Nobody walks into IVF without trying everything they can first. It’s expensive, exhausting, at times painful, emotionally trying, and a huge commitment for aspiring parents—and yet, it’s the only choice many people have to grow their family.
For many people, IVF works—it did for me a couple of years ago, and we now have a wonderful toddler. For others, IVF fails—as it did for me earlier this year, after I carried our baby boy for 15 days, from the day of our transfer to the day I began bleeding. I would’ve been five weeks pregnant then, and to me, the loss felt like an early miscarriage. IVF is something many, including me, approach as a combination of agony and hope, optimism and fear. It’s something to celebrate when it’s successful. But when it’s not successful, it’s important to give yourself time to grieve and to give yourself grace.
I remember when I developed a plan with my reproductive endocrinologist back in 2018. My husband and I had been diagnosed with “unexplained infertility,” and as such, we thought that less invasive technology could help us become pregnant before we needed to resort to IVF. After exploring the options, we proceeded with four rounds of intrauterine insemination (IUI) which is less invasive than IVF, but they all failed. When we finally moved on to IVF, we met not just with our doctor and her nurse but with a pharmacist, a psychologist, the clinic’s financial aid department, and an injection trainer. Sometime during that day, we were given the list of facts, statistics, and frequently asked questions. The most appalling thing I learned that day: Even under perfect circumstances, like an ideal uterine lining, great-looking labs, and a well-graded embryo, the literal best chance of success an embryo transfer has is about 60 percent.
Knowing we hoped to have children close together in age, we began conversations about returning to IVF a second time when our daughter was still young.
While this number is significantly higher than the routine odds of spontaneously getting pregnant, I had been sure that with technology, science, doctors, and protocols, we could do better than just over half.
In 2018, after an egg retrieval, my husband and I endured one failed fresh embryo transfer. We had three embryos to freeze after that procedure, and we eventually transferred one of those successfully. My daughter was born in May 2019 and is now a beautiful, thriving toddler.
Knowing we hoped to have children close together in age, we began conversations about returning to IVF a second time when our daughter was still young. We still had two frozen embryos remaining from our last retrieval, and we knew we wanted to transfer one as soon as we were able.
Our second round of IVF, in 2020, was built up by 341 days of anticipation (including a delay because our clinic shut down due to COVID-19).
After 61 days of medication, including 152 pills, 27 injections, 12 blood draws, eight transvaginal ultrasounds, several tests and procedures, one SIS, one HSG, and finally one frozen embryo transfer, I ended up with one Big. Fat. Negative.
Maybe it was because I had thought about my frozen embryos for the last two years. Wondering who they could be as people.
The grief was real. Palpable. It burrowed a hole in my heart next to where my hope had been. The loss was painful. It was more devastating than I could have anticipated. Maybe it was because I had thought about my frozen embryos for the last two years. Wondering who they could be as people. Imagining them as siblings for my daughter. Maybe it’s because my daughter was once in the petri dish next to them, and now she runs around my living room. I reeled.
The baby boy we transferred—we won’t get to know him. We won’t know if he would have had his sister’s blue eyes or if he would have become a sports fanatic like his dada. I could reason enough that this baby boy wasn’t meant to become our son, but my dreams of him felt incredibly real, and the ache of losing those was so hard to bear.
When you experience an embryo transfer, many clinics, doctors, and online communities use the phrase “pregnant until proven otherwise”—and this was nestled deep in my heart. I was pregnant, and then it was proven otherwise. We no longer had our baby.
As an IVF veteran and an infertility coach, I was still caught off guard by the depth of my grief in this experience. While I knew logically that IVF isn’t a guarantee, I assumed it would be for me. I’d already had success with IVF in the past, I followed the same protocol, and I knew my embryo was chromosomally normal. I felt all of the early signs of pregnancy in the week following my transfer. Everything led me to believe I was growing our baby boy. When I found out I wasn’t, my heart sunk.
While I knew logically that IVF isn’t a guarantee, I assumed it would be for me.
That 60 percent chance of success was a tough pill to swallow, especially since I had fallen on the opposite side of success.
But I worked through my grief, and there are certain things I’d recommend to anyone who is coping with a failed embryo transfer (or a canceled IVF cycle, or an early miscarriage, or a neonatal loss):
- Feel your feelings. This took me a good bit of time. I had to process my grief, devastation, anger, frustration, and fears. Those feelings are all real and valid, and ignoring them or hoping they’ll disappear will only prevent you from moving forward.
- List your questions. Think about what you want to ask your doctor, your partner, and yourself. Write out what you want to research or learn more about. Think about what you want to talk through or learn about your experience, and what will help you to determine your next steps.
- Give yourself grace on what comes next. If you’re ready to start again and jump into a new cycle, embrace it. If you need some time, don’t feel bad about it. There is no right answer or right path—the infertility journey is so different from person to person.
- Get support! From friends, family members, the infertility community, or an infertility doula. While this experience can feel incredibly isolating, I want to remind you that you’re not alone. So many people are rooting for you and the baby you’re waiting for.
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