Welcome to IVF This, episode 170- IVF & You

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you are all doing so, so well. 

It’s officially October! I love October. It’s always been my favorite month- call me basic all you want! I don’t really live in an area that gets to experience the different seaons. In Austin in October it’s basically just not as hot as September, so we are definitely a few months away from a genuine cool down. BUT it doesn’t stop me from wearing snugly clothes, inside while my air conditioning is on and scrolling Pinterest for all the Autumn leaves changing pictures. I get to decide how I feel about the fall, even while I despise Pumkin Spiced anything. But that is what I want to talk about today. Not pumpkin spice, although I could go on a long rant about how trash I think it is, no, no. Stay on topic, Em. This podcast is about you. 

Okay, so this might be a slightly shorter episode than normal, but it comes up so much in coaching that I wanted to do an episode on it because I think it’s important. Here’s what it is. So often IVF’ers come to me for coaching and they attribute the happiness, the satisfaction, the fulfillment, the confidence, the joy, anything good that they once felt to their lives before infertility and IVF, or trying to convince themselves that they will get to experience those feelings, once they finally have a baby. And as I say that, I recognize it very clearly because I did it too.

And the way it shows up is I used to be so happy, or once I get there, then I will get to feel happy. Life was good before this, or life will be good after this. Life will never be as good as it will be with my baby. And I get it, and I don’t want to diminish or invalidate anyone’s experience. If you believe your life was better before, or will be better after, I get it, I have literally been there. And I also don’t want you to believe that you are less powerful than I know you to be.

If you always believe that the reason you were happy before, or you believe you will get to feel happiness in the future. You’re missing out on what you get to create in the right now and in the future. You’re missing out on what you actually created in the past. You’re missing out on what is really true is that it was always you. It was always what was going on inside of your mind that created your experience.

It seems like it is this future baby or family, and I’m sure it will be wonderful, that your life was wonderful, and I’m sure you will love your life with them. And in the most loving way possible, I offer to you that it isn’t *JUST* having your baby or our lives before IVF; it was you. I can joke about this, because from the moment I, we, decided to start TTC it was like some sort of switch flipped in me and that’s all I could think about. And as the months and years continued on, the more focused, the more tunnel-visioned I got. There was a whole 18 months that I could have enjoyed my life a little more. There were races, trips, and other things that I could have signed up for, but didn’t because I always had this lingering though, “well, I might be pregnant by then, and I won’t know how I feel.” Additionally, I spun wild/ idealized versions of what my life would looks like once I had my little family. 

It's not good or bad, right or wrong what I did- It’s a very normal human experience. But there’s two things I want you to know about this, 1) I was minimizing my own ability to create an experience that I wanted.  I’m sure you’ve heard me say, “You can only control 3 things: How you think, how you feel, and what you do”. When we get to a place where we are deferring our own happiness for something in the future, we are cutting out the potential for us to experience all of those emotions that we nostalgically remember about our lives AND we are cutting off the potential to feel those desired emotions. And 2) There’s a thing we humans do called Affective Forecasting error. It’s one of those obnoxious-sounding psychology/ sociology concepts that basically states that we tend to overestimate the emotional impact of a future event, either in intensity or duration. So when we tell ourselves that life is going to be so amazing once we get pregnant or once we have our family, we are setting ourselves up for a fall. Because real life rarely lives up to the expectations we create (consciously or unconsciously). 

Again, not good or bad, not right or wrong, I’m not trying to wrong anyone, to shame anyone. I’m trying to empower you. All those feelings that you felt before infertility and IVF, or how you think you will get to feel once you have what you want. Really it was and is what you think about yourself and what you thought or think about your life. 

Maybe you permitted yourself to believe things about yourself because you had not yet experienced the trauma and grief you are now experiencing? And so you may have no practice believing those things about yourself in the face of this adversity. Our feelings are caused by the way that we think, which is why we can all have different emotional experiences of the same humans. Maybe before IVF and infertility you felt like you had more confidence, more belief in yourself and now you second-guess all of your decisions. 

In times of stress, we tend to revert back to our habits; which can include what you do or don’t do, but it also includes how you think or don’t think.  Before you hit this infertility/ IVF wall, maybe you had an easier time believing you were capable, strong, and resilient. It doesn’t mean you are less of those things right now; it just means that what you are facing makes it harder for you to believe that about yourself.  Maybe right now, it’s easier to tolerate your present; by imagining what your life will look like in the future. Again, there’s no good/bad, right/wrong here.  I want you to own it all in the most empowering way possible. Because if you can own what you have created in the past, whether you now perceive it as positive or negative, then you will start to see what I believe, which is that you have so much more power in your life than it feels like you do when you’re in the throes of IVF. And that really matters to me. As long as you attribute your fulfillment to other people, or past/ future circumstances, you give them credit, you never really get to feel fulfilled because it was always something that was outside of you. And again, we don’t need to believe that our life was perfect or terrible before IVF. We can believe it was wonderful because it was always you. You are always the constant in your life. You are the one who gets to decide what that constant looks and feels like. How you treat yourself and talk to yourself will always be your guiding light for how you feel about yourself and your life. 

So notice when your brain wants to tell you that you didn’t create what you once had, or that something in the future will create how you feel about yourself and your life.. Notice when your brain wants to give credit to something outside of you for something you experienced inside of you. And get really curious. What if I took credit for my part in that. What if I gave myself a little bit of love and said, “Yeah, you know what, you did do that. You did put yourself in that place. You did do the work of that relationship. You have gone through an unfathomable experience with infertility and IVF, that many will never understand. You did think all of those thoughts that made you feel so good even though you probably didn’t even know you were doing it, you did that.

It was always you and if you did it then, what if you could do it again in whatever that means in your next chapter. But if you genuinely loved your life before, it wasn’t because of your life. It wasn’t because of something outside of you. It was because of what you believed about yourself and your life and your future and the things that you did to get you to that place of belief. You’re so much more powerful than you know. Please don’t give credit to things outside of you in a way that holds you back from what you want. I want all of us to have a kind, compassionate, and fulfilling relationship with ourselves. It doesn’t mean we don’t work towards a goal, personal improvement, or a family. It means that you are doing all of those things without being an asshole to yourself. 

Okay, short, sweet, to the point. I hope it helps you. I hope it helps you. I hope you see yourself as more powerful and you don’t give that away to something outside of you because we all have it. Alright, that is what I have for you this week, take care and I’ll see you next week, bye bye.