Infertility brings anyone struggling to become a parent into a single club. We’re all different, with different stories and circumstances, but somehow, also all the same.  I am certainly no different. I wanted to be a parent for as long as I can remember. We struggled for years through multiple rounds of timed intercourse, IUIs, and IVF, until I had run out of options. None of the 14 embryos my husband and I created made it to blastocyst. None made it past day three, indicating the problem in development was with my eggs.  It was...

If you’ve been through fertility treatments, you know that the sheer amount of information that’s thrown your way is enough to make your head spin. There are also countless questions that must be answered and decisions that must be made and pieces of research that must be explored. For many people, the mental gymnastics of infertility is already wildly overwhelming before they’ve even set foot into a fertility clinic. Actually finding the right fertility clinic can be a massive challenge, for one thing. Newsweek recently released a list of the top fertility clinics in the...

As you probably know by now, the journey to conception is a whole-body event. While your ovaries and fallopian tubes are responsible for a lot of the work, so much more goes into getting pregnant. It’s imperative that your entire body is functioning at its highest potential. In order to do this, you may need to change your supplements at different stages while TTC, and then again throughout your pregnancy.  “30% of people don’t eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, and the way that we lead our lives in the 21st century doesn’t...

Infertility isn’t limited to a person’s first pregnancy. About 14% of individuals struggle with getting pregnant or bringing a pregnancy to full term after already having had one pregnancy or birth, according to the CDC.  For couples who have a more difficult time trying to get pregnant the second time around, secondary infertility carries some equally difficult — but different — emotions to primary infertility (infertility associated with a first-time pregnancy). The Emotional Toll of Secondary Infertility  Feelings like guilt and loneliness can make the struggle to have another baby its own sort of challenge. Often,...

Going through any fertility struggle is traumatic. The process affects mental health in many ways, impacting a person’s sense of identity and self-worth. Many of my clients come into therapy seeking emotional support without realizing that infertility also leads to a form of trauma. While most people associate trauma with soldiers returning from war, infertility’s ups and downs also trigger similar responses. Infertility can involve surviving repeated traumatic experiences such as infertility diagnosis, recurrent pregnancy loss, reproductive injury, and fertility treatment. A person’s trauma can be exacerbated by repeatedly being let down every month with negative...

When you’re trying to get pregnant, the dynamic between you and your partner when it comes to intercourse often changes. From the exact timing of ovulation to the type of lubricant you use, the details matter, and you can feel the pressure.  When the stakes are this high, it can be super helpful to know which fertility-friendly lubes are actually worth buying. Now let’s take a look at why sperm-friendly lubricants are so important to your fertility journey and how finding the right product can make all the difference!   Why sperm-friendly lubricant for fertility? Why are...

Bethany C. Meyers always imagined she’d get pregnant immediately.  “I was very much like ‘we’re going to do it once and we’re going to be pregnant. And that’s it,” says Meyers, who is the founder of the be.come project, an inclusive, body-neutral fitness platform.  But Meyers and their partner, actor Nico Tortorella, were shocked when it didn’t unfold that way. “We tried for about two years to get pregnant before we conceived. It was definitely a very unexpected thing for both my partner and [me],” says Meyers. “We’d dreamt about having children, we’ve known each...

Infertility — it's a tough journey: physically, emotionally, and financially. But did you know that you may be able to deduct some of the costs of fertility treatments, like in-vitro fertilization (IVF), from your taxes? You heard that right — the IRS recognizes the financial burden that infertility can place on families, and some tax deductions and credits are available to help ease some of the stress.  Before we get into the nitty-gritty and start throwing words at you like "adjusted gross income," "itemized deductions," and other terms that will make your head spin, let's begin...

Elite athletes have spoken out about how training at the highest level of a sport can affect a person’s mental health and lifestyle in some really damaging ways. We’re aware that many athletes are robbed of their childhood and teen years —  instead of going to prom and homecoming and hanging out by their lockers with friends, they’re training around the clock and carrying enormous pressure on their shoulders.  But there’s one aspect of the athlete experience people may not be aware of: The way athletes often face barriers when building their families due to the...

If you’ve ever been diagnosed with unexplained infertility, you know how frustrating that lack of clarity is. Not having a concrete example for why your body isn’t doing the one thing you want it to do can feel so defeating — and in some ways, when there’s no medical cause that experts can point to, it puts even more pressure on the patient to fix the problem.  Speaking of vague, tough-to-understand medical issues: Enter inflammation. Inflammation has become something of a buzzword, both on social media and in real life. But despite how often it...