How Infertility Affects Your Mental Health
Infertility can affect far more than your ability to become pregnant. It can change how you feel about your body, your relationships, your future—and even yourself.
For many women, the connection between infertility and mental health becomes especially apparent during the constant cycle of hope, waiting, uncertainty, and disappointment. You may spend weeks counting days, tracking symptoms, waiting for results, or thinking ahead to the next appointment, IVF cycle, or embryo transfer.
Even when you’re trying to focus on the rest of your life, infertility can feel like it’s always there.
The Emotional Impact of Infertility
Infertility anxiety is common when so much feels outside of your control. You may find yourself researching constantly, analyzing every decision, worrying about treatment outcomes, or wondering if there is something else you should be doing.
There can also be profound grief.
A failed IVF cycle, unsuccessful embryo transfer, pregnancy loss, or unexpected change in your treatment plan can carry real emotional weight. And because life around you continues moving forward, that grief can feel incredibly isolating.
Pregnancy announcements may suddenly hurt. Baby showers can become difficult. You may genuinely feel happy for someone you love while also thinking: Why isn’t this happening for me? Both feelings can exist at the same time.
When Infertility Starts Affecting How You See Yourself
One of the most painful parts of infertility can be what you begin believing the experience says about you.
You may feel disconnected from or betrayed by your body. If you’re someone who is used to working hard, planning ahead, and finding solutions, infertility can be particularly destabilizing. There may be no amount of effort that guarantees the outcome you desperately want.
Infertility therapy can provide a space where you don’t have to “stay positive” or protect the people around you from how difficult this feels.
You can be hopeful and scared. Grateful and angry. Resilient and exhausted.
You don’t have to choose one feeling—and you don’t have to carry all of them alone.
If this resonated with you, contact Joanna today.
Joanna Haydon, JD, LCSW is an infertility therapist in St. Louis, Missouri and throughout Missouri and Illinois. She provides therapy for women navigating infertility, IVF, pregnancy loss, and the anxiety, grief, and uncertainty that can accompany fertility treatment.