I met my husband during my sophomore year of college at a local bar and since then he hasn't been able to get rid of me! We have been together for 11 years and married for 3 1/2. My husband owns a conference management business and I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist working in private practice. When we aren't at home with our French Bulldog, Hamilton, we are most likely at the gym, on an exciting trip abroad, or these days at a fertility specialist appointment.
Getting started
We decided to try and start our family in September of 2020. After 7 months of trying, we still weren’t getting pregnant. Each month I was wavering between the hope that this would be “the month” and denial because I was avoiding considering something might seriously be wrong. In an effort to gain control over this uncontrollable situation, my mind became overwhelmed with obsessive thinking, which then manifested into chronic anxiety.
As a therapist, I had the awareness to understand what was going on internally, but I was unable to get out of the vicious cycle of negative thinking, which in turn caused stressful feelings, and contributed to more negative thinking. I knew I couldn’t manage another month of “not knowing”, so I went to my OBGYN and she reassured me that I was "fine" because I was "young and healthy". Two months later, I went back to the OBGYN to advocate for myself because we still weren’t pregnant and I needed some answers and solutions to ease my fears and anxiety. I utilized the same assertive communication skills that I teach my own clients in therapy sessions, and it worked.
My OBGYN prescribed me Clomid, had me complete bloodwork to test my hormone levels, and had my husband complete a semen analysis. My OBGYN assured me all the results from the testing were “normal” and instructed us to lower our stress levels and to “have sex and have fun.” My husband and I followed the doctor’s recommendations.
We went on date nights and fun weekend trips, but we still couldn’t conceive after 4 months on Clomid. During this time, my mental health began to deteriorate. When I wasn’t thinking about my fertility challenges, I was generally irritable, on-edge, and frustrated. I put a lot of pressure on myself to manage the infertility challenges in the “best way possible” due to my expertise in human psychology. I kept telling myself, “You’re a therapist!! You know your thoughts and feelings are not helpful. You need to work harder to change them!”. I knew this expectation I was putting on myself was unfair and detrimental to my already fragile state, so I did what I knew would actually be helpful and began working with my own therapist.
At the beginning of 2022 we decided to see a fertility specialist, who diagnosed me with primary infertility due to anolvulation and “unexplained infertility”. My husband and I did not feel heard or understood by this doctor because she would dismiss our concerns or provide us with vague answers to our specific questions. We felt stuck because we had spent months on fertility work-up procedures and testing and had invested a considerable amount of money, so we followed recommendations and did an IUI in May 2022.
When we found out I did not ovulate, we were left devastated, confused, and frustrated. The emotional pain that follows after an unsuccessful medical fertility treatment is something only others who have gone through it can truly understand.
I am blessed, and of course saddened, that I have a close friend who is also on a TTC journey. She was a lifeline to me during this time and continues to be today. I don’t need to justify, explain, or dismiss my feelings with her. I can just be with present my infertility heartache and I am comforted because I know she gets it.
A new doctor
My husband and I ultimately knew we needed a new doctor, so we changed fertility clinics and felt like we were back to square 1 when we had to do all the work-ups again. This new doctor noticed my AMH levels were low and told me it was likely I have endometriosis. I didn’t believe this was a possibility because I had absolutely no symptoms, but after she explained the correlation between endometriosis and diminished ovarian reserve, I reconsidered it.
I had laparoscopic surgery in September 2022, which revealed I had Stage 2 endometriosis and my doctor removed it without any issues. I was relieved once the procedure was completed, but also extremely upset when I learned I now have a shorter “window of opportunity” for pregnancies and I will likely go into menopause 10 years earlier than “normal”.
It still perplexes me that a condition I didn’t even know I had, could take so much for me. I still think about the eggs I will never get back and how I don’t have the luxury of time in my reproductive window. Throughout this time, I continued to meet with my own therapist and began to feel more like myself. I became more accepting of my fertility challenges and the many uncertainties that go along with it. I learned how to integrate infertility into my life instead of living as if infertility is my whole life.
My doctor was optimistic my chances of conceiving now that the endometriosis was removed and she suggested we do an IUI as our next step. My husband and I did not want to be stuck in the doctor appointments shuffle during the holiday season, so we advocated for ourselves and suggested using Clomid and trying on our own and our doctor was supportive. I gave my body two full cycles post-surgery to heal before we started to “really try” again, but we haven’t been successful and are still on our TTC journey.
My experience as a therapist struggling with infertility has made me passionate about the mental health of TTC women. Our mental health tends to get put on the side burner when we are going through fertility treatments because we get hyper-focused on timing, planning, medications, doctor’s appointments, and everything else involved. Mental health has been left out of the infertility world for far too long and I am advocating to break the stigma by encouraging women to seek help from a licensed therapist during their TTC journey.
What's next for us?
We plan on doing an IUI once I start my next cycle, but there are times when I feel emotionally and mentally burnt out from the infertility process. Since infertility is inherently stressful, and I have been challenged with infertility for the past 2 ½ years, I think stress has unfortunately become my new baseline. Thankfully, I am privileged to have the awareness, mental health knowledge, tools, and resources to help with my burn-out. I set aside time every day to care for my mental health because I know how important it is and how much it helps me. I recently created an Instagram and TikTok profile “TTC_Therapist” to help other women improve their mental health by providing strategies, relatable content, and humor (since studies show laughter can reduce stress levels).
My goal is to encourage other women to focus on their mental health and to consider adding a licensed mental health therapist to their fertility team, since I have experienced the positive benefits of this for myself. Eventually I plan on leading a small and intimate virtual infertility support group, because my experience has shown me how healing and helpful connecting with other women experiencing fertility challenges can be.
As I continue on this TTC journey I make it a point every day to prioritize my mental health, and am I am advocating for all those who are on their own TTC journey to do the same.
Paige shares her story from USA.
Thank you for sharing x Emma & Lynette.
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