IVF in SILENCE

If you’re a close friend, relative, or co-worker of Adam or I and feel shocked by the news of our journey, you aren’t alone. I promise we did not leave you out of the circle because we “didn’t love you enough” or didn’t think you were “important enough” to tell. 

Truth be told, we both would have screamed from the mountain tops

that we were starting this journey on Day 1 if we knew we

could both individually shoulder the burden that came along with that.

Strong enough to withstand the emotional burden if this journey didn’t work out. 

So why did we elect to keep it so private?

When we started this journey back in May of 2024, we quickly learned that we knew nothing. Everything we thought we knew was wrong, everything I had learned from Facebook groups and Google was wrong, we were starting from Ground Zero and placing all our trust in our medical team. 

After our first visit with our IVF team, we could barely answer our own questions. We knew that the more people we told, the more questions we could get, and with more unanswered questions comes more stress, and we knew we wouldn’t be able to handle that. 

So we moved forward silently for a while, not even admitting to our parents that we had the visit. When things started to pick up and we actually started doing testing (around July/August of 2024), we admitted to our parents that we had started this process - that’s it. 

As we kept moving forward and kept setting plans, we still remained pretty private. We told our parents dates for tests, schedules for retrieval, updates on how we were feeling, but outside of our parents and immediate siblings, we left the world behind as we went down this path. As things progressed and it became harder to hide our lifestyle changes, there were a few friends that started to pick up on the crumbs we mentioned here and there in conversation, but again, we answered what we could and nothing more - we weren’t giving anyone play by play updates because truthfully, we didn’t really have play by play updates either. 

There were (and likely are) undoubtedly people in our lives that felt blindsided, confused, and maybe a little hurt (albeit excited) when we did finally share our news, but here is the thing: I would do it all over again. 

Adam and I protected our peace fiercely. We said no to many events with friends in lieu of taking “us time.” We became a little more recluse, and a lot stronger because of it. We learned all there was to learn in our own time, so now we can have productive and educated conversations with friends and loved ones that otherwise would have only sparked more stress before. 

I think this approach is beneficial for anyone in the TTC community - natural, IVF, or adoption. Family building is so personal, so deeply emotional, and so stressful. Whether natural, IVF, or seeking adoption, you find out your next steps in the moment, flying quite literally by the seat of your pants. If you're someone like me and prone to anxiety, I can’t recommend our approach enough. 

And if you aren’t sure how much you want to share, when you want to share it, or who you want to share it with - start with keeping any and all news exclusive to you and your partner. If you progress through a few visits/a few milestones in your TTC journey and start to feel compelled to pull people in, start with those absolutely closest to you, and share small bits here and there.

You can always share more, but you can never take back what has already been shared.

Protect your peace, and know that everyone in your circle that has your best interest in mind will understand that, and be ready to celebrate, grieve, or support you with open arms when you decide to open up your journey to the world. 

On a more comedic note, one of the biggest perks of keeping the news exclusive is that I only had to shoulder the burden of a select few people in my life thinking about all the “baby making” steps we were taking…… I already had enough medical providers caring deeply about my vagina, uterus, and period, and I am sure Adam will agree he too had far too many people caring about his sperm for his liking. Never a dull moment in IVF…..