What IVF Really Asks Of A Marriage

What happens to a marriage when becoming parents stops feeling simple?

IVF can look like a clean plan on paper: appointments, medication, an embryo transfer, a baby at the end. Then real life shows up with unknowns, failed cycles, and the kind of grief that doesn’t fit neatly into a timeline. 

In this deeply honest episode of Therapist Unplugged, Laurie Poole sits down with a couple willing to share the emotional reality of infertility, miscarriage, and IVF. Catherine and Tim open up about the grief, pressure, hope, isolation, and unexpected intimacy that shaped their five-year fertility journey.

Together, they talk about the emotional toll IVF takes on a relationship, the loneliness couples often experience in silence, and the way infertility can quietly consume everyday life. 

If you or someone you love has experienced infertility, IVF, miscarriage, or the emotional weight of trying to grow a family, this conversation offers honesty, comfort, and a reminder that you are not alone.

🎙️ Therapist Unplugged is produced by The Montfort Group, a boutique therapy practice based in Plano, Texas, helping individuals, couples, and families build emotionally intelligent, connected lives.

Subscribe for real conversations with real therapists, because healing doesn’t happen in perfect soundbites.

To learn more about our team or schedule a session, visit: www.themontfortgroup.com

Follow us on Instagram: @themontfortgroup

Transcript

Why IVF Feels Like A Sure Thing

Laurie Poole 0:00

Welcome everybody to Therapist Unplugged. We have today a very special episode on the couple experience of IVF. And my guests, Catherine and Tim, are here to share their experience with IVF. And one of the reasons I really wanted to talk about this, folks, is because I, as a therapist, uh hear more stories in my office about couples who really want to have children. They find that they hit a few roadblocks when they try to do it on their own and they end up going through the whole IVF procedure or process, as we say in Canada, that can often be more challenging than what was anticipated. And I know that the two of you had quite an extraordinary experience, which you've been so gracious to share with our listeners as a way of normalizing and maybe, you know, setting up a tone for realistic expectations by sharing some of the things that you experienced. So let me ask you both this. How old are you both now?

Catherine 1:06

I'm 35.

Laurie Poole 1:07

Okay. Okay, 35 and 37. And how old were you when you started the IVF process?

Catherine 1:14

Um, I was 30. So five years ago. So 37 years ago.

Laurie Poole 1:18

It was about five years ago. Okay. All right. So when you look back on this, I'm curious, what do you wish that couples understood about IVF? Like as a couple, let me make it more personal. What do you wish you had understood about IVF when you started all of this?

Catherine 1:35

I I wish I understood how common it is, and that would give us more of an avenue to talk about it because when we first started, or even before we went to a fertility doctor, I figured it this was we do IVF. Um, this is a shoe-in. It's going to work, it will work. And I I didn't know the statistics. And so part of me thought, oh no, I'm kind of succumbing to this failure in a way of well, we couldn't do it naturally. Um, we couldn't do it on our own. So we need this help. And that was really hard to admit for me. Um, which is why just understanding how common it is would have been helpful, and just understanding, even though you go through this IVF process, there still is a ton that is out of your control. Um so, in a way, I thought we were taking it all into our control with these meds and um, you know, doctor intervention and that we would we would control the situation when in reality it is still so much out of our control.

Laurie Poole 2:50

Wow, that had to be a really tough period because you think you're investing in a process that will give you a guaranteed outcome. And as you engage in it and you experience it, you find out like, wow, that is we're paying a lot of money for a significant portion of this process that we can't control, nor can the doctors necessarily. What about for you, Tim?

Tim 3:14

Yeah, I I think I uh would have liked to just better understand that this really is a full-in commitment, uh, financially, time, mentally, emotionally, physically. Um, there's no part of your life that is not going to be touched by this in one way or another for the duration of IVF. Um I had it much easier, obviously. There are a lot of those components that don't necessarily impact me as much, but it's making time every single day for weeks to go into doctor's offices for blood draws and scan everything. So, you know, Catherine already working with a very demanding work schedule has to introduce even more stress and complexity in her day-to-day life just to make all these doctor visits work. And yeah, just the time commitment and the mental and emotional commitment as well. Um, you were talking about how you know you're you feel like you're moving into a phase where you're taking control of all of this and it's going to work, and that just makes the failures hurt even worse in a lot of ways. Yes, being prepared for the commitment that a very real possibility is that you're going to sink all this time and energy and money into this, and it may not work.

Laurie Poole 4:32

Right. Yeah, that's that's uh that's a measure of faith. Investing in, but not knowing what the outcome will be. At what point did did the two of you explore IVF? Like, can you take us back to that point where you started the process?

Catherine 4:47

Yeah. I I can remember specifically when it entered my mind. Um it was I remember it was during COVID and we were home all the time in 2020, and it was Father's Day. And uh we were we were sitting out in our backyard, and I could tell, I could tell that Tim

The Moment They Chose Help

Catherine 5:10

was really down that day. And uh I, you know, probed, I I asked, you know, what was what was going on, and he said, I thought I would be a dad by now. Um and that that was like gut-wrenching for me. I I knew that, but hearing him say it out loud made me said, okay, we we should we should get more serious about this. I'm usually more of the emotional one and will like be upset about certain things.

Laurie Poole 5:45

So when he gets upset, like, oh, this is this is we have to pay attention to this is real. Yeah.

Tim 5:52

We were just kind of expecting that you know, if we just play cool for more time and just you know don't focus on it too much, eventually it will happen. Um, because at that point we had already been like not trying for a while, two, three years, maybe at that point. I don't know, maybe I'm yeah, just remembering. Um, but at that point, I I do remember it's kind of hit me like we've we've been trying this kind of quietly and it's nothing's happening.

Catherine 6:20

Yeah, and it's time to talk about it and address it. Yeah.

Laurie Poole 6:25

So it sounds as though you had reached a point where you had given a reasonable amount of time to get pregnant on your own. Often people, I think with infertility, and don't quote me, I'm not a physician, but you you try for a year, and if after a year nothing's happening, then you know, maybe you start looking at things like IUI and and um doing some hormonal work, like testing to see where your hormones are at and you know, um, what your ovaries are like, uh what sperm is like, like all of these kinds of things. So you start this sort of analysis and gathering of data biologically, right? And uh and and then I guess there's a series of phases that you go through when you're exploring infertility. So um I'm curious about did IVF affect the way the two of you communicated with each other, like as you were going through this experience? And if so, what did you notice that was different or what shifted during that period between you?

Catherine 7:23

Yeah, like like I said, I'm I've typically been um we've known each other a long time. I've historically been the emotional one, and I could definitely tell over time that he he was tapping into more of his emotional side and it really opened up that door for us to connect in that way. And like we could really, with you know, the the challenges with the losses, we could really like grieve together, but we could also just really enjoy things a lot more and just have because we we were the only people in the world that understood and knew what we were going through. And so I think it can very easily tear couples apart because of how much stress it is, but I mean, thankfully, we really just leaned in to each other and it opened up it opened up the communication a lot more to just become more like harmonized, I think, in terms of the emotions.

Laurie Poole 8:24

I wonder if I could just dial it back a little bit because you're reminding me that there was, there were miscarriages, there was, you know, can you walk us through sort of what you went through in this IBF period? Like, was it over a two-year period? Can you can you walk listeners through some of that emotional EKG associated with with the

Chemical Pregnancies And Unexplained Infertility

Laurie Poole 8:45

experience? Because you I think you two had quite an extraordinary experience. It sounded like it to me anyway.

Catherine 8:51

Oh yeah, yeah. And and another thing that started the process, I I experienced a few chemical pregnancies, which I had never heard of or or knew of, but it's basically a very, a very, very early miscarriage. And really I would have only known um because I was tracking my my period pretty pretty closely. I had a a few of those, also very common, but it's it's basically like a you know, your period just shows up, but I had taken a pregnancy test and it was positive and quickly turned negative. So it was an unusual situation. How many of those did you have, Catherine? Um, I had, I think I had two before we started the fertility process.

Laurie Poole 9:37

Okay. And and prior to starting the fertility process, what I under, what I I think I understood was that there was nothing biologically abnormal or like you were normal, you were a nor you were a healthy couple, biologically capable of a pregnancy.

Catherine 9:54

Yes.

Laurie Poole 9:55

Right? There was there wasn't a physiological, chemical, hormonal um scenario that was preventing pregnancy.

Catherine 10:03

Yes, that's right. Unexplained infertility.

Laurie Poole 10:07

Unexplained infertility. Okay.

Catherine 10:10

Which may be one of the most frustrating, it's all frustrating, but it the not being able to pinpoint it to something was very, very hard. We we started with some uh clomid as like a kind of to boost the the ovaries and such that I took and then I did three IUIs. It's intrauterine insemination. Um, so he deposits his sorry sorry champ, but you know, people are gonna want to know what is IUI. I guess you can speak to that, but it's into a cup, and then they and then the lab, the IVF, you know, magicians will cleanse it, if you will, and find the healthy sperm. And then I would go into the office a little bit later that day once they've cleansed it, and they would take a syringe and put it directly into the uterus as a means to get it to the uterus faster.

Tim 11:11

And you have to take a lot of injections for that one.

Catherine 11:14

Um I I might I might have in one of the yeah, it's like I think the first one or two we just tried straight no meds, and then the third one we tried with some meds um to help stimulate the ovaries, and so none of those worked for us.

Tim 11:31

Um and so those were we got pregnant from a couple of them, I think.

Catherine 11:37

Oh yeah, no, that's right. I think we did get pregnant by one of them, and that was a chemical pregnancy. Okay, and then I think before right before we started IVF, I remember I had a miscarriage. Um, we had tried naturally, and I I had a miscarriage, and so that was like a little bit further along. That was like maybe six or seven weeks, not like a four-week, but I had a miscarriage.

Laurie Poole 12:05

That must have been devastating.

Catherine 12:06

Yeah, it was it was devastating and it was very confusing because it had happened naturally. I was thinking, well, we've gone through all of this and it didn't happen, and then this happened naturally, but I miscarried. So it's the emotions, it was a big roller coaster. And so I thought, I mean, I thought at the time, oh my gosh, I got pregnant. I like we did it, and then it's like the swan dive into devastation. And when we find out that there's no heartbeat is really when we said, okay, let's let's get more aggressive, let's pivot to IVF. And okay, let's really give it our best shot, get the best embryos we can, and right do all the testing on it.

Laurie Poole 12:48

Yeah. Um, Tim, how many how many rounds of of IVF um did you guys go through?

Tim 12:56

We uh well, we went through two rounds of egg retrievals. Um the first round we ended up with three healthy embryos, I believe. Um, and we transferred two. Yeah, from that round, I think we transferred two.

Catherine 13:12

Yes, not not at once.

Tim 13:14

Not at the same time. Yeah, sorry. One at a time. Um both of them, I believe, ended up being pregnancies that we lost um shortly afterwards. Um, so after the second loss, we decided that you know we've got one healthy embryo left. It's either gonna work or it's not gonna work. If it doesn't work, we know we're gonna want to try this again. If it does work, we know that we're gonna want the option for siblings in the future. So we decided at that point, let's just do another round of e retrievals um and not have to wait any longer. Um so we did one more round of egg retrieval, and I think for that one we got I think we got two healthy embryos. Two healthy embryos out of that one. Um it turns out we didn't need any of those three, fortunately, um, because our our little girl showed up all on our own uh shortly after that.

Laurie Poole 14:17

So isn't that wild?

Tim 14:20

It sure is.

Laurie Poole 14:23

Yeah.

Tim 14:23

After all the years and hard work and you know assistance that we gave it our all. She just decided, you know what? Um gonna I'm ready.

Laurie Poole 14:33

I'm ready.

Tim 14:33

I'm gonna show up here all on my own.

Laurie Poole 14:36

The irony of this is huge because you worked so hard during the IVF experience. And you know, as you mentioned earlier, kind of brought up the it brought up a lot of emotion. I'm curious about um, Tim, for you, how you as a partner, as a husband, like how did you carve out a role? Because you you mentioned like Catherine's body is going through these injections and medications and and man, that messes with your hormones, which can also mess with your temperament and you know the emotional roller coaster that all of this uh introduces

Finding A Role As The Partner

Laurie Poole 15:15

anyway. How did you how did you figure out how to roll with this?

Tim 15:20

Yeah, it was very difficult. Um I I went back and read through a couple just very sporadic journals that I kept during this process. And there was a lot of anger in there um at the world, at our situation, at other people who we love dearly, who seem to just be getting exactly what they wanted, um, you know, in this scenario. Not great feelings. There was also a lot of just questioning like what is my role, obviously as a partner, but just kind of like in general, if I'm not going to be a father, you know, what am I doing here? Why are we why am I working hard at my career? You know, what should I be focusing on in life? That there were just a lot of very complicated feelings. Um, but in the context of my role as a partner, um, and figuring out how I could best support Catherine throughout this journey. It was, you know, a conscious decision to shower her with love and appreciation at every opportunity I could, reiterating to her that, you know, this is absolutely not her fault or either of our faults. It is just a situation that we are both unfortunately placed in.

Laurie Poole 16:32

Yeah.

Tim 16:33

Trying to find whatever things I can do throughout the process to be involved and not make it feel like the entire weight of everything is on her shoulders. So the most tangible example of that is infertility process. You know, she's having to pump herself full of all sorts of hormones and drugs and everything like that. So, you know, I made a commitment that I would be present and delivering those injections, you know, every single night, whether that meant if we were out at a party, we went together to, you know, a bathroom with our little bag of goodies to you know mix all of the ingredients and inject it and you know, massages afterward and chocolate always. Um if she was never gonna be allowed to miss an appointment or a blood draw or anything, it wasn't right for me to put a um an injection or or anything like that.

Laurie Poole 17:33

Was that something the two of you talked about in terms of your role, Tim, and how Catherine, what kind of support you needed? Like, I'm just curious about because that sounds like that was almost a work in progress, like as you were going through it, like because you don't know what you don't know, right?

Catherine 17:51

Yeah. I don't remember if we talked about it much. I do think that we talked about like the role of the injections and you know the your your commitment to be there. And that was he may not realize it, but that was hugely impactful and helpful to me. Um not only actually, you know, taking on this, you know, gotta mix the mix the drugs, inject them. I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to poke somebody. Um that's like I would be nervous to do that, but um, but it was, I mean, and not only like the physical load, but the mental load is huge. Um, and having the support of somebody else taking on the mental load too is just a huge weight off. Um, honestly, the mental load is probably even harder than the physical, really.

Laurie Poole 18:47

I wondered about that because there's such a cycle of hope and then disappointment and grieving. Yes. I'm not sure that folks really appreciate the kind of grief that can accompany this entire experience. How did you guys, how did the two of you uh manage the grief? And and I

Living With Anticipatory Grief

Laurie Poole 19:10

I think there are a couple of things, just like, oh my god, are we failing? Like, why is this not working and having these unanswered questions on top of the grief and sadness that accompanies a failed pregnancy?

Catherine 19:22

It's so hard. Um, I think we eventually just had to get to a place of letting ourselves feel the way that we feel, and however that was is was okay. Could be days and days of just like being in bed or on the couch, just like rotting because of devastation and just not able to do anything or focus. And really, I mean, there were I remember there being a time where I said, okay, the only thing on my to-do list today is to get through the day. Um and those just small small goals, even just that is what helped, what helped me just get one day at a time, one one step at a time.

Tim 20:09

Yeah, and a lot of the grief. Um, I feel like you in particular, you weren't even allowed to start the grieving process because a lot of times, you know, as you go through the process, you get to one step in it, and you kind of realize, like, okay, the numbers just are not adding up to where they should be right now. But that embryo is still going to be in you for you know the next week to two weeks at least. You're still having to go into the office and do scans, and you know what's gonna show up on those scans before you go into the office. And you can't really start grieving until kind of that medical process is done. Um, so you're kind of living with this, like, I know this isn't working, but I I can't even start the process just yet.

Laurie Poole 21:00

When Tim, when you refer to I know this process isn't working, um, is is that related to hormone levels that they're looking for in the blood work to see if the pregnancy is viable over time? Because the hormone levels should increase as I understand it with the um duration of the pregnancy. And if the numbers don't measure up, then the writing can be on the wall about what's going to happen. And it's that anticipatory grief knowing what the outcome is going to be that that um and yet having to continue along with the process. Yeah. I think that's what you're saying, is like, you know, we know how this is gonna go, but man, we've gotta, yeah.

Tim 21:45

Yeah, you get those levels back, and you know, everything you're seeing is it's well below where it should be right now. So then you start the Googling of like, yeah, oh, has anybody else, you know, had a successful pregnancy with this level? At this time, and you're just going through pages and pages of Google, clicking on everything, and and then you know it happens again the next attempt, and you open up Google to start looking through it, and you're like, oh, all these links are already purple because we did this exact same thing three months ago.

Catherine 22:20

Um you just have that little glimmer of hope to find something that could maybe this will work still, maybe there's still an opportunity. Um which which can be can we go to our bad? I mean, it just the sometimes like, well, I just wish we could go ahead and call it, but yeah, no, there's still a little bit of hope. Let's, you know, let's keep that up. It's hard, it's very complicated, very complex feelings.

Laurie Poole 22:50

Complicated, and it sounds as though there were days of hopelessness. How how are we gonna get out of this? Like, because the the other thing that I that I understand is that it becomes consuming in the relationship, in your thought process, in you know, you mentioned something earlier, Tim, about uh purpose because you want to be a dad. You want to you both wanted to be parents. And so if this isn't gonna like reimagining what the future is. And part of the grief is do we have to give up what we imagined the future would look like?

Tim 23:27

Yep.

Laurie Poole 23:27

That's a huge part. Yes, exactly.

Tim 23:31

We bought a house a couple of years after we got married, it's across the street from an elementary school. Um, it's larger than you know what we needed as a newlywed couple with no kids because it was our plan. You know, we're gonna fill up these bedrooms with children and they're gonna walk across the street to school once they reach that age, and to just live every single day in an environment where you look at the rooms that are unused and look across the street and see the parents walking their kids to school every single day.

Laurie Poole 24:05

Yeah.

Tim 24:06

It's it's tough.

Laurie Poole 24:07

It's tough. It's uh it it is the kind of grief that comes with uh visions that may not happen and futures imagined that may not come to fruition. And I think that that that can be very, very that can be very tough. Um, I have a couple more questions for you. This one might be a little uncomfortable. What about intimacy and infertility? How did that uh I think about um people I know who go like, okay, I just feel like I'm uh I'm a sperm donor here because it's uh three o'clock on Saturday afternoon when you know I'm ovulating and chop chop, let's do it. I did

Intimacy Under A Fertility Clock

Laurie Poole 24:50

did you experience intimacy, a shift in intimacy or a kind of pressure, like where that that connecting thing, it became more functional or performative, maybe than it would have otherwise. And if so, how did that affect your intimate life?

Catherine 25:08

Yes, I would say this the the infertility and trying to focus on a pregnancy, it can very easily take the romance out because you're it's you know, this specific day, even a specific time, um, depending on where you are in the the cycle of uh the fertility journey, it's it does put pressure on that. And so that's not very healthy because you don't want to you don't want to be stressed and feel pressure, you know, during intimacy. I mean, that's not going to help. No, it certainly does not. I mean, I know it, I know that works for for some people, but it's there's a certain there's a certain point where that just doesn't, your body doesn't react well to the level of you know, pressure and just I I kind of wish if we were to go back in time, I do wish that we could take a little bit of the pressure out and just enjoy it and yeah, enjoy the journey a little bit more. It's easier said than done now because um we were going through it and we really wanted the specific outcome, but having fun and enjoying it. Um I wish we we could have been able to do that a little bit more.

Laurie Poole 26:31

Yeah. I guess one of the questions I'm curious about is sources of support, comfort. Like what helped get you through this experience?

Tim 26:42

A couple things for me. Uh I did mention earlier that I sporadically did some journaling, and I think that did help me just get my thoughts out of my own head and onto paper and express some of those emotions in a healthy way. Nobody's hurt, I'm

Support Systems And Letting People In

Tim 27:00

not hurt. You know, it's just words on paper. I actually did open up with kind of a smaller core group of guy friends that I have that I don't think anything related to infertility or anything like this would have been a topic of conversation uh for us at any point in the past. But um I did share with them what we were going through and some of the feelings I was having. And uh they were all super supportive and you know, very helpful and yeah, making me feel connected as we went through the journey. And um, to a point you made earlier, like this is way more common than people think. Um, you know, we're having those same conversations uh again uh with other guys, and it's just really great to have an outside support system that you can share these thoughts with.

Laurie Poole 27:45

Um were you surprised that men that your core group of guy friends would be that kind of support and being open to, or um I don't know if surprised is the right word.

Tim 27:59

They're they're great guys, and I knew they would be there for me. I I think maybe I was maybe a little surprised at their their willingness to maybe be a little uncomfortable with it and not shy away from it, right? Um yeah, so I really appreciate their willing to kind of exist in that uncomfortableness with me. Yeah, for the two of us though, I I know that we we did make a conscious effort to try to introduce some more fun into our lives. Um, we tried going to like more concerts, and um, at one point we you know just hopped over to London and Paris for a little quick getaway that we only planned, you know, two or three weeks in advance, which is not something we would do normally. Um, so we really tried to make sure we we were allowing and introducing fun into our lives and not just wallowing in the the same misery indefinitely.

Catherine 28:56

We were trying to, in a way, almost do things that we couldn't do if we had kids, um, and almost look at it in in that way a little bit, um, to try to make the best out of our situation. And I mean, and after a while it becomes hard to go, you know, go to parties or dinners or something, and and people ask you, how's it going? What's going on with your life? You know, how how is everything going? And it's like, you know, all that you're thinking about is trying to get pregnant, and how we want a family, and then it's like, yeah, everything's fine, not much going on here. It's just, and so I I um I opened up to my my girlfriends um and family, and it was it is uncomfortable to open the conversation, to open the door of it. Um, but they have been incredibly supportive. And so many, so many times I've found when I open up to people there I have heard, oh, you know, I I went through a similar experience, and this is this is what I went through. And so the more the more it is talked about, the more you hear similar stories, and it really helps to so that you don't feel like you're alone and you don't you can share in in that grief and the challenge.

Laurie Poole 30:35

It sounds as though one of the things you experienced that perhaps you hadn't anticipated is a sense of isolation. And that when as you went through the process and you heard other people's stories and you connected with others, once you opened up and then you, oh my God, like we this happens to people. This isn't just, you know, it's not just us, it really does happen to people, but we're not talking about it. Right. The way we don't talk about miscarriage and the grief of miscarriages. Oh, you can have another kid, it's not a problem. But the grief is real and the hormonal impact is real, all of it. And and this kind of brings me to where you landed. So after the IVF process, then what happened?

Catherine 31:18

Well, I would say, I would say what comes to mind for me is there was a shift for me where I said, like, I'd really like to focus on making me healthy, you know, focus on feeling good. I really wanted to feel good. I wanted to feel good in my body and you know, get some good exercise. And, you know, I I stopped drinking alcohol for a little bit. And and it wasn't, I really tried

Shifting Focus Then Getting Pregnant

Catherine 31:45

to not make it about the pregnancy. I wanted to make it about me being healthy and feeling good. So I tried to shift mindset in that regard. And then also like Tim mentioned, just focusing on other things, bringing in the fun. We we said one day, you know what, let's renovate our master bathroom. I know that's not, you know, something that people can just do, but it's it was on our minds. We said, yeah, let's have other things. Let's just do it. Let's do it. Let's have other things to focus on and keep our weekends busy so that you know we're not just home and wallowing. And so um honestly, like once we really shifted focus into that kind of thing, um, we did have in the back of our minds, like we were we were actually going to do another embryo transfer. Um, and the timing was just a little bit complicated. My doctor was gonna be out of town and to make sure that the the timing worked out right in my cycle, they were gonna put me on a birth control pill. And I was like, no, no, no. I that doesn't feel right, that doesn't feel good. I don't want to take a birth control pill just because my doctor's out of town. Um, so that that's a time, a very critical time that I listened to my body and I said, no, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. And that's the month that we got pregnant with our daughter, um, naturally.

Laurie Poole 33:12

And um after all of that.

Catherine 33:16

Yeah, I know it's it's crazy. And like so many you hear all the time, don't don't stress, don't stress. I mean, that's that's so helpful. Like it's not realistic. So you just have to get to that place yourself, um, and just start to move on as you can to the best you can and just enjoy have have things that can bring you joy.

Laurie Poole 33:46

Yeah. So the two what about for you, Tim? I'm I'm curious about you know, where you were at as at the at the point in time in which you guys got pregnant on your own with your beautiful baby.

Tim 34:00

Yeah, at that point, um, like what she said, we were ready to do another embryo transfer, but the timing just wasn't working. So I was still in the headspace of you know, at some point in the near future, we're going back to daily injections, daily level checks, and um, you know, this all this other stuff.

Catherine 34:21

My mind was even going to adoption, like is we even started getting to that place.

Tim 34:26

Yeah, because what they don't necessarily tell you right off the bat with IVF is you know, they show you the great numbers of you know, 80, 90 percent success or whatever, but then when you dig into it, you start realizing like most of those successes are coming from people after like one or two tries, once you start stacking up the the failures, the the numbers start going down dramatically.

Laurie Poole 34:52

So that's something that folks don't often realize when they start this whole process.

Tim 35:00

We're starting to think of like you know, this might just not be the avenue we have for starting family. Um, so what do those other options look like?

Laurie Poole 35:12

Yeah, yeah. Well, I um I really appreciate what you have shared today with our listeners because IVF is a process for many, many people, and it's not a um success rate first time around for everybody. Right. And the numbers don't always, what they show you doesn't always come to fruition, right? Like it's and and the other piece of this from what you've described is that there's there are factors you can't control, and there are reasons uh that doctors can't provide when they can't tell you, well, this is what's happening, we can't really tell you why, because physically, biologically, you are a healthy person who should be able to get pregnant. And then it's interesting too um how you can turn that on yourself. Well, what's happening with my body? It's almost like your body, your body, you can't trust your body because you're being told your body's really healthy, everything should be a go, and yet nothing's happening. So, what is it? What am I doing wrong? I mean, I think it can be easy to turn it on yourself.

Catherine 36:29

Oh, yes. Um there was a lot of that.

Laurie Poole 36:33

If you were going to provide couples with any advice or some final thoughts about your own experience with IVF, what would they be? I'll start with you, Catherine.

Catherine 36:45

I think like like we've said a little bit, is is do your best to bring some fun into it. It's really hard to when that's when it's all consuming, but um you know, make dinner plans,

Final Advice And Hard-Won Growth

Catherine 37:00

go to the concerts, fill up your weekends with, you know, time with with friends so that you can get your mind off of it a little bit, um, to try to just get out of so that it's not all consuming. Um and and yeah, I think if I if I had focused a little bit more on just like making myself working on myself and making myself healthy, I think I would have been probably in a better space, headspace and physical and physically um would be would be my um my advice.

Laurie Poole 37:39

Okay. What about for you, Tim?

Tim 37:42

Yeah, I think my just kind of general thoughts at the end of this journey for us is um and I would never want to suggest that what we went through was good or that people should experience what we experienced, but I I can say that I think it did result in us being better parents today than we would have been if we had not gone through this. Um and I do think it has put us as a husband and wife, as a you know, marriage in a better spot than we than we could ever be. And I know I say this, you know, looking back at it from the position of, you know, we have a child now, we are happy with where we're at right now. Um, and that's not going to be the case for everybody, unfortunately. Um, but I I think what we went through was the worst possible thing I would ever want anybody to do to deal with, but it was also the best possible thing that ever happened to us.

Laurie Poole 38:52

Yeah. You know, I'm I'm hearing a few things. One is the gratitude for the experience and being in a position where you acknowledge the growth in in your marriage, in uh the relationship between the two of you in terms of how you communicated, how you supported each other, realizing that nobody else knew or could experience what it was that you were going through. And as a result of that, the kind of connection and vulnerability that led to even greater connection for both of you is huge. And I hear the gratitude for that, and how that in turn has really made you appreciate also parenting because your your little girl who will be two in April is here, and she's beautiful, by the way. She is just a stunning, gorgeous, Goldilocks little girl. Um, and so the parenting, and the parenting too, because the two of you have a there's been a shift in the connection, the relationship between the two of you because of the IVF experience. So I'm hearing that. And the other message I'm hearing is don't stop living. Yeah, have fun, do all the things, don't let this take over your life. Keep living your life and don't forget who you are. My words, not yours, but that's how I felt when I heard you say that. Yes, yes, very much. Well, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your experience and being so open. I know that this episode will resonate with our listeners who are uh experiencing infertility or who anticipate it, who uh just need some reassurance and understanding that uh they are not alone in all of this. So thank you both very, very much. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. All right. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.