How to Support a Loved One Navigating IVF or Infertility (Practical Tips + Suggestions From an Expert)

If you've typed "how to support someone going through IVF" into Google at 11pm because you don't know what else to do, I want you to know something first. The fact that you're searching means you're already doing more than most.

Your daughter, your sister, your best friend or your wife is going through one of the hardest things a person can go through, and you're sitting there wanting to help but terrified of getting it wrong. So let's fix that.

It's grief, not overreaction

The first thing to understand is that infertility isn't just disappointing. It's grief. Studies have shown the psychological distress of infertility is comparable to that of someone with cancer, and once you see it through that lens, everything else makes more sense.

Your loved one is grieving time. Every year spent trying and putting life on hold. Every Christmas without a baby's first ornament on the tree. Every birthday party they don't get to organise for their own child. They're also grieving the way they imagined building their family would look, because nobody dreams of injecting themselves in the stomach to try and make a baby.

Here's the part that makes infertility so uniquely hard. When someone dies, you eventually move away from that loss, even while you keep grieving it. With infertility, there's no moving away. Each cycle, each loss, each negative test is a fresh hit while the last one hasn't even healed yet. It's grief on repeat.

What not to say to someone doing IVF

If you've ever searched what not to say to someone doing IVF, here's your answer, straight from the people who've lived it.

Don't tell her IVF is exciting. It puts pressure on her to perform an emotion she doesn't feel, and it makes her feel isolated when everyone else seems thrilled and she's anything but. Try instead, "That sounds incredibly difficult," and ask how she's actually feeling about it.

Don't tell her to be positive or just have hope. When she says she's not feeling hopeful, she's not being negative for the sake of it. She's drawing on real experience. If you'd been knocked down month after month, year after year, wouldn't you be a little guarded too? She's not being pessimistic, she's protecting herself.

Don't suggest things she hasn't already tried. By the time someone is doing IVF, she has ticked every box. She's cutting out sugar, cutting out caffeine and alcohol, taking supplements, probably doing acupuncture, and she's spent hours researching at 3am when she couldn't sleep. So when you ask, "Have you tried a prenatal?" or "Have you thought about tracking ovulation?", it dismisses all of that invisible work and makes her feel like none of it is enough.

Don't suggest adoption. Just like IVF isn't a simple fix, neither is adoption, and it's not your call to make unless she asks for your thoughts directly.

And please, don't tell her to just relax. It's one of the most common pieces of advice, and one of the least helpful. It minimises everything she's holding, and if relaxing were really the answer, IVF wouldn't need to exist in the first place.

Why other people's pregnancies and baby showers hurt so much

If a pregnancy announcement or a baby shower invite seems to knock the wind out of her, it's not because she isn't happy for other people. It's because it pushes what I call her grief button. It's not about them. It's a reminder of everything she's carrying right now.

You might be tempted to say "you can be happy for them and sad for you," and that might be technically true, but sometimes her sadness is too big to let any of the happiness in alongside it. And a baby shower, picture it from her side. A room full of onesies, pacifiers, gifts being unwrapped, a diaper cake, and someone asking when she's going to have kids of her own. It can feel like a war zone.

So don't push her to go, and don't judge her if she doesn't. Let her know it's completely okay to protect her heart.

Skip the updates, check in on her instead

You might want to ask how the last scan went or how many embryos they got, and that instinct comes from love. But it can be a lot to process disappointing news and manage everyone else's questions about it at the same time.

Instead of asking for the stats, message her to check in on her, not just the process. Let her know you're thinking of her. If she wants to share the details, she will. And remember she wants to be more than the friend, daughter or sister with infertility. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is offer her a completely fertility-free conversation.

Educate yourself so she doesn't have to explain

One of the most generous things you can do is learn a little about IVF yourself, so she doesn't have to be the one explaining every acronym and every step while she's exhausted. Knowing even the basics tells her you're making an effort, and that matters more than you'd think.

I think of Dottie, whose daughter Claire had been trying to conceive for four years through multiple rounds of IVF and a pregnancy loss. Dottie could see Claire was struggling and didn't know what else to do, so she gave her the most thoughtful gift she could think of, a place in one of my coaching programs. Claire got the support she needed, and today she has a beautiful daughter. Dottie is a very proud grandmother.

What actually helps

If you take one thing away from all of this, let it be this. Supporting your loved one through IVF and infertility is simpler than you might think. See her and meet her where she is. Don't try to fix her. Don't offer advice unless she asks for it. Let her feel exactly what she feels without needing to justify it.

Forgive her quickly when she loses it, because she will sometimes. Hug her. Sit with her while she cries. Remind her of who she was before all of this, even for five minutes. And today, right now, you could send her a message letting her know what a great job she's doing walking through this. IVF and infertility are hard, but they're so much harder to go through alone.

Links mentioned in this episode

Follow along on Instagram at msjenniferrobertson.

Read The Injustice of Infertility for an unfiltered look at nine rounds of IVF, two pregnancy losses and surrogacy.

And if you'd like to enquire about supporting your loved one the way Dottie did, email [email protected].

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to Episode 12 of Ready. Set. IVF.

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