When IVF Breaks You: Finding Medicine in Grief

Infertility taught me that hope isn’t the only way forward. In the depths of grief, I found a new way to live—and then, against all odds, new life.

In my twenties, I had two unplanned pregnancies and two abortions. So when Ryan and I struggled to conceive ten years later, I felt blindsided—as so many of us facing infertility do.

Choosing abortion wasn’t about not wanting to be a mother. It was about timing. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t with the right partner. For me, like for many women, motherhood was beyond a calling; it was my deepest longing. It did not feel optional. It also felt like something I could most definitely do later.

I thought I could approach getting pregnant like any other challenge—by working harder. If we ate clean, stayed positive, and timed sex perfectly, it would happen. Ryan’s sperm count came back low, but not impossibly so. Urologists were vague. One suggested testicular failure (even though his testosterone was optimal), another said “just keep trying.” (Ryan has a partial spinal cord injury, which I knew likely played a role, though research is scarce.)

So try we did. For two years I threw everything at it: Chinese herbs, acupuncture, womb meditations, pre-sex rituals, diet changes, at-home insemination kits and more. Meanwhile, our connection suffered. Sex was often timed and charged with pressure. My obsession with getting pregnant weighed heavily on us both. The playfulness and ease that once felt so effortless between us was becoming harder to access.

Eventually, we sought out an IVF clinic. At 36, with no obvious signs of infertility beyond my age, I was convinced IUI would work. I even said, “I’d rather use a sperm donor than do IVF” (harsh, I know). I had been so attached to the idea of a natural, low intervention pregnancy and birth and I was scared about what IVF would do to my body and my baby.

After nearly a year of drawn-out fertility testing, I noticed something was off. My thyroid became sore and swollen, and what started as thyroiditis quickly escalated into a thyroid storm—an inflammatory attack that left me feverish, heart racing, and hospitalized. For more than a year afterward, I attempted to manage subclinical hypothyroidism without medication while we underwent two medicated IUIs. My reproductive endocrinologist insisted that while thyroid issues (which to this day I have never been officially diagnosed with) may cause miscarriage, they don’t affect conception—something I would later come to question.

By 37, we turned to IVF. Our first retrieval yielded three blastocysts, two euploid (chromosomally normal embryos). I was sure this was it. But the morning of our transfer, I got a call: the XX embryo we were planning to transfer didn’t survive the thaw. (I later learned that this only happens a few times a year at my clinic, and usually means that there is something wrong with the embryo.) That left us with one XY, which we transferred, but it did not implant.

I never fully grieved that first embryo—or any of them. Anyone who has been through it knows that IVF is a whirlwind of hope, excitement and incessant worry. When something doesn’t go as planned, the tendency is to focus on the next possibility, which can overshadow the grief that comes with each loss or failure: the loss of the opportunity for a natural conception, the loss of potential babies, the loss of time, the loss of self.

Our second retrieval resulted in two embryos, both aneuploid (chromosomally abnormal—in our case both were monosomy, or missing a chromosome). I was gutted. Despite all of the diet and lifestyle changes we made in the four months since our failed transfer, our results had worsened. For the first time, I felt a crushing truth: I had no control over this.

I felt like an untethered astronaut drifting through space—hopeless, terrified, powerless. The plans and protocols that had once given me a sense of control and shielded me from my grief now felt demoralizing, and I was left floating in the vast unknown.

So, I started to let motherhood go—this part of my path that I thought was written in stone, that I didn’t know if I could be ok without—not because I decided to, but because I had to. I had no other choice but to start envisioning my life without another positive pregnancy test, without my body expanding and becoming round, without giving birth, and without raising my own biological children.

Surrendering to the overwhelming grief of all of this—a grief I knew might never leave me—broke me. I felt empty, depressed, frozen on the couch. And yet, in the watery darkness of my paralysis, something melted. I began to see glimpses of a future beyond motherhood—a future not devoid of pain, but where the pain of not being a mother composted into something beautiful, a future without the constant busyness and distractions of motherhood where I would be forced to be with myself more, and to find my value in other places.

And then, the inconceivable happened: the cycle following our failed retrieval and just a couple months after starting thyroid medication (I had to find a functional medicine nurse practitioner because none of my doctors would look into my thyroid issue closer), we got pregnant. As I write this, I’m less than a week away from my second trimester—and still in shock.

This journey has taught me so much about the intimate relationship between grief and letting go. In the world of infertility, we hear it all the time: “Just let go and it will happen”. But what I’ve learned is that detaching from something we long for cannot be forced, or rushed. It can only come when the grief of not having it is ready to move through us.

In a culture that pushes toxic positivity and is afraid of sadness, I learned that “staying hopeful” isn’t the only way to navigate infertility. Yes, there were seasons when hope carried me. But eventually, surrendering to grief was the medicine I needed most.

To honor that grief, I created a small altar—our embryo’s photo, a note from a client who once told me the world needs mothers like me, a few crystals, dried daisies (my spirit baby’s name). Simple things that remind me to bow to both the pain and the beauty of this chapter of my life.

So, my invitation to you is this: make something beautiful out of your longing and your grief. Create an altar to your journey. Write a poem. Paint. Dance. Make music. And when you’re ready—you’ll know—tell your story in your way.

Allie Andrews is a sex and intimacy coach, sexologist, and writer living in Portland, Maine with her fiancé Ryan and their cat Bindi.

Medical Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider or qualified medical professional with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this blog.