Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends, and welcome back to the IVF This Podcast. Today, we are diving into a topic that is near and dear to my heart—and, honestly, one that I think we don’t talk about enough. And that is self-care during infertility and IVF.

Now, before your mind goes to bubble baths, pedicures, face masks, or spa days, let me stop you right there. Because that’s not the kind of self-care I’m talking about today. Don’t get me wrong, those things can feel lovely, and if they bring you joy, then by all means, go for it. But when we’re walking through the depths of grief, when we’re navigating appointments, injections, and the relentless mental load of IVF, a bubble bath isn’t going to cut it.

The self-care I’m talking about is deeper. It’s the kind where you hold space for yourself. The kind where you treat yourself with gentleness, compassion, and honesty. The kind where you allow yourself to rest in the truth that you matter, even as you are relentlessly pursuing your family.

Here’s the thing about infertility and IVF: your world narrows. The goal becomes laser-focused—get pregnant, stay pregnant, bring home a baby. And that makes sense. The financial, physical, and emotional investment is enormous. Every decision feels high stakes. Every day feels like you’re waiting for the next result, the next call, the next cycle.

But here’s the danger: when everything in your life revolves around that one outcome, it’s really easy to lose yourself. Your identity starts to shrink down to your lab results, your hormone levels, your embryos, your lining thickness. You stop being a full human being and start being a vessel—at least in your own mind—for whether or not you’re “successful” in this process.

And when we lose ourselves like that, the collateral damage is real. Relationships strain under the pressure. Mental health takes a back seat. Your sense of worth gets tangled up in whether a test is positive or negative. And the grief becomes unbearable because it feels like you are failing, not just your body.

So let’s reframe what self-care means here. Self-care is not indulgence. It’s not frivolous. It is maintenance. It is survival. It is saying, “I matter, even in this.”

Self-care in IVF looks like giving yourself permission to rest when your brain is screaming that you should be doing more research, more supplements, more acupuncture.
It looks like choosing not to attend the baby shower if it will shatter your heart that day—and knowing that doesn’t make you bitter, it makes you honest.
It looks like letting yourself cry in the car after an appointment without shaming yourself for being “too emotional.”
It looks like offering yourself the same compassion you would extend to your very best friend if she were walking through what you are walking through.

Because you wouldn’t tell her to toughen up. You wouldn’t tell her to “just be positive.” You wouldn’t tell her that she’s only as worthy as her beta results. So why do we say those things to ourselves?

I also want to talk about this belief so many of us carry: that in order to get pregnant, we have to sacrifice everything else. We sacrifice our hearts, our brains, our bandwidth, our relationships—all in the name of this dream. And the narrative we’re fed is that if we want it badly enough, if we just keep giving more, if we just keep pushing harder, eventually we’ll “earn” it.

But here’s the truth: you do not have to destroy yourself in the pursuit of motherhood. You do not have to abandon your mental health, your friendships, your sense of self. Your worthiness is not on pause until you have a baby in your arms.

You can want this more than anything in the world and still care for yourself in the process. Those two things are not in conflict—they are both essential.

So, what does this kind of self-care actually look like? It might mean saying no to commitments because you simply don’t have the bandwidth. It might mean asking your partner or a trusted friend to take on more of the logistical load so you can rest. It might mean journaling, or therapy, or just allowing yourself to say, “This is really hard,” without minimizing it.

It could mean setting boundaries around conversations that feel triggering. It could mean unfollowing accounts on social media that make you spiral. It could mean giving yourself permission to be angry, to be sad, to feel jealous, to grieve—without judgment.

And it might mean reminding yourself, daily, that you are more than your body’s ability to conceive. You are already whole, already valuable, already worthy of compassion—right now, in this moment, no matter what your cycle outcome is.

So if you hear nothing else today, hear this: self-care during infertility and IVF is not a luxury. It is not optional. It is a lifeline.

To the woman listening who feels lost in the depths of this grief, who feels like she has disappeared into the waiting and the trying and the endless appointments—I see you. I honor how hard this is. I know how consuming it can be.

But please, don’t abandon yourself here. Don’t sacrifice the entirety of who you are on the altar of “maybe.” You are more than this journey. You are more than your results. And when you choose to extend compassion to yourself, when you choose to hold space for your humanity, you aren’t betraying your dream of motherhood. You are protecting the very person who is fighting for it—you.

So as you move forward, I invite you to ask yourself: Where can I make space for me? Where can I show myself gentleness? Where can I remember that I matter—not just as a potential mother, but as a whole person?

Because your journey matters. Your dream matters. But most importantly, you matter.

Until next time, my beautiful friends—take gentle care of yourselves.