Welcome to IVF This, Episode 178: IVF as a pathway

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you’re all doing so well.

I’m so glad you’re here, whenever and wherever you’re listening to this episode, I’m glad you came. And I hope today’s episode provides the support or information that you need, right now.

Today’s episode is a little different. It’s not about tips or tools. It’s more of a perspective I want to offer—a way of looking at the IVF experience that might help, especially when everything feels hard or uncertain or stuck.
The episode is called IVF as a Pathway. And before we go any further, let’s be clear: I am not here to wrap your IVF experience in a shiny bow. This is not about loving infertility. This is not about spiritualizing trauma or forcing gratitude where it doesn’t belong.

This is about choice. And more specifically, about the possibility that IVF can be a pathway to a more intentional life. Not because it’s beautiful. But because sometimes, in the mess and disruption of it all, a window opens. A pause. A shift.

But let me also say this very clearly—this perspective is optional. Totally optional. If this doesn’t land for you today, that’s okay. Come back to it later, or don’t. There is no one right way to navigate this.

So what do I mean when I say IVF as a pathway?

IVF, by nature, is a disruption. It interrupts the narrative we thought we’d be living. Most of us didn’t expect to end up here. Most of us didn’t grow up thinking, “I’ll probably need to inject hormones into my belly one day and talk about embryo quality with a straight face.”

But here we are.

And this interruption—this completely unwanted, often painful disruption—can sometimes crack something open.

We’re forced to stop. Reassess. Ask harder questions.
Questions like:

• What kind of parent do I want to be?

• How do I want to show up for myself, even now?

• What do I believe about my body, my worth, my identity when the usual signs of success—like a positive test—are not showing up?

• What matters most to me, really?

Now I want to say this again: You do not have to make IVF meaningful.
You don’t owe your trauma a redemption arc.
You don’t have to turn every hard thing into a growth opportunity.

But sometimes, the pause IVF creates gives us that chance.
The chance to slow down. To look around. To say, “I don’t want to live on autopilot anymore. I want to choose who I become from here.”

Because IVF forces us to confront things we might never have otherwise—our boundaries, our relationships, our expectations of ourselves. And in doing that, it can also—without permission—hand us a doorway into intentional living.

Now let’s be honest. Most of the time, this does not feel like a doorway.
It feels like chaos.
It feels like loss.
It feels like waiting and Googling and crying in your car and rescheduling your entire life around monitoring appointments.

But beneath that, or maybe alongside it, there can be something else.
A question.
A calling, even.
Who do I want to be through this?
What do I want to take from this—if anything at all?

And listen, you can choose to not take anything from this. That’s valid. That’s allowed.
But if you want to look for meaning, if you want to find a little clarity inside the mess, IVF gives you that opportunity.

It asks you—sometimes demands of you—that you get really honest with yourself.
What do I value?
What is enough?
Where can I find safety, not in guarantees, but in how I choose to care for myself?

Now, this doesn’t mean you’re doing IVF “right” if you come out the other side with a perfect mindset or a personal transformation.

You’re not a self-help project. You’re a human being going through something brutal and uncertain.

But if IVF is taking up space in your life, if it’s interrupting everything anyway, maybe—just maybe—you get to take something from it too.

You get to look back one day, not with fondness, but maybe with a little clarity.
Not with joy, but with self-respect.
That you chose who you became. That you were intentional—not always graceful, not always optimistic—but intentional in how you navigated the in-between.

So if you’re here today, and you’re in the thick of it, and you’re wondering if anything good can come from this—know that it’s not about finding the silver lining.

It’s about asking:
If I have to be here, what do I want this to mean?

Maybe IVF is a pathway—not to joy or peace or certainty—but to living a life that’s more aligned with who you really are.
To being honest with yourself in a way you’ve never had to be before.
To building trust in yourself that doesn’t hinge on the outcome of a beta test.

And if that doesn’t feel possible today, that’s okay. It might feel different tomorrow. Or next year.

But if you want to see IVF as a pathway—not just a detour or a burden or a medical nightmare—that option is here.

And you don’t need to feel grateful for IVF to walk that path.
You don’t need to call it a blessing.
You just need to know that you get to decide how this shapes you.

And no one else gets to define that for you.

Thanks for listening. Take care of yourselves.