IVF journey begins!

Best of luck!
There’s so much I wish I knew before I started my IVF journey. It’s something that you don’t/cant really understand until you go through it, but here is some of my learnings:

The process takes way longer than you think. It’s a marathon not a sprint and one of the hardest/most surprising thing I found about IVF was all the waiting. Waiting to start a cycle, waiting for phone calls during a cycle, having to wait to get your second period after a cycle to start another, waiting for test results etc. It’s incredibly frustrating especially as getting pregnant is something you want to happen right now.

Do your research and advocate for yourself. No two IVF journeys will look the same so it’s hard to compare to other people but I found peanut invaluable in terms of seeing other women’s experiences and asking my doctor if certain tests would be relevant in my situation (after a couple of failed cycles) and pushing to make sure I got them done.

Choose your support circle. I was pretty open with my wider circle that I was doing IVF but only my husband and parents knew the details of what was going on in any point in time with us. We had originally included my MIL in that circle of trust but quickly learned that she was not a source of support so we took a step back from sharing information.

Be kind to yourself. The process is mentally/physically/emotionally hard and then on top of that you’re being pumped with hormones so make sure you make time for self care. Celebrate the wins, it’s good to lean into hope sometimes