Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful friends, and welcome back to the IVF This podcast.

We are finally in Fall! I’m so excited. This is my favorite time of year!
Today we’re going to talk about something that might feel heavy but also very, very real: losing joy during the IVF process.

Because if you’re anything like me—or like so many of the people I work with—you probably know what I mean when I say that somewhere along this road, joy starts to disappear.

Losing Joy in IVF
When you first imagine having a baby, the picture is usually painted with joy—dreaming of nursery colors, thinking about baby names, imagining little shoes by the door. But when you’re in the trenches of infertility and IVF, that joy can get stripped away piece by piece.

Too many disappointments. Too many appointments. Too many decisions, medications, injections, side effects. Too many scary, draining moments where you’re holding your breath for the next result, the next phone call, the next two-week wait.

At some point, it starts to feel too complicated, too heavy. And for many of us, joy feels like something other people get to have. Something that belongs to people who didn’t have to go through this.

I hear from so many clients and listeners who say: “I don’t even let myself feel excited anymore. It feels dangerous.” And I get that. When your heart has been broken again and again, joy feels like a liability.

This is grief.
It’s grief for the imagined experience of parenthood we thought we’d have. It’s grief for the carefree excitement that was replaced with medical calendars and lab results. It’s grief for the innocence that got lost somewhere along the way.

And sometimes, just naming it helps. Saying out loud: “Yes, this is grief. Yes, joy feels gone. Yes, this is part of the trauma of infertility.” That acknowledgment alone can make us feel a little less broken.

Here’s the hard truth: denying ourselves joy doesn’t actually protect us.

We tell ourselves that if we don’t get too excited, if we don’t let ourselves imagine baby names or nursery colors, if we don’t buy the onesie we secretly want to, then maybe the fall won’t be so steep if things don’t work out. We think, “If I don’t hope too much, I won’t hurt too much.”

But here’s the thing—disappointment hurts no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you were cautiously pessimistic or wildly optimistic, the pain of another failed cycle is still brutal. The myth is that withholding joy will somehow cushion the blow. But what actually happens is that we end up living in this barren middle space—never fully allowing ourselves joy, but still experiencing all the grief.

It’s like robbing yourself twice: once of the joy you could have had in the present moment, and again when the outcome doesn’t go your way.

And I want to say this with so much love—you are not silly or weak for believing that guarding your heart would help. It’s survival logic. It makes perfect sense that you’d try to create some control in an uncontrollable process. But the reality is, that strategy doesn’t work. The hurt still comes, but the joy never does.

So the invitation isn’t to swing the other way into reckless optimism. It’s not about plastering on positivity. It’s about allowing yourself small, safe pockets of joy along the way, even if the bigger picture is uncertain. Because joy in the present moment is never wasted, no matter what happens tomorrow.

And that’s where something I’ve been working on myself comes in—what I call Tiny Little Joys.
This isn’t about pretending everything is great. It’s not toxic positivity. It’s not ignoring the pain.

It’s about intentionally noticing and celebrating the smallest sparks of joy in your day. Like the very first sip of your favorite coffee or tea. The sound of your pet stretching in the morning. A song you forgot you loved coming on the radio. The feeling of fresh sheets. That first deep breath after a good cry.

These are not replacements for the joy we thought IVF would bring. But they are anchors. They remind us that joy still exists—even in this. That our nervous system and our hearts are still capable of experiencing delight.

When you make space for these tiny little joys, you’re not minimizing your grief—you’re giving yourself permission to be whole. To hold both the pain and the delight at the same time.

So if you feel like IVF has stolen joy from you, please know you’re not alone. This is not a reflection of your strength or your worthiness. It’s a natural response to trauma and heartbreak.

And also know: joy is not gone forever. It might not look the way you imagined, but you can start to reclaim it in bits and pieces. You don’t have to wait for a positive pregnancy test to allow joy back in.

So today, my invitation to you is this: notice one tiny little joy. Just one. Let it matter. Let it remind you that joy is still possible, even here.

I love you, my beautiful friends. Thank you for being here, and I’ll talk to you next week.