Self-Care During IVF

Introduction

IVF asks everything of you. Your body becomes a science experiment of carefully timed injections, early morning blood draws, and ultrasounds that feel increasingly invasive. Your calendar revolves around appointments you can't reschedule. Your bank account takes hits that make you wince. And through it all, you're supposed to stay positive, reduce stress, and somehow maintain the rest of your life.

No wonder self-care during IVF feels impossible. When you're exhausted from hormones, bloated from stimulation, and emotionally spent from the weight of what's at stake, the last thing you want is another list of things you "should" be doing.

This isn't that kind of list.

Self-care during IVF isn't about adding more to your plate. It's about fiercely protecting your mental health during one of the most demanding experiences you'll face. It's about knowing what actually helps versus what just sounds good on a wellness blog. And it's about giving yourself permission to be a human going through something hard rather than a patient who must optimize every variable.

Why Self-Care Matters During IVF

The Stress Paradox

Here's the cruel irony of IVF: stress is unavoidable, yet you're constantly told that stress might hurt your chances. "Just relax" becomes the most infuriating advice you receive, as if you could simply will away the anxiety of a process with no guaranteed outcome.

Let's be clear: there's no conclusive evidence that normal stress levels cause IVF to fail. Your anxiety about the cycle is not sabotaging your embryos. The pressure to be perfectly calm actually creates more stress than the original worry.

That said, chronic, unmanaged stress does affect your quality of life, your relationships, and your ability to make clear decisions. Self-care isn't about improving your success rates. It's about surviving this process with your mental health and relationships intact, regardless of the outcome.

The Cumulative Toll

A single IVF cycle might feel manageable. But many people go through multiple cycles, sometimes spanning years. The physical demands, emotional ups and downs, and financial strain accumulate over time.

Without intentional self-care, this cumulative toll leads to burnout and depression. You might find yourself going through the motions of treatment while feeling completely disconnected from hope, joy, or even your own body.

Building self-care practices early, even if they feel unnecessary at first, creates a foundation that sustains you through the long haul.

Self-Care By IVF Phase

During Baseline and Preparation

The weeks before your cycle officially starts offer a window to set yourself up well. Your body isn't yet flooded with hormones, and the intensity hasn't peaked.

Practical self-care for this phase:

Get your support system in place. Identify one or two people you'll actually talk to during the cycle. This might be your partner, a close friend who knows about your treatment, or a fertility therapist. Having support lined up before you need it prevents scrambling during crisis moments.

Prep your environment. Stock your freezer with easy meals. Clear your calendar of non-essential commitments during stims and retrieval. Set up a comfortable injection station with good lighting. These small preparations reduce daily friction when you're exhausted.

Have the work conversation if needed. If your job requires flexibility for appointments, figure out logistics now. You don't have to disclose IVF specifically, but knowing how you'll handle absences reduces anxiety.

Address any lingering relationship tensions. IVF stress amplifies existing issues. If you and your partner are carrying unresolved conflict, the strain of treatment will make it worse. Consider a few couples therapy sessions to strengthen your foundation before cycling.

During Stimulation

Stims demand the most from your body. You're injecting hormones daily, attending frequent monitoring appointments, and watching your ovaries grow follicles while managing side effects like bloating, headaches, and mood swings.

Practical self-care for this phase:

Lower your expectations dramatically. This is not the time for ambitious projects, social obligations, or proving you can handle everything. Cancel what you can cancel. Say no to what you can say no to. Your one job right now is getting through stims.

Move gently. Once your ovaries start responding, high-impact exercise is off the table due to ovarian torsion risk. But gentle movement like walking, restorative yoga, or stretching can help with bloating and mood. Listen to your body and stop if anything feels uncomfortable.

Stay hydrated and eat protein. Your clinic likely gave you these instructions for medical reasons, but they also help you feel better. Electrolyte drinks, salty snacks, and protein-rich meals support your body through stimulation.

Create a nightly injection ritual. Rather than dreading the shots, build a small routine around them. Maybe you always do injections at the same time, in the same spot, with a specific show playing or music on. Ritual creates predictability, and predictability reduces anxiety.

Let yourself feel however you feel. Stimulation hormones can cause mood swings, irritability, and tearfulness. You're not being dramatic. Your body is flooded with medications. Give yourself permission to cry, snap, or hide in bed without judging yourself for it.

Around Egg Retrieval

Retrieval day brings its own intensity: the procedure itself, anesthesia, physical recovery, and waiting for the fertilization report.

Practical self-care for this phase:

Plan for physical recovery. You'll likely feel crampy, bloated, and tired after retrieval. Have heating pads ready, comfortable clothes laid out, and a plan to rest. Most people need at least one full day of recovery, and some need more.

Prepare for the emotional whiplash. The call about how many eggs retrieved, how many fertilized, how many made it to blast, each update brings relief or devastation. This emotional rollercoaster is grueling. Have your support person available for these calls if possible.

Avoid isolation. The temptation after retrieval is to curl up alone and wait anxiously for updates. While rest is important, complete isolation tends to amplify anxiety. Even a brief text exchange with someone who cares can help you feel less alone.

Distract yourself. This is one of the few times distraction is genuinely useful. Binge a show, read absorbing books, do puzzles. Anything that occupies your mind between embryo updates is fair game.

During the Two-Week Wait

The two-week wait after transfer is often the hardest part of IVF. You've done everything you can, and now you wait, analyzing every twinge and symptom while trying not to spiral.

Practical self-care for this phase:

Limit symptom searching. Googling "early pregnancy symptoms after IVF" at 3 AM will not give you answers. It will give you anxiety. Every symptom can mean pregnant or not pregnant, and Dr. Google cannot tell the difference. Set boundaries around how much you'll search.

Stay off the testing forums. The urge to test early is powerful, and fertility forums are full of people sharing their early test results. This content typically increases anxiety rather than soothing it. Consider a social media break during the TWW.

Maintain gentle routines. Keep some structure to your days. Get dressed, go outside, eat regular meals. The TWW can feel suspended and surreal, and routine grounds you in normal life.

Plan for both outcomes. This might sound counterintuitive, but knowing how you'll cope with a negative result can actually reduce anxiety. Where will you be when you get the call? Who will you talk to? What will you do that day? Having a plan doesn't jinx anything. It prepares you.

Let yourself hope. Some people protect themselves by refusing to feel optimistic, believing that hope makes bad news hurt more. But research suggests that allowing yourself to hope doesn't increase pain if the cycle fails. It just means you also got to experience hope along the way. You can hold hope and fear simultaneously.

Self-Care Strategies That Actually Work

Boundaries Are Self-Care

Saying no is one of the most powerful self-care tools during IVF. No to the baby shower you can't emotionally handle. No to the family dinner where you'll face intrusive questions. No to the work project that will consume your limited energy.

Boundaries also apply to well-meaning people who want updates. You don't owe anyone information about your cycle. If constant questions stress you out, designate one person to share updates with others, or simply tell people you'll share news when you're ready.

Time Away From Fertility

IVF can consume your entire identity if you let it. Every conversation becomes about treatment. Every thought returns to whether this cycle will work. This tunnel vision is understandable but exhausting.

Intentionally schedule time that has nothing to do with fertility. An hour watching a movie that's purely entertainment. Coffee with a friend where you agree not to discuss IVF. A hobby that absorbs your attention completely. These breaks remind you that you're a whole person, not just a patient.

Movement That Feels Good

Exercise during IVF requires modification based on where you are in your cycle. During stims and after retrieval, stick to walking and gentle stretching. After transfer, follow your clinic's specific guidelines.

But within those parameters, moving your body helps. It reduces anxiety, improves sleep, and gives you something to do with nervous energy. The key is choosing movement that feels good rather than punishing yourself with workouts you dread.

Sleep Protection

Fertility medications can disrupt sleep, and anxiety makes it worse. Poor sleep then increases anxiety, creating a vicious cycle.

Protect your sleep by keeping a consistent bedtime, limiting screens before bed, and avoiding caffeine after noon. If you're waking with racing thoughts, keep a notepad by your bed to dump worries onto paper. If sleep problems persist, talk to your doctor about safe interventions during treatment.

Permission to Feel

Self-care isn't about maintaining constant positivity. It's about letting yourself feel the full range of emotions that IVF brings up, the fear, anger, grief, hope, jealousy, and exhaustion, without judgment.

You're allowed to be angry that you need IVF when others get pregnant easily. You're allowed to feel jealous of your friend's pregnancy announcement. You're allowed to grieve the way you imagined building your family before infertility entered the picture.

Suppressing these feelings doesn't make them go away. It just forces them underground where they cause more problems. Acknowledging your emotions, whether through journaling, therapy, or honest conversations, is genuine self-care.

Self-Care Myths to Ignore

"You Need to Stay Positive"

Toxic positivity has no place in IVF. The pressure to maintain an upbeat attitude adds stress and makes you feel like a failure when normal negative emotions arise.

You can want this cycle to work desperately while also acknowledging that you're scared, exhausted, and unsure if you can keep doing this. Both truths can coexist.

"Stress Will Ruin Your Cycle"

As mentioned earlier, normal stress does not cause IVF failure. This myth causes immense harm by making people blame themselves when cycles don't work. Your anxiety is not destroying your embryos.

Manage stress because it improves your quality of life, not because you believe it controls your fertility outcomes.

"You Should Be Grateful for the Opportunity"

Yes, IVF is a privilege that not everyone can access. That doesn't mean you have to feel grateful while going through it. Gratitude for having options and struggling with the process are not mutually exclusive.

You can appreciate that IVF exists while also hating every minute of it.

"Self-Care Means Bubble Baths and Face Masks"

Surface-level pampering has its place, but real self-care during IVF goes deeper. It's about protecting your mental health, maintaining your relationships, setting boundaries, and building systems that sustain you through hard times.

A bubble bath won't fix the grief of a failed cycle. But a therapist, a support system, and permission to grieve might help you survive it.

When Self-Care Isn't Enough

Sometimes individual self-care strategies can't match the intensity of what you're facing. Signs that you need additional support include:

Persistent symptoms of depression: hopelessness, loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, difficulty getting out of bed, thoughts of self-harm

Anxiety that interferes with daily functioning: panic attacks, inability to sleep, constant dread that won't ease

Relationship crisis: constant fighting with your partner, emotional disconnection, inability to communicate about treatment decisions

Feeling unable to continue treatment but also unable to stop

Increasing reliance on alcohol or other substances to cope

These signs don't mean you've failed at self-care. They mean you need professional support. A fertility therapist who understands IVF can help you process what you're experiencing and develop coping strategies specific to your situation.

Supporting Your Relationship During IVF

IVF strains even strong relationships. The partner whose body undergoes treatment faces physical demands the other can only witness. Financial stress creates tension. Different coping styles clash. Intimacy often suffers when sex becomes associated with failure and medical procedures.

Self-care for your relationship includes:

Regular check-ins. Set aside time each week to talk about how you're both doing, not logistics and appointments, but emotional states. "How are you feeling about everything?" opens space for connection.

Acknowledging different experiences. The partner going through physical treatment and the partner watching have different but equally valid struggles. Neither experience is harder. They're just different.

Protecting non-fertility time together. Date nights, shared hobbies, conversations about anything except IVF. These remind you that your relationship exists beyond infertility.

Getting support individually and together. Sometimes you need to process separately before you can support each other. Individual therapy plus occasional couples sessions can help both partners feel heard.

People Also Ask

What should I avoid during IVF for self-care?

Avoid overcommitting your time and energy. Your capacity during IVF is reduced, and trying to maintain your normal pace leads to burnout. Avoid people who drain you or trigger difficult emotions. Skip events like baby showers if attending feels harmful rather than supportive. Limit excessive Googling and symptom searching, which typically increases anxiety. Avoid comparing your cycle to others' experiences, as every IVF journey differs.

How do I manage IVF anxiety without medication?

Many anxiety management techniques work during IVF. Deep breathing exercises activate your parasympathetic nervous system and reduce acute anxiety. Progressive muscle relaxation helps release physical tension. Mindfulness practices teach you to observe anxious thoughts without getting swept away by them. Regular gentle exercise, adequate sleep, and limiting caffeine all help regulate your nervous system. Working with a fertility therapist provides personalized strategies for your specific anxiety patterns.

Is it okay to exercise during IVF?

Exercise guidelines vary by cycle phase. During early stimulation, most clinics allow your normal routine. As your ovaries respond and enlarge, you'll need to switch to low-impact activities like walking and gentle yoga to prevent ovarian torsion. After retrieval, rest for a few days before resuming gentle movement. After transfer, follow your specific clinic's recommendations, which typically allow walking and light activity. Always check with your reproductive endocrinologist about exercise restrictions for your particular protocol.

How do I take care of myself during the two-week wait?

The two-week wait requires specific strategies because anxiety peaks during this phase. Maintain daily routines to create structure and normalcy. Plan distractions that genuinely absorb your attention. Limit time on fertility forums and resist the urge to test early. Stay connected with supportive people rather than isolating. Allow yourself to feel both hope and fear without trying to force one emotion over the other. Consider scheduling a therapy session during the TWW to have professional support during the hardest waiting period.

Should I tell people I'm doing IVF?

This is a personal decision with no right answer. Some people find that sharing brings support and reduces the burden of secrecy. Others prefer privacy and find questions and expectations from others stressful. Consider who genuinely supports you versus who might add pressure. You can tell some people and not others. You can share that you're doing fertility treatment without giving cycle-by-cycle updates. Set whatever boundaries protect your mental health.

You Deserve Support Through This

IVF is one of the most demanding experiences you'll face, physically, emotionally, financially, and relationally. Taking care of yourself isn't optional or selfish. It's what allows you to keep going, cycle after cycle if needed, while protecting the parts of your life that matter beyond fertility.

At Dancing Bee Counseling, Abby Lemke specializes in supporting individuals and couples through IVF and fertility treatment. With personal experience navigating infertility and professional training in reproductive mental health, she understands what you're facing and provides a warm, judgment-free space to process the fears, grief, and hope that IVF brings.

Whether you're preparing for your first cycle or recovering from your fifth, you don't have to white-knuckle your way through alone. Contact Dancing Bee Counseling to schedule a session, or learn more about IVF emotional support and how therapy can help you survive and cope during treatment.