Hello my beautiful friends, and welcome back to another episode of The IVF This Podcast. I’m your host, Emily Ginn, certified life coach, grief and fertility coach, and today we are talking about an emotion that I think is incredibly common during infertility and IVF… and almost never talked about honestly.

Resentment.

And before some of you immediately tense up at that word — stay with me.

Because I think resentment is one of the most misunderstood emotions we experience during IVF. And I also think it’s one of the most moralized.

We are somewhat allowed to talk about grief.
Anxiety. Sadness. Overwhelm. Fear. Stress.

Though usually only in ways that are socially acceptable.
Digestible.
Temporary.
Palatable for other people.

We are more culturally comfortable with emotions that communicate pain than emotions that communicate protest.

Grief? Sadness? Anxiety?
Those are at least somewhat understandable to people.

But resentment?

Resentment crosses an emotional line culturally.

It feels uglier somehow.
Sharper. Meaner. More dangerous.

Like if you admit to resentment, it says something bad about who you are as a person.

And honestly, I think resentment is very similar to jealousy in this way.

Jealousy is also a heavily moralized emotion. People hear the word jealousy and immediately think:
“Well that makes you petty.”
“Insecure.”
“A bad person.”

And because resentment and jealousy have become so moralized culturally, I think most people don’t even really think about resentment as an emotion.

We think about the “acceptable” emotions.

But resentment?
We tend to think of resentment as a type of person instead of a type of pain.

And that distinction matters tremendously.

Because resentment usually doesn’t begin as bitterness.

Resentment often begins as hurt.

As protest.

As exhaustion.

As unresolved pain mixed with comparison, helplessness, injustice, and repetition.

And honestly?

That is IVF in a nutshell.

Repeated disappointment.
Repeated uncertainty.
Repeated unfairness.
Repeated emotional vulnerability.
Repeated loss of control.

Of course resentment shows up here.

Honestly, if resentment never showed up during IVF, I might actually be more surprised.

And today I want to remove some of the shame around resentment. I want to understand it. Humanize it. Contextualize it.

Not because I think resentment is where we should stay forever.

But because I think shame around resentment is often what keeps people stuck there.

WHAT RESENTMENT IS ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO

I think one of the most important things we can understand about resentment is this:

Resentment is functional.

It is trying to do something for us.

And I think most resentment during IVF is actually unresolved pain trying to protect itself.

Because IVF creates an enormous amount of pain without completion.

There is no clean ending.
No guaranteed reward.
No culturally recognized grief ritual.
No moment where the nervous system gets to fully exhale and say:
“Okay. We survived. It’s over now.”

So the pain loops.

And resentment is often what unresolved looping pain feels like from the inside.

Your resentment is not the problem.

Your suffering needs somewhere to go.

And I think that changes the conversation completely.

Because resentment stops being:
proof you’re bitter,
proof you’re failing emotionally,
proof you’re becoming a bad person…

And starts becoming:
a nervous system trying to metabolize sustained pain.

Because resentment often protects us from helplessness.

It protects us from vulnerability.

It protects us from the terrifying reality that we are deeply attached to something we cannot fully control.

And honestly? At first, that protection is adaptive.

Of course it is.

Resentment creates emotional distance from pain.
It creates armor.
It helps us survive repeated disappointment.

But over time, protective mechanisms can calcify.

And eventually the nervous system stops just protecting against pain…

…and starts protecting against softness altogether.

And I think many people don’t even realize they’re resentful until they notice how hard it has become to feel soft.

Soft with themselves.
Soft with their partner.
Soft with hope.
Soft with joy.
Soft with life.

Because IVF can teach the nervous system that softness is dangerous.

Hope hurts.
Trust hurts.
Optimism hurts.
Attachment hurts.

So the nervous system adapts.

It says:
“Okay. We’re not doing soft anymore.”

THE MANY WAYS RESENTMENT SHOWS UP

And what makes resentment especially complicated during IVF is that it rarely shows up in just one place.

It spreads.

Relationally.
Physically.
Financially.
Emotionally.

Sometimes toward other people.
Sometimes toward yourself.
Sometimes toward your own body.

And I think many people experience resentment during IVF without consciously labeling it that way.

Because resentment doesn’t always sound like:
“I resent them.”

Sometimes it sounds like:
“I’m exhausted.”
“I can’t listen to this right now.”
“I’m tired of being the strong one.”
“I don’t want another pregnancy announcement.”
“I’m tired of explaining myself.”
“I don’t want to pretend I’m okay.”

That can absolutely be resentment.

Not because you’re hateful.

Because you’re hurting.

RELATIONAL RESENTMENT

And I think relational resentment is where people carry the most shame.

Because unspoken resentment often leaks sideways.

Through withdrawal.
Irritability.
Sarcasm.
Emotional shutdown.
Scorekeeping.
Distance.

And many people don’t consciously think:
“I resent my partner.”

But they do feel:
alone,
unseen,
emotionally overburdened,
unsupported.

Especially when one person is carrying significantly more of the emotional labor.

Tracking medications.
Scheduling appointments.
Researching clinics.
Remembering dates.
Managing hope.
Managing disappointment.
Thinking about IVF constantly.

While the other person may be able to mentally step away from it between appointments.

That asymmetry can create resentment.

Not because you don’t love them.

But because pain plus imbalance often creates resentment.

You may resent fertile people.

You may resent friends who accidentally got pregnant.

You may resent people who complain about pregnancies you would give anything to have.

And then comes the secondary shame:
“What kind of person thinks this way?”

But feelings are not actions.

Feeling resentment does not make you cruel.

Feeling resentment does not mean you want harm for other people.

Feeling resentment does not mean you’re becoming a bitter person.

It means something inside you hurts deeply.

BODY + FINANCIAL RESENTMENT

And then there’s body resentment.

Because IVF can create a profoundly adversarial relationship with your own body.

Your body becomes:
monitored,
tracked,
tested,
injected,
scanned,
evaluated.

And after enough disappointment, enough failed cycles, enough losses… your body can stop feeling like home.

Instead it starts feeling like the battleground.

And that grief is enormous.

Then there’s financial resentment.

The money.
The time.
The opportunity cost.
The sheer amount IVF can consume from your life.

You may resent watching other people conceive freely while your life has become organized around procedures, calendars, insurance battles, loans, and treatment cycles.

And honestly?

That resentment makes sense too.

WHEN RESENTMENT BECOMES AN IDENTITY

Now here’s where I think this conversation becomes really important.

There is a difference between acknowledging resentment and nurturing it.

Acknowledging resentment sounds like:
“This hurts.”
“This feels unfair.”
“I understand why this feeling is here.”

Nurturing resentment looks more like:
living entirely inside comparison,
feeding injury constantly,
allowing bitterness to become your primary identity.

And I think the hidden fear underneath resentment is often this:

“If I loosen my grip on this pain… does that mean it didn’t matter?”

Because sometimes resentment is the nervous system’s attempt to make sure the pain is not forgotten.

That the losses mattered.
That the unfairness mattered.
That the suffering was real.

And I think many people unconsciously fear that softening means betrayal.

Like if they stop organizing around pain, they are somehow minimizing what happened to them.

But acceptance is not amnesia.

Acceptance is not saying this was okay.

Acceptance is saying:
“I no longer want my entire inner world organized around the wound.”

And honestly? I think that’s some of the deepest work of healing during IVF.

Not learning how to never feel anxiety, grief, uncertainty, or pain.

You already know how to do those things.

You’re already surviving them.

The work is learning how to allow those experiences to coexist with:
joy,
hope,
softness,
connection,
love,
meaning,
and abundance.

The goal is not to become someone who never feels resentment.

The goal is to become someone whose entire emotional life is not organized exclusively around protection.

CLOSING

So my beautiful friend, if resentment has shown up during your IVF journey, I do not want you to immediately interpret that as evidence that you are failing emotionally.

I think resentment is often a deeply human response to chronic unresolved pain.

But I also want you to gently ask yourself:

Is resentment something I feel?

Or is resentment becoming the place I live?

Because those are two very different things.

At some point many people stop asking:
“How do I stop hurting?”

And start asking:
“How do I help my nervous system feel safe enough to soften again?”

And I think that question changes everything.

Because healing is not the absence of grief.

It is the gradual expansion of your emotional world so that grief is no longer the only thing living there.

Thank you so much for being here with me today, my beautiful friend. If this episode resonated with you, I would love if you shared it with someone who may need to hear it.

And as always, I’m sending you so much love as you navigate this impossible, beautiful, heartbreaking, deeply human experience that is IVF.

I’ll see you next week.