I want to be very clear: If you’re looking for a post that is going to romanticize infertility treatment, this isn’t it. I’m interested in navigating infertility without the toxic positivity. I don’t think it’s beautiful or empowering (at least not in real time), and pretending it is isn’t the point of this post.
Most days, infertility and treatment feel like something that gets added onto my life, my planner, and my body, whether there’s room for it or not.
And I don’t like it. At all.
But I’m also not letting it take over who I am.
To be honest, it’s about as exciting to me as a dental cleaning. But I still show up.
my body, their schedule
For someone whose core value has always been autonomy, this has been the hardest part.
It’s not just the infertility or the lack of a pregnancy: it’s the feeling that my body and my time are suddenly on a schedule I didn’t choose.
I always imagined I’d decide with my husband to start trying, it would take a normal amount of time to conceive, and that would be it. Voila. Instead, pregnancy no longer feels like something I will create, but something that will have happened to me, if it happens at all. This whole process feels less like something I’m doing with my body and more like something happening to my body. I spend way more time being poked and prodded by doctors than the average 34-year-old.
The appointments, the tracking, the medication? They completely take over your time and energy. I’ve always had a rough relationship with my body, and infertility has made it worse. Now, my body feels like something to manage and monitor rather than something I just get to live in. During the times I’m taking medication that manipulates my hormones, I wake up each morning having no idea how I’ll feel that day.
There’s less spontaneity and more,
“Am I allowed to have a drink right now?”
“Can we travel that month?”
the myth of the ‘strong’ warrior
And yes, I chose to go through infertility treatment, but it’s not like it was ever a real choice. If I want to be a mom, which I have my entire life, I have to go through this. The alternative is risking never having something I’ve always wanted.
That’s why I don’t like it when people call me “strong.” Honestly, I don’t feel strong at all. I feel like I was forced into a situation I never would have chosen, and I’m just doing the best I can with it. I’m strong because I have to be, not because I ever wanted to be.
the turning point: rejecting life shrinkage
My Key West trip during our “break month” was the turning point.
After almost two years of measuring BBT every day, peeing into cups to track ovulation, more lab work than most people get in a decade, and letting this take up way too much of my mental space, I made a decision: I refuse to let my unexplained infertility become my entire identity.
I missed the version of me who wasn’t thinking about having a baby every day. I missed feeling like more than a role—wife, daughter, sister, dog mom, event coordinator—and just feeling like me. Just Madeline.
I realized I could either let this season shrink my life, or figure out how to keep living inside it. I choose to keep living. Because this sucks, but the rest of my life doesn’t have to.
So, we went to Key West. I signed up for an art class. I drank alcohol. And I plan to keep doing things for myself throughout this process.
I figure, the guest of honor might not have arrived just yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still host myself.
reclaiming life through small decisions
I haven’t figured out how to make this feel fair because it isn’t. Fertility isn’t effort-based, and it doesn’t reward doing everything “right.” If it did, the women doing all the “right” things wouldn’t be the ones struggling.
And I don’t know how to feel like I’m doing this the “right way” when it doesn’t look anything like I thought it would. I hate having to ask for help or rely on others to do something I feel like I should be able to do on my own. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever be ‘okay’ with needing help to do something so many can do naturally.
A NEW KIND OF AUTONOMY
But I have found small ways to reclaim some sense of autonomy.
For me, it’s not about making treatment feel magical through pink robes and fuzzy socks. That’s just not going to work. But I needed something in my life to still feel like mine.
Instead, it’s getting an iced matcha and walking around Barnes & Noble for hours when I don’t have anywhere to be.
It’s doing workouts I actually enjoy instead of following fear-based rules.
Saying yes to drinks with friends, even if I end up ordering a mocktail.
It’s treating appointments and medications like just another item on my to-do list instead of letting them take over everything.
And in some ways, it’s about letting go of control. There’s so much I don’t get to choose, so I’ve stopped trying to control outcomes and started protecting who I am outside of them. That doesn’t mean I like giving up control (spoiler alert: I don’t), but I’ve accepted that doing so is one of the only ways to get through this.
Ultimately, infertility might take up a lot of space in my life logistically, but it doesn’t get to be my whole life.
the elle woods mindset
At this point, I’m in my Elle Woods era about it all.
Not because this is fun, or because pink makes everything better (it does), but because I’m stubborn enough to refuse to let this be the thing that defines me.
The traits I usually rely on—planning, effort, and doing everything “right”—haven’t gotten me anywhere here. So I’m calling on something else. I’m letting my stubbornness be my strength.
I’ve always gotten through hard things with a good amount of humor and a large dose of defiance, and that’s exactly how I’m approaching this.
Elle Woods didn’t romanticize her heartbreak. She did something with it. And while I don’t know how this story ends, I do know this:
To infertility, and its assumption that it gets to take everything from me, I have one response:
Watch me.
the honesty clause
There’s a lot of pressure to be positive and grateful all the time when you’re going through infertility. I just don’t think that’s realistic.
I can be grateful that I have access to treatment, and still absolutely hate that I need it.
Both can exist at the same time, even if people are uncomfortable with that.
I approach infertility without the toxic positivity, because ultimately, positivity isn’t what makes or breaks outcomes. I can hate every second of treatment, refuse to call it beautiful or miraculous, and still get pregnant. And honestly, accepting that has been extremely freeing.
As someone who usually leans optimistic, it feels unnatural to sit in this space, but if it’s what gets me through, then that’s what I’m doing. It’s not being cynical, because I still have hope and faith (I wouldn’t be doing treatment if I didn’t). I’m just refusing to pretend to like something I don’t. Some might say I’m grumpy, but that’s not what I think.
I call it honest realism with a side of spite.
still in the middle
I’ve learned to place my gratitude elsewhere: on my husband, my family, my dog, and my life as it already exists.
Romanticizing my life outside of treatment doesn’t make the hard parts better, but it helps me get through them.
I don’t know how this ends, and that’s still hard for me to sit with. I don’t know if there’s a lesson or meaning behind all of this, or if life is just extremely unfair sometimes.
But I do know this much:
I’m still here.
I still get to be me, in between appointments, medicines, and in the awful, messy middle. I’m not defined by a negative pregnancy test, and I am still worthy of feeling feminine, even when it feels like I’m being betrayed by my own body. I can survive infertility without the toxic positivity.
And, most importantly, I refuse to disappear.