Welcome to IVF This Episode 46- When you feel like a failure

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. 

I am so excited to be with you all and talk with you all today. Recording these podcasts is probably one of my favorite things to do in the week, because it really does feel like we get to have a conversation. I know that conversation only exists in my head, and I’m perfectly fine with that but this is always feels like our time to connect and show up for each other- which I love. Now, the writing of the podcast is usually pretty painful for me. I have all the mind drama that you guys do when a deadline in looming. I him and I haw around, do some online shopping, play around on social media, maybe I’ll get a text from my wonderful producer, Anthony, gently reminding me to get the episode to him for production and edits. But, of course, once I’ve written it and I’m sitting at my desk, I kind of picture all of us sitting around sharing stories, talking, building each other up, it just makes me feel so squishy inside. I love it. 

Lately, I’ve gotta tell you all, lately I’ve gotten so many DM’s on IG from listeners, reaching out and thanking me for the podcast and just sharing how impactful it has been. Ladies, I’ve gotta tell you how much my heart swells when I get those. I mean it’s of course lovely to hear when people appreciate your work but more than that, I just love knowing that someone is suffering just a little bit (or a lot less) than before. And man that is EVERYTHING! That’s is the name of the game, right there. 

So, I have an ask for you all. If you love the podcast and it’s helping you please share it. If you’re in any FB IVF or infertility groups, share it in there. Talk about the impact it’s had on you. If you’re in support groups, talk about it there. Tell your OBGYN or RE about it, so that they know there’s a resource out there for their other patients. If you’re meeting up with a group of friends that you’ve made along this journey, talk to them about it. The sky is really the limit on you can help spread the word about the podcast. 

I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but I really feel like IVF this is a revolution. There is so much despair, hopelessness, pity, resentment- and well, all the emotions, that are tied up in this experience and we’re changing that. Even you, sitting there listening. You’re changing your experience of infertility and IVF. You’re showing yourself as an example of what is possible- that we don’t have to stay stuck in the old model of being disempowered and alone. So, please, I would love it if you would share the podcast and give someone a chance to feel more empowered and less lonely. 

Ok, so let’s talk about something that comes up time and time again. 

I’m not just talking about with my clients, although I we talk about it together, but very often I see it on IG and in FB support groups and it’s this idea of being a failure. 

I think we can sum it up into one phrase that wither exactly matches or has a VERY close association to the phrase and that’s- my body can’t or won’t do the ONE thing it’s supposed to do. 

OMG, this phrase makes me cringe and MOSTLY because it was something I said to myself, my husbands, my friends, really anyone who would listen to me during those first few years of infertility. It was like this scarlet letter- the other F word that was, frankly MUCH worse and for those of us that carry that scarlet letter it feels much like Hester Prynne felt walking around that colony after being branded an adulteress. It feels that isolating, it feels that alienating, it feels that ostraci-zing (yes, no, I’m not sure if that’s the correct word but I would hate to lose the rhythm of those three “ing’s”).

Now the idea of being a “failure” isn’t exclusive to infertility, right, everything well most everything that we talk about has a much broader context because how we do one thing is how we do all things. 

But let’s say that you’re an extremely high achieving woman that this is the first time that you’ve come up against something that you didn’t automatically, or even in what you might decide would be a semi-reasonable amount of time didn’t achieve. 

Maybe you have very perfectionistic tendencies and so things that you had planned and expected for your life look much different, and you use that as a way to call yourself a failure- because for you guys if it’s not perfect, then it’s terrible. I’m thinking of that tiktok and IG audio that says, “repeat after me, if it’s not right the first time, and it cuts to I’m shit, it’s shit” right? That’s the perfectionistic fantasy.

Maybe the idea of going from trying to have natural conception to any medical intervention is a “failure” -- going from IUI to IVF is a failure. 

The personalization of a cycle “failing” or a transfer “failing” and that amounts to YOU being a failure. 

Right? All of these things, are examples of how we, ourselves, not society, not our partners, not anyone else, we- take on the identity of a failure. 

As if it is a characteristic, a trait, that we start to identify as. And that’s where we get stuck. 

We start to take on this ownership of being a failure. 

And a lot of this has to do with how failure is perceived in our culture. Right, this idiotic hustle culture that has created far more damage than anyone could’ve imagined. Of course that’s not what was intended. But that is what we call an unintended consequence. 

When we look at the totality of our journey, whether you are months or years into it, whether you have children, yet, or not. We tend to look at the journey only through the lens of outcomes. Because that’s how society and culture tell us we measure success. 

We zoom out and we get caught up in the day-to-day of how long we have to go, still, and it feels so defeating. We think about how long it’s been, how there’s seemingly no end in sight, maybe how it feels like we’re still at square one. It doesn’t feel like it’s happening fast enough. 

There’s an impatience and, dare I say, an entitlement around finally getting pregnant, finally bringing home that baby. 

And until THAT happens. We are failure, we have failed, our bodies have failed. 

This is a huge reason why we often feels like our lives are on pause, like we’re stuck. Because so much of our mental energy and focus is being taken up by all the thoughts we get caught up in how far we have to go. It takes our minds away from the small, beautiful moments that are happening in the present, right now. 

This also comes up when we see the birth and pregnancy announcements. I know, for me, when I would see them in those first few years THAT was yet another reminder of how much of a failure I was. Look, they got it right, and I failed, yet again. 

We could talk for hours about how our brains like to remind us of our failures, how triggers remind us, how much evidence we can collect to support our BS belief that we are failures- but let me tell you what’s really happening.

Most of the time, when we feel like failures, it’s because there is a belief somewhere in there that what you want to happen, will never happen. 

Now, I know some of you are like “naw, I know that someday I will get pregnant.” Yes, I believed that too. But, I also had this nagging, pestering, white noise of a thought that would come up that would say, “yea, no you won’t. That’s probably not ever going to happen for us.”

This is VERY normal. This is called cognitive dissonance- I’ve probably talked about it before but it’s holding two contradictory thoughts or emotions at the same time. This can be a blessing and sometimes, it kicks us in the ass, like in this scenario. 

That low hum of “yea, it’s probably not probably going to ever happen for us” is what creates that shame around being a failure. Because that’s what we’re really talking about- SHAME. Shaming yourself. Shaming yourself for something you have very little, if any control over. 

Remember what I said, earlier- we take on the badge of failure as if it were a personal characteristic. When we create an identify around something, that is a breeding ground for shame. 

Notice, the thought is “it probably won’t work”- right, it’s not an absolute. It’s kind of fuzzy. It’s undecided. But also kind of decided. 

All of us have these unconscious belief systems lurking around, screwing with our heads. There’s nothing wrong with that- it’s very human. Our job is to become aware of them and decide how we want to think about them. 

Is it ok that sometimes you tell yourself, “maybe it won’t happen for us?”

Hell yes. Because you’re human. It doesn’t mean you don’t want it. It means that there is a huge part of you that is scared, and that fear is coming our in that phrase. Almost like an author giving context to their story. 

And maybe yours comes out in the form of a question. “Maybe we won’t ever have kids” “Maybe I won’t ever be a mom.” “maybe my body is inhospitable to a baby”

When we ask ourselves a seemingly innocuous question like that, it’s kind of like pretty poison. It doesn’t SEEM bad on the outside, maybe it feels like genuine curiosity. But really, questions like that is a sneaky way your brain tries to cushion the blow of the real thought. 

It’s like a softening of what you’re really thinking. 

Because the real thought is probably much more like, We won’t ever have kids, I won’t ever be a mom, my body is not hospitable to a baby. Here’s a great exercise- Like if your brain is offering you a question, or a question that you ask yourself or the universe all the time. Write it down and then change it from a question, to a statement and THAT”S where your thinking really is. 

Ok, so we’ve gotten much more awareness around this idea of failure. 

What it really us, which is shame.

It’s a sneak of the brain to figure out how to blame yourself. That’s what we’re talking about. 

We’re not talking about other people’s opinions, it doesn’t matter how many other people around you get knocked up. 

Calling yourself a failure, it a mental warfare that you have with yourself. There is no universal procedure manual for how having a family is supposed to go. We think there is because because that is the image that has been curated around us but if 1 in 6 of us globally aren’t physically able to follow the procedure then we sure as shit need to get a new HR dept to draft a new one up because that is like nearly 17% of the workforce that cannot, physically, do the job so maybe the problem isn’t the 17%? Just maybe, I know I don’t want to get too crazy, but maybe it’s possible that there is an unrealistic, media and cultural curation of what it looks like, rather than, you know, acknowledging the reality- but I digress.

So now let’s talk about what to do, when you find yourself in this “failure” mentality. 

1. Recognize that you’re doing it- awareness, awareness, awareness. We can’t fix what we don’t look at. When you notice that you’re calling yourself a failure, that’s like a giant glowing red indicator light that you need to take a beat. Like, physically stop what you’re doing. 

Now here’s where you can do a couple of different things, t=do one of them, do both of them, it’s totally up to you but 

The first option is to interrogate the hell outta that thought.

What, exactly, am I failing? If all that your Brian offers you is a bunch of “supposed to’s”, “should’s” “have to’s” any of that crap, you know that is social and cultural messaging that put that shit in your head and it’s not actually YOU talking to you. 

In fact, that could be your gating criteria for any thought you really want to take a look at- if it sounds like a should (in any of it’s variables) then you know that the thought did not come from you. You did not originate that and therefore you do not owe that thought ANY more of your time. 

Even telling yourself, “oh, yea babe, we don’t should on ourselves anymore. That’s not what happens here.” 

The second option is to reframe the thougth- this is taking the thought that youre making mean something about you, and getting it much more specific. 

So, instead of my beta was negative, I failed. 

My beta was negative, I did everything I knew to do, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t get the outcome we desperately wanted. 

Do you see the difference? There’s no rainbows, daisies, or fake positivity. You’re taking time to acknowledge that you’re hurting. You didn’t get what you hoped for. That is disappointing and heartbreaking. Let it be those things, without it ALSO being your fault. 

The podcast episode Clean vs dirty pain, I think it’s somewhere in the first 10 episodes, I think, that would be a really great refresh if it’s been a minute since you;ve listened, or if you’re just jumping into the pod now, go check out that episode. 

We DON’T have to make these heartbreaks our fault. Because they’re not. 

You didn’t do anything wrong.

That cheeseburger you ate last week, or the beer or glass of wine you had at the start of stims, or taking or not taking supplements- that’s not what happened. It’s not your fault. 

I know you want something to blame. Something you can point your finger at and say, YES, this is why my heart is broken. But so often, in life and yes absolutely in infertility, we turn that need for blame to ourselves. And it’s completely unnecessary. 

You can be heartbroken, and it not be your fault. 

You can be devastated, and it not be because of something you did. 

Because, as my incredible reproductive endocrinologist told me when we first started together 4 and a half years ago- for a cycle or transfer to fail, and it to be that persons fault- would require a tremendous amount of intention or a tremendous amount of neglect. 

Now, I have met MANY women on an infertility or fertility treatment journey over the past 9 years and NONE of them have ever intentionally tried to sabotage their chances, nor have they been so neglectful of their role in the process that their neglect directly caused a failure. 

Now, can we forget things- OMG in the two cycles and three transfers we have done do you know how many times I have forgotten a dose of medication. Not the injectables, well no, no that’s not true. I once went out of town without my Lupron and missed a dose then waited all day of an area pharmacy to fill it, but OMG I’m terrible about taking the pills. 

But that’s because I am human. Not because I wanted it to fail. Not because I was so neglectful that I created the opportunity of say that transfer to fail. 

Sometimes, we do forget things- and you know what, It doesn’t mean we’ve failed. 

We course correct, we pivot, we figure it out. 

You already do those things. You are already amazing at that. 

Imagine what you could do if you dropped that BS story that you’re a failure? 

How much freer would you get to feel, my beautiful friend?

That is what I want for you, each and every one of you. 

Ok, that is what I have for you today. Have a beautiful week and I’ll talk to you soon.