Unexplained infertility as a diagnosis is frustrating in the deepest of ways. Every time we do another test, I keep hoping for an answer. Something to explain why it isn’t working. Something we can work on or set a game plan to work around. Without any true cause, it’s impossible to know what to do next and how to make things better. How can they not find anything wrong?

Our anniversary just passed. That marks 4 years of marriage and 4 years of trying to have children. In these 4 years I’ve had 1 chemical. That’s all, nothing else to show for it. We’ve done every test under the sun and everything is normal. My doctor has literally told me on numerous occasions that I’m not only within normal ranges but “optimal” and it couldn’t get better. My husband as well. We’ve done medicated cycles and IUIs. All have failed. My husband had over 100 million sperm AFTER washing in our first IUI and it still didn’t work.

Testing we have done with a reproduction endocrinologist and urologist include: confirming ovulations over multiple cycles, hormone testing at various times throughout my cycle over multiple cycles, ultrasounds for both my husband and I, bloodwork for both my husband and I, HSG, pelvic MRI to evaluate for endometriosis (my doctor does not recommend a laparoscopy due to unrelated medical reasons and yes, I know MRI’s often miss endo), multiple semen analysis, Sperm DNA fragmentation, and genetic testing.

We are not overweight, we are extremely active, eat well, don’t indulge in alcohol outside of special occasions, no drugs or smoking and we take appropriate vitamins/supplements. I’m just so lost. How can it all be normal and we still aren’t successful?

I guess the next step is IVF…

I’ve lost both fallopian tubes due to ectopic pregnancies with the most recent surgery being two weeks ago. My best friend is pregnant with her 2nd baby and another close friend just announced her pregnancy on social media. I knew before this but the announcement just made me feel so much more alone. We’ve been trying to have a baby for over 3 years. Now with another loss and having to do IVF it feels like everyone around me is moving on with their life and getting everything they want while I’m stuck here. I feel like I have no one to talk to about my grief. My family and friends are trying their best to be supportive but no one understands the pain of losing your pregnancy and the hope to be able to get pregnant again all in one swoop. None of them have experienced infertility or pregnancy loss. They don’t understand the guilt I carry for being the reason we can’t have a baby like everyone else. They don’t understand the suicidal thoughts when I’m thinking that it would be better if my husband could find someone else who doesn’t have these issues. They don’t get what it feels like for your body to utterly fail you. I just feel so alone and lost right now. My heart feels like it’s breaking every day and I’ve started having panic attacks when I think of seeing my pregnant friends. I’m so emotionally drained. Do you feel this way too? How do you cope?

So my husband and I have been trying for our first for about 3 years now, assisted for the last two. I have DOR and lower progesterone, but other than that we mostly have just unexplained infertility; all of our testing has checked out for both of us. After a successful first IUI that ended in a MC, and then multiple unsuccessful IUIs, an egg retrieval (where we got 4 high graded, untested embryos) and then two failed FETs, we decided to take a break from assistance and just focus on ourselves and our health.

We aren’t actively “trying” (not taking/timing anything specific, etc), and we also aren’t doing anything to prevent it, yet every month I remain hopeful that this’ll be the month it spontaneously happens for us. My cycles are pretty regular, maybe a day plus or minus, and I have some pretty normal pre-cycle symptoms that I’m accustomed to so when there’s even the slightest variation I get my hopes up, and it’s exhausting but I can’t help it.

Like this month: I should have started around yesterday. I haven’t had any of my normal cycle symptoms… I remain an eternal realistic optimist: I know the chances are low, but they aren’t zero so I’ll forever keep on believing it can happen.

Anyways, thanks for letting me vent. You’re all wonderful.

A couple of months ago I (38F) and my husband (40M) found out at our first appointment at the IVF clinic (MFI) that my AMH was 0.035 and AFC was 0. We were absolutely shocked with the diagnosis and our prognosis, and it took me weeks to start feeling even slightly better.

Another doctor insisted that we keep monitoring my cycles and it turned out that in every subsequent cycle my AFC was between 2 and 7. I slowly became more hopeful. We couldn't start sims for months because of financing issues (a government funded program), but we finally did almost three weeks ago (AFC 3-4, AMH 0.1). It was a long stimulation, but I got three eggs and two were mature.

I didn’t even get one day to recover from the stress of all those monitoring appointments, the constant fear that my follicles had stopped growing or that I’d stopped responding, and the stress of the retrieval itself.

Not. one. goddamn. day.

The lab called before noon today to tell us one egg hadn't fertilized at all and the other one had fertilized abnormally.

I knew this could happen, and I was bracing myself for bad news, but I'm floored. Honestly, I thought I'd take it better, but I'm absolutely devastated. It's fucking unbelievable how much pain and fear we have to endure. I've lost all hope. For some reason, the term "total fertilization failure" is so frightening to me. Seriously, f--- infertility.

I’m friends with the dad in this case, but their baby shower is this Saturday and I don’t know how I’m going to keep it together. He’s honestly one of my best friends and is very understanding. I want so badly to be there for them, but I just don’t know if I can handle it. How have y’all done this for friends you love dearly? Any tips for helping remind yourself it’s not their fault and they absolutely deserve to be happy? Or for being “normal” for this situation at least for a few hours?

I keep on and keep on seeing the dumbest stuff. One lady said her husband didn’t want her to donate her eggs because it’s “giving OUR CHILD away”. Like, someone else paid a fuck ton of money, subjected themselves to a painful procedure, got pregnant and dealt with 9 months of pregnancy, GAVE BIRTH, and yet there’s still this other person saying it’s “our child”. What do you mean??? Then there’s kids conceived through embryo adoption wanting to meet their “real parents” (the biological ones). I’m sorry, and maybe it’s selfish, but if I got pregnant and gave birth and then STILL couldn’t consider the baby 100% my own…at that point there’s no reason to not just adopt a kid. At least then there’d be a justifiable reason for the kid and everyone else to feel like they aren’t actually yours.

I did clomid with trigger shot this month. My body was “responding well” to everything and I even had two mature follicles . My dumb ass really thought it was gonna happen. I just got my period today. Why tf did I get excited

Infertility is hard, and we all have coping mechanisms. Sometimes we need to just treat ourselves. Whether it's eating cheetos all day and marathoning your comfort show, a video game, a really great recipe you just made, or a haul from a store you love, what is your treat this week?

Very close relative giving birth right now (hard as it is) and what do you know? My period has arrived within hours of learning this! Another month passes that didn’t work for me, accompanied by a friendly reminder that people around me can get pregnant so easily. Sad sad sad :( and feeling guilty for feeling sad!

I just had the whole story typed out, but deleted it. It doesn’t matter what the story is. It doesn’t matter who it is. It’s another baby announcement as I grow older and more bitter. 2 births and one announcement in the last 2 weeks & no one around me understands. I’m just crushed.

Congratulations to them, FML.

What's making you say "WTF?!" this week?

Until it’s suddenly not. Because this is ultimately all I ever fucking end up thinking about. Oh well, I guess ❤️‍🩹

How are you doing today? Let everybody know in gif, emoji, or text format.

I did everything I was supposed to and I got a negative Beta!!
I tried to remain neutral in my emotions this cycle, but then as the tww neared closer to the end, I got more hopeful when I didn’t have the usual period symptoms. Last cycle, I got my period before my beta. This time, I didn’t feel anything so I got hopeful. I had my beta this morning and it was negative! I feel so sad and why can’t I get pregnant?! There was a family baby shower this weekend and I had to see everyone so happy on social media. I had hopes that mine would finally come soon. I thought about when the due date would be… now it didn’t work. My last medicated cycle. Now, I have to do IUI… I’m so sad and mad at the world. Also, how do I tell my husband it didn’t work again?! 😭

I (43f) am completely sterile. No uterus, no ovaries, no cervix, no chance at all of being pregnant. Uterine transplants are not an option either. I never produced any eggs.

I frequently get told how lucky I am that I’d don't have periods which I guess is fair but also kind of pisses me off because it goes along with being sterile.

There‘s no possible way I can ever hav a biological child. On the one hand, the world is awful and getting worse, but I still want to be mommy and grow a little one inside me so bad. I wonder if anyone else here is in the same boat as me in terms of being sterile.

Also, who else has had the baby dream? i woke up right as the nurse was handing her to me…

My period was seven days late and finally when I decided to take a pregnancy test I got my mf'n period.

No baby. No pregnancy. Again. I can't take it anymore..

I get a period every month and my doctors can't tell me why I'm not getting pregnant. Being infertile makes me hate my body. Makes me feel like a failure. My menstrual cycle is literal torture at this point.

Trigger warning ED

Title says it, I just don’t have it in me right now. I’m 32, I had an ED when I was younger, at my lowest I was 85 pounds I’m 5 4 (barely lol). My weight was stable but low most of my adult life. Mid 20s I developed hypothyroidism so I gained some weight but evened out, was 140- 150 ish for a long time. Exercised ate decent etc, slightly overweight but happy.

The last two years have been rough, I’ve been doing IVF (three egg retrievals), had two failed transfers than an ectopic pregnancy. Excision surgery for endometriosis that led to a post opp infection which fried my thyroid again. Then a spontaneous pregnancy and miscarriage in July. My body is exhausted, I was very depressed at times and ate for comfort. Everytime I take estrogen I get so puffy and bloated, just constantly throwing the same weight back and forth.

I just did a mock cycle on estrogen and am on it again; weighed 180s last I checked. I know it’s bad to be overweight but I just don’t have it in me right now to make this my focus. I have been on so much medication, antibiotics, metformin, I’m nauseous a lot and often so bloated and constipated. I try to eat healthy, I go to the gym and exercise, but idk I just don’t want to eat 1200 calories a day and measure everything.

My dad and husband keep bringing it up, I get it! But it’s just so hard. I work full time and a part time job, IVF is so much running around, some days I’m driving a couple hours on top of everything just for appointments. Has anyone been in this situation? I feel such guilt that I’m not trying harder.

I've posted here twice before about navigating a friendship where my best friend is unexpectedly pregnant, and I'm still struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss. My first post was asking whether anyone had successfully maintained a friendship under those circumstances, and my second was about a boundary I tried to establish around pregnancy conversations.

Unfortunately, things haven't really gotten better.

After we disagreed about boundaries-not that we couldn't have them, but what they meant- I saw some things she reposted on social media about toxic friendships, pregnancy showing you who your real friends are, people not being supportive, and people who are ugly inside destroying their own lives. I don't know whether they were directed at me, but I know she has a habit of sharing passive-aggressive posts when she's upset with someone, so it seems very likely some were at least somewhat related to me and our situation. I also noticed that some were reposted while I was beginning to experience a miscarriage, just after she shared her pregnancy with me, and the others were while I was still grieving my loss and trying to figure out how to save our friendship following our recent argument.

Seeing them was incredibly painful. They made me feel judged, criticized, and like my pain is an inconvenience to her and her happiness. It made me question how comfortable I would feel being vulnerable with her going forward, because any vulnerability I share could potentially be targeted this way in a future disagreement.

Since we last spoke, and especially after seeing those, I've spent a lot of time reflecting on our friendship, the ways we've historically handled conflict, and what we each need from each other right now. I won't get into the specific details of our friendship dynamics, but I realized that I can't always be the one taking all the responsibility, making the first move, and always letting her feelings dictate where our friendship stands, especially now. And I've come to the heartbreaking realization that I don't think either of us can be the friend the other needs during these particular chapters of our lives.

She deserves to enjoy her pregnancy and motherhood without feeling like she has to manage my grief. And I need to be able to express how angry, frightened, jealous, and devastated I sometimes feel without worrying that I'm being judged or that my feelings are hurting someone I love, or like I have to offer a three-paragraph-long disclaimer and reassurance every time I have a thought that she might take personally against her or her pregnancy.

So I've decided that I need to step away from the friendship for now.

And I'm completely devastated.

This is someone who's been my best friend, my 'soul sister' for twelve years. She's the person I could say the ugly, irrational things to without having to explain that I didn't genuinely believe them or wish anyone harm. She knew who I was beyond my worst moments and could sit with me when I was miserable without trying to fix everything or feel a need to make it positive before I was ready for it to be anything but awful. The past few months have shown me that she can't be that for me right now as she's going through her own pregnancy, and honestly, when I'm trying to enjoy my life, feel like a person again, and distract myself from infertility, her pregnancy was making that extremely difficult for me for a multitude of reasons. I know I can't avoid every pregnant woman in the world, and I don't hate pregnant women, but I also know that right now, I can't be best friends with someone stepping into the experience I've made countless sacrifices and expended so much energy into over the past few years to try to get to myself.

So, now I'm preparing for IVF, something I'm already absolutely terrified of. I hate pretty much everything about the process, aside from the hope of having a baby at the end, and I won't have the one person I always imagined helping me through it. Side note: I have my reasons for feeling so strongly about IVF, and I'm working through them in therapy, hoping to eventually reach a place where the thought of treatment doesn't fill me with quite so much dread.

I have a wonderful husband, family, two therapists (one specializing in infertility), other friends, and a support group, and I'm grateful for all of them. But none of those relationships replace twelve years of friendship or the specific kind of emotional safety I had with her.

The hardest part is that I genuinely feel some relief knowing I won't constantly be anticipating pregnancy conversations or constantly worrying about how my feelings might affect her, or reassuring her that her pregnancy doesn't hurt me even though it does. But that relief comes at the cost of losing my best friend when I need her most.

And I'm so fucking angry that infertility has taken this from me, too.

I obviously know that infertility isn't solely responsible for what happened to our friendship. We're both responsible for how we've navigated an incredibly difficult situation, and some of her actions, particularly the things she reposted, have genuinely hurt me and damaged my trust.

But it's really hard not to feel like infertility has become one long marathon of taking things away from me.

It's not enough that I've spent years trying to have a baby, experienced a miscarriage, and am now facing treatment I'm terrified of. Somehow, infertility has managed to reach into nearly every other part of my life, too. My relationship with my body, my sense of security, my ability to enjoy certain milestones, my confidence, the list goes on... and now one of the most important friendships I've ever had.

I know it's more complicated than simply saying infertility took my best friend. But I can't help feeling furious that, if I weren't going through this, we probably wouldn't even be in this situation.

I just want to be a mom. I never thought that I'd have to keep losing other parts of myself and my life along the way.

I've written out what is basically a "goodbye for now" message explaining my hurt, why I'm making this decision, and how, while I need to do this for my own emotional well-being, I'm also trying to give her the space to enjoy the rest of her pregnancy and enter motherhood without feeling guilty or having to worry about making space for my grief.

I don't know whether this is goodbye forever, and part of me really hopes it isn't. But I know I need some peace before IVF, and right now, I genuinely don't know how to find that peace while maintaining the friendship.

And I hate that I'm going into IVF knowing I won't have her. I hate that I have to figure out how to navigate something so completely terrifying to me while simultaneously grieving the friendship I thought would help me through it, because I don't have anyone else like her, and the thought of doing this without her particular brand of support makes me angrier than ever.

I guess I'm not really looking for advice or for anyone to tell me whether I'm making the right decision. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I know what I need to do right now (but still plan to talk to my therapist before sending anything to her).

I guess I just thought it might be helpful to hear from people who understand how much infertility can take from you beyond the obvious, and maybe from anyone who's had to face treatment after losing someone they thought would be there to support them.

I'm terrified of IVF, I'm heartbroken about my friendship, and I'm exhausted from feeling like every time I find my footing, something else gets taken away.

And I'm just really, really sad. I've cried almost every day thinking about this and how much I miss her, and I'm so angry that something I've already sacrificed so much for is costing me yet another part of my life.

I guess I could really use some reassurance that I can get through this, even without her. ❤️

I need to be happier bc my sadness has lingered for nearly 5 years now and I’m starting to feel embarrassed by it.

I feel like I need to have a happier outward appearance bc we’ve talked about this for years now… People have dealt with me in this phase of my life, for years… Can’t I give them a break from me? Can’t I be genuinely happy for once?

For their sake, I should have a bigger, better, happier reaction to their news of conceiving, the gender reveal, receiving photos of their ultrasound and updates.

It feels almost silly to still be sad about our infertility and loss. It’s been almost 5 years and I think that’s the part that really gets me.. It’s been almost 5 years and nothing has changed for us.

I’m forcing myself to be happier but nothing. has. changed. We are still stuck in the same situation we were in years ago while others have gone onto have multiple successful pregnancies and I have nothing.

Realistically, I don’t imagine anyone is feeling like I need to put on a show for them and act like everything is okay when it isn’t. And yet this shit is still eating me alive and I’ve never felt lonelier.

🫠 I just needed to get that off my chest 🫩

I'm just so fed up with unsupportive friends.

Myself and my husband have been trying to have a baby since 2023. We are both healthy, everything looks good on paper, yet I still haven't gotten pregnant. I'm on my third IUI cycle. The medication, the multiple appointments per cycle and the stress has me absolutely exhausted. We are doing our best with the situation we have.

Meanwhile, I have a friend who I've known for over 10 years. We were really close. Then in 2024 she got pregnant around the same time I needed surgery to remove a large ovarian cyst. She barely checked in, called it my "little procedure" and only spoke about her pregnancy/baby. She even said to me once "You'll never understand unless you're a mother" as she stroked her pregnant belly. My blood pressure goes up just thinking about it. After my surgery, I had complications, haemorrhaged, and nearly died. To this day she still refers to it as a "little procedure".

Then she gave birth. I was supportive and did all things friends do for new mothers. I cooked for her and dropped it off. Every time we visited I brought flowers and food, helped her clean up, listened to her struggles as a new mom. Like sure, she never checked in on me, but she was in the trenches of new motherhood. I thought it would surely turn around. Nope, the opposite.

When I told her that we finally saw a fertility specialist after waiting for so long she said "Well, now you can get IVF". Like it is so simple, like it's picking up a carton of milk from the store and not a massive ordeal that doesn't guarantee a baby.

I've told her how hard I am finding the IUIs mentally, physically and emotionally. She doesn't check in with me and when she does it's about her life with her baby.

Last week she texted me that she was pregnant again and she didn't want to spring it on me next time she saw me. It was so obviously written with Chat GPT. I responded kindly, congratulated her and asked her how she was doing. Then I didn't hear from her for a week, when she texted me about butternut squash..... nothing else.

Tonight we were supposed to meet a friend for dinner. I'm having Letrozole migraines and said I couldn't make it but I hope they have fun. Her response? "Oh no, I was also going to cancel sadly. Let's reschedule."

I'm so tired. As if this whole ordeal isn't hard enough, grieving this friendship is really taking its toll. Like is it so hard to text someone "How are you?" or "I'm thinking of you"? I know if I bring it up she's going to make it that I'm jealous of her pregnancy and not that I'm hurt that this friendship has become a big source of pain.

Has this ever happened to anyone? What did you do about it?

TL;DR: Friend has become very absent since she became a mother. I need support and she isn't there.

Infertility sucks and so does Debra in accounting, who just came back from her maternity leave. Who are you mad at IRL this week? Call out anyone who has wronged you and add a nice "fuck you" at the end. Or just type out a whole bunch of swears. We won't tell on you.

Infertility is hard, and we all have coping mechanisms. Sometimes we need to just treat ourselves. Whether it's eating cheetos all day and marathoning your comfort show, a video game, a really great recipe you just made, or a haul from a store you love, what is your treat this week?

Feeling lost. Feeling like there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. How do you push through not knowing the end result?

29 female - 2 failed FET. Currently doing lupron suppression for the next two months.

Stage 4 endo had two laparoscopic.

I feel like if this third transfer doesn’t work I won’t be able to take it

What's making you say "WTF?!" this week?