When everyone around you is excited about your IVF cycle (and you just feel anxious, scared and worried)

You told someone you're doing IVF and their face lit up like you'd just announced a pregnancy, or a puppy, or an engagement. "That's so exciting!" they said. And you smiled, said thanks, and felt absolutely nothing underneath it. Or worse, you felt dread.

If you've ever typed "why don't I feel excited about IVF" into Google at 11pm, wondering what's wrong with you, you're not alone, and you're not broken. Fertility treatments come with an emotional weight that most people around you simply can't see, and this is exactly what I dig into in episode 4 of Ready. Set. IVF.

Why toxic positivity around IVF feels so isolating

Here's what it actually feels like to be you right now. You're the one injecting hormones daily, shuffling to appointment after appointment, walking around bloated and sore while trying to hold yourself together for everyone around you. Meanwhile, the people who love you are cheering from a distance, genuinely happy, genuinely hopeful, and completely unaware of what any of this is costing you.

This is where toxic positivity around fertility treatment does the most damage. Not because your friends and family mean any harm, they don't, but because their enthusiasm assumes you're both playing the same game. You're not. For them, hope costs nothing. For you, it's a withdrawal from an account that's already been drained by disappointment, and sometimes debt too. IVF stress and infertility stress are cumulative. They don't reset with each new cycle, they stack.

What I cover in this episode

In the episode, I walk through exactly why your reaction to IVF is never going to match theirs, and why that gap gets wider the longer you've been on this road. Your first cycle might have felt exciting. Your third or fourth probably doesn't, and that's not pessimism, that's pattern recognition.

I use an analogy in this episode that a lot of listeners have told me changed how they see their support people: think of IVF like a long, bumpy bus ride. You're the driver, hands on the wheel, eyes locked on the road. Everyone else, your partner included some days, is a passenger. They can admire the view. You can't, because if you look away from the road, the bus crashes. It's not that they don't care. It's that you have an entirely different job to do.

I also get into something I don't think gets talked about enough, which is that the numbness so many of us feel during IVF isn't weakness or denial. It's protection. Your nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do.

IVF mindset: how do I feel more hopeful when doing IVF?

If you're wondering how to feel more hopeful when doing IVF, the honest answer is you might not, and that's allowed. A healthy IVF mindset isn't about forcing positivity you don't feel. It's about giving yourself permission to feel whatever's actually true for you, instead of performing what you think you're supposed to feel. Trying to match everyone else's excitement just adds another layer of pressure onto something that's already heavy enough. This episode is your permission slip to put that pressure down.

And because I know it helps to have the words ready for next time someone gushes at you, I share my favourite responses in the episode too, including a couple with a bit of bite if that's the energy you need that day.

Listen to episode 4 of Ready. Set. IVF.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Other links and resources:

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