a profound difference.”
The lies we tell to survive
Maybe you’ve skipped a baby shower. Maybe you made up an excuse, said you weren’t feeling well, smiled down the phone and said “of course I’m happy for you” — when inside you were quietly falling apart. You are not alone. These are not signs that something is wrong with you; they are acts of keeping yourself safe. And yet we judge ourselves for them so harshly, don’t we?
Here’s the truth: protecting your emotional energy is not selfish. Choosing not to sit in a room full of bump photos and tiny baby grows when you are mid-cycle, mid-heartbreak, mid-hope; that is strength, not weakness. The world will not fall apart if you miss the party. But you might, if you keep abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable.
The world that feels against you
As if the internal battle wasn’t enough; everywhere you turn there are reminders. The targeted ads. The colleague’s casual announcement in a team meeting. The family member who asks, again, “so when are you two thinking of starting a family?” as if the answer is simply a matter of deciding. It can feel like the whole world is rubbing your face in the very thing you want most.
It’s exhausting. And it is allowed to be exhausting. You are allowed to say: this is hard. This is relentless. I am tired.
“This isn’t about them falling pregnant. This is about you stepping into the most powerful version of yourself.”
But here’s what I want you to hold onto
I truly believe this journey is building something in you. Not because going through hard things is romantic or necessary; but because the woman who really walks through this; who feels it all rather than pushing it down or rushing past it; arrives somewhere extraordinary.
Every fear you face is teaching you resilience. Every moment of jealousy is showing you the depth of how much you want this; how ready your heart already is. Every hard decision you make to protect yourself is you learning who you really are. What you’re made of. What kind of parent; what kind of partner; you are already becoming.
When it is your time
When you hold your baby; the one who was always coming to you; you will not look back on this with bitterness. You will understand it. You will see, with a clarity that only this journey could give you, exactly why the path looked the way it did. And you will be so grounded, so steady, so ready; not just to be a parent, but to be the kind of parent you are already becoming right now, in the thick of all of this.
That is not a small thing. That is everything.
So yes; feel it all. The dark bits and the difficult bits. Let them move through you rather than take up permanent residence. And then, gently, come back to yourself. Come back to the truth that you are not behind. You are not broken. You are in the middle of something that is shaping you in ways you cannot yet fully see.
You are becoming the most powerful version of yourself; one hard day at a time.
And that version? She is going to be one incredible mama.
— Strong Little IVF Mama · www.stronglittleivfmama.co.uk