The unexpected intimacy of infertility

The thing nobody tells you about going through infertility with your person — sometimes it brings you closer.

A note from me, (Katie Dunn), Afterglow owner:

This week we have another guest writer on Afterglow. Lexi Weber and I found each other here on Substack through both of us writing about our experiences moving on from years of infertility treatment. It’s a relatively quiet space, and I’m always totally thrilled to connect with a fellow writer who is building connections, community and sharing this often untold story.

If you’ve been through IVF, or infertility treatment you’ve probably heard the warnings. It’ll test your relationship. It’ll put you under pressure you can’t imagine. I even had a few helpful stories shared of friends of friends whose relationships didn’t make it through. (I mean honestly, why would you even share that?!)

People aren’t completely wrong in drawing our attention to the pressure this experience can put on your relationship. But what doesn’t get talked about nearly enough is the unexpected closeness, the way going through something brutal together can actually pull two people tighter. Without spoiling her story too much, this is precisely what Lexi shares in her beautifully honest piece.

Here is Lexi…

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A few years ago, my husband and I learned that we would need in vitro fertilization to have a biological child. At first, I minimized it. I thought it would be a few weeks of hormone injections, one egg retrieval, a short wait, then a healthy pregnancy. But it did not happen that way.

Not the first time. Not the second. And not the third.

What I thought would be a temporary, isolated setback quickly upended my entire life. First, there were the hormone injections that left me bloated and bruised. Not only did they disrupt my hormones, but they disrupted schedules and routines. The first shot of the day needed to be taken at the same time every morning, so even though it was the long-awaited weekend, I was rubbing an alcohol wipe over my lower abdomen at 7 in the morning prepping for the injection. Evening shots also had to be administered at the same time. Many nights I found myself sitting in traffic, gripping the steering wheel, my face wet with tears, because I wasn’t sure I would make it home in time for my two shots at 8 p.m.

There were also the frequent morning monitoring appointments at the fertility clinic, where I began my days with bloodwork and a transvaginal ultrasound. Every cycle culminates in a major procedure: the egg retrieval. After which, I waited anxiously by the phone for nurses to update me on the results (11 retrieved, 5 mature, 4 fertilized, 1 made it). When the phone rang, I braced myself for bad news (We found a cyst on your ovary. Your body is not responding to the hormones. None of your eggs were mature. Your embryo did not survive).

Nothing prepared me for the overwhelming grief of losing something that was never really mine. That grief threaded its way into everything, from conversations with colleagues about their children’s preschool, to family gatherings, to social events, even to workout classes where I quietly berated myself for being broken. It turned my body into a problem to solve. It made the future incredibly uncertain.

But infertility also forced my husband and I to confront things we might have postponed indefinitely: What would life look like if this didn’t work? Would we be okay? What actually mattered outside the version of the future we assumed we’d have?

The answers were not neat and the conversations were not easy, but they were honest in a way that changed how we understood each other. Though infertility is lonely and isolating, my husband and I found it to be a common ground where we learned how to fully show up for one another. I learned his grieving process, and he learned mine. Over time, I knew when to give him space, and he knew when just to listen.

To say that infertility has taken a toll on my husband and me emotionally, physically, and mentally is an understatement. There were moments when I felt like my body had failed us and I sometimes worried if he would eventually want a life my body could not give him, but after every failed IVF cycle, my husband continued to reassure me that the beautiful life we already had was enough for him.

As I was lying in a hospital bed in the pre-op area before my third egg retrieval, my husband slid the light blue medical shoe cover over my socked foot. When he looked up at me and smiled, I felt an overwhelming tenderness toward him. The same feeling had swelled in my chest when I watched him arrange pillows on the sofa before administering the evening shots, and every time I found little notes on the coffee pot that read, “I am so proud of you.

As he pulled the thin blanket up to my chest and kissed my forehead, it occurred to me that somewhere along the way, during the early morning wake-ups, hormonal migraines, and medical bills, I had fallen deeper in love with my husband.

After a lot of reflection, we decided to stop IVF. It was not an easy decision and there is still a great deal of sadness. There is also clarity. Our future is marked by so many unknowns, but there is one thing that feels settled: We are certain about each other.

Infertility is just part of our story. It has shaped how we understand loss, expectation, and control, but it does not define us. What defines us is how we have chosen to move through it. Not perfectly. But together.