One of the things I hear women say time and time again is that IVF feels lonely. Not necessarily because they are physically alone. Many have supportive partners, family members and friends around them, but IVF can create a kind of loneliness that is difficult to explain to anyone who has not experienced it themselves.

It is the loneliness of carrying something that feels enormous while the rest of the world carries on as normal. The loneliness of wanting something so deeply and feeling as though very few people truly understand what this experience is like.

Having experienced infertility and IVF myself, I know this feeling well. It made that period of my life so much harder to cope with, and it is one of the reasons I feel so passionate about supporting women through this journey today.

Feeling as Though You Are Living in a Different Reality

One of the hardest parts of IVF is the growing sense that your life feels so far removed from everyone else’s. Friends announce pregnancies. Babies are born. Families grow. Conversations increasingly revolve around children, parenting and family life.

Meanwhile, your own life begins to revolve around appointments, scans, injections, blood tests and waiting. Waiting for phone calls. Waiting for results. Waiting to see whether this cycle has worked, and waiting to find out what happens next. Over time, it can begin to feel as though you are living in a completely different world from the people around you. While everyone else’s lives appear to be moving forwards, yours can feel suspended in uncertainty. Stuck.

People Care But They Don’t Always Understand

One of the most difficult aspects of infertility is not necessarily a lack of support, but a lack of understanding. The people around you may genuinely care about you and want things to work out. But unless they have experienced infertility themselves, it can be difficult for them to fully appreciate its emotional impact.

They may encourage you to stay positive, tell you to relax, suggest you stop thinking about it or encourage you to focus on something else. Usually these comments come from a place of kindness, but they can leave you feeling even more alone. Not because people don’t care, but because they cannot quite see the emotional weight you are carrying every day, and those comments can feel painful and insensitive.

When People Stop Asking

At the beginning of treatment, people often ask how things are going. They remember appointments, check in after embryo transfers and ask for updates because they genuinely want to support you. But if IVF becomes a longer journey, something often changes. People stop asking.

Not necessarily because they no longer care. Sometimes because they don’t know what to say. Sometimes because they are worried about upsetting you. Sometimes simply because life has moved on for them.

Whatever the reason, the silence can feel painful because IVF hasn’t moved on for you. You are still living it every day. Still carrying the hope, fear and uncertainty that infertility and IVF bring. As time goes on, that silence can leave you feeling increasingly isolated and alone.

Even Supportive Relationships Can Feel Lonely

Even when you have a loving and supportive partner, IVF can still feel lonely. You may be experiencing the process very differently. One of you may want to talk while the other prefers not to. One of you may be feeling hopeful while the other is preparing for disappointment.

And while infertility affects both partners, the experience is not always the same. Particularly when treatment is happening within your own body. The appointments, injections, scans and physical impact of IVF can create a sense of carrying something that nobody else can fully share. Even with the most supportive partner, some parts of that experience remain yours alone.

The Thoughts You Don’t Always Say Aloud

Perhaps the deepest loneliness comes from the thoughts and feelings you keep to yourself. The fears that feel too frightening to say out loud. The questions about how much longer you can keep going, whether treatment will ever work, whether you will become a parent, and what your future might look like if it doesn't.

Feeling Understood Can Make All the Difference

One of the things I have learnt, both through my own fertility journey and through supporting women as a therapist, is that feeling genuinely understood can lessen the loneliness. Not judged. Not reassured. Not told to stay positive or that everything happens for a reason. Simply understood.

IVF can be one of the most emotionally challenging experiences a person can go through, and while nobody can take away the uncertainty, having a space where you don’t need to explain why this feels so hard can make a real difference. For many women, part of that comes from talking to a therapist who has lived through IVF, infertility and miscarriage themselves.

There can be a huge relief in speaking to someone who already understand the emotional realities of this journey, without you having to explain why certain moments feel so difficult, or why your thoughts and feeling are often so complex. It also means you can say the things you perhaps don’t feel able to say anywhere else, without worrying that you will be misunderstood. This can make things feel a lot less lonely.

A version of this article was originally published in the Resources section of my website. If this resonated with you, you’ll find more articles exploring the emotional realities of IVF, infertility and miscarriage there.

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I’ve been sitting with a theme this week that comes up so often in the therapy room: the feeling of being “cursed” by infertility.

It is a dark, heavy thought that we often keep secret because of the shame attached to it. When science fails to give us a clear “why,” the human mind desperately tries to make sense of things and fill the gap with a story - even if that story is a painful one. I wanted to share these reflections for anyone currently feeling at war with their own story.

For many women, infertility doesn’t just feel like a medical problem - it starts to feel like a personal failing, a punishment, or even a curse.

When you’ve been trying to get pregnant for some time, navigating tests, procedures, failed IVF cycles, or devastating losses, it becomes almost impossible not to search for a reason why. And when no tangible answers are offered by the experts, your mind naturally turns inward.

You Start Blaming Yourself

When you have been trying for ages and doctors can’t give you a clear explanation what is wrong - they classify it as “unexplained infertility” - or when you have been undergoing IVF and the “perfect” embryo doesn’t stick, you start looking for answers within yourself. Since the medical side isn’t making sense, you begin to question yourself and your own worth.

When something feels unbearable and uncontrollable, your mind often tries to create a story that makes sense. In the absence of a biological explanation, you might look back at every mistake you’ve ever made and wonder if you’ve done something to deserve this.

You question whether you’re being punished by the universe. You ask yourself if you’re a “good” person, or if there’s some reason you don’t deserve to be a parent. It’s a dark, lonely place to be. When you’re exhausted and grieving, your mind tells you that you must have caused this. You think, “Maybe I’m just not meant to be a mum.”

It Can Feel Like Your Body Is the Enemy

It’s also incredibly common to start blaming your body. You may feel like it has failed you - and worse, like it has failed your potential children and the future you imagined.

Your body stops feeling like “you” and starts feeling like the enemy. You resent your ovaries, your womb, your inability to get or stay pregnant. It can undermine your sense of being a woman, making you feel fundamentally broken. Every scan or failed cycle reinforces the idea that your own biology is the barrier to the life you want.

Losing trust in your body can feel like another kind of grief—one that’s rarely spoken about. It’s an exhausting way to live, being at war with the very body that is supposed to be your home.

The Bitter Contrast: Why Them and Not Me?

What makes it even harder is looking around at the people who are getting pregnant. Many women notice people who aren’t particularly kind, people who seem careless, or people who didn’t even want a baby in the first place, and yet they appear to get pregnant easily.

It’s hard to fathom. It feels personal. You find yourself thinking, “Why them and not me? I’ve done everything right. I’ve worked so hard for this. Why does someone who doesn’t even seem to care get it so easily while I’m still struggling years later?”

And then comes the shame. The part of you that thinks you shouldn’t feel this way, even though it’s a completely human response.

Please Know: It’s Not Your Fault

It’s natural for your mind to try to make sense of what feels senseless. But the sense of feeling cursed isn’t real, even though the pain is.

The hardest truth to accept is that fertility has nothing to do with being a good person. It isn’t a reward for kindness, and it isn’t a punishment for your flaws. Biology is indifferent. It doesn’t measure goodness, effort, or worth.

You haven’t done anything to deserve the trauma of loss or the physical toll of IVF. You’re simply on the wrong side of a very cruel, very random biological situation.

Feeling bitter doesn’t make you a bad person. Feeling like the universe is against you doesn’t mean you’re cursed. It means you’ve been through more than anyone should have to handle, and you’re tired of watching everyone else get what you’ve been fighting for.

A Note on Support

If this resonates with you, please know you don’t have to navigate these feelings alone. I provide online counselling and psychotherapy to women in the UK, specialising in fertility challenges, miscarriage, and IVF support. You can find out more about my practice at www.saffmittentherapy.co.uk where I also share more about these sorts of issues.

I created this publication because I wanted a space to write more deeply about the emotional realities of IVF, infertility and miscarriage. The thoughts, feelings and experiences that often go unspoken. And the ways this journey can impact how you see yourself, your relationships and your life.

I won’t be posting to a schedule. I will simply share articles and reflections when I have something that feels worth saying.

If you are in the depths of IVF or infertility, or you are living with the pain of miscarriage and loss, I hope you find something here that helps you feel understood and a little less alone.