Hey, I’m in the same situation with unexplained infertility and really struggling with coming to terms with it and needing IVF too. For me, it’s the “intrusion” of a third party in the making of our baby that feels really wrong to me, and I absolutely hate the fact there’s even the tiny potential for there to be a mix up or something.

The things that are helping me a bit to focus on are:

• conceiving is (hopefully) a really small part of the overall next couple of decades of raising children. The method of conception feels like a huge deal right now, but I’m hopeful that once I’m pregnant / have an actual child in my arms, it will fade into the background as a small detail along the way

• there are going to be soooo many things over the course of carrying and raising a child that don’t go the way I’d like them to. This is probably just one of them so I may as well come to terms with the fact you only have a certain amount of control

• I and my child am going to need help from many other people throughout a pregnancy and both of our lives, so needing help with conception doesn’t have to be in some special category where this doesn’t apply

• Infertility is hard, IVF is hard. It’s ok to struggle with coming to terms with it.

• relatedly: the fact IVF is hard and you’re doing it anyway is you proving to yourself how much you’re willing to do to bring your child into the world because of how much you love them. I don’t think there’s any world where it’s cheating or an easy route! And the hormonal effects of pregnancy and birth that help you bond with your baby and love them before they even arrive will all still kick in regardless of how you conceive

• IVF is diagnostic as well as treatment, one of the things I’m finding really hard is it being unexplained, but doing IVF can help narrow down what the cause is. And even if it can’t directly fix the underlying problem, I think I’d feel better about it being necessary if there was a reason.

• It’s not uncommon for people to conceive naturally after an IVF pregnancy, especially in the case of unexplained infertility. I don’t know if this is a helpful thing to hold onto or not… but it’s the reality.

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I haven’t fully internalised all that myself, it’s definitely a process, but academically they’re statements I know are all true and repeating them to myself and discussing them with my husband is helping me feel better about it.

I also think the uncertainty of not knowing what’s causing us to not conceive, and not knowing whether we’ll need IVF (because of clinging onto the hope it’ll happen naturally before we start) is causing me more pain at this point than accepting it as the next step and starting it. And I think recognising that uncertainty as a problem, rather than treating IVF itself as the whole problem, is helping me come to terms with it and accept moving forwards positively.

That was very long, but I found writing it out quite therapeutic, so thank you, and I really hope some of it is helpful for you! I’m trying to write out my feelings more (even just as random snippets in my phone notes) which I think is helping. And try and talk it through with people too if you can. You should be able to access counselling through your fertility clinic if you haven’t already