113: Why I Decided Against IVF

There was a time when I didn't quite feel like I had found a place within the childless community and the reason was that I had not done IVF.  It seemed as though so many of the women there had tried IVF and they had this common language and terms that I wasn't familiar with.  

Then I realized that there are SO many different paths that all converge on leading a life without children and yet perhaps there were other women out there who felt like I did.  So on today's episode, I'm pulling back the curtains on why I chose not to pursue IVF and how I grappled with that choice.  

You'll find out: 

• all the reasons I decided not to do IVF
• the fears that kept me on the fence
• the judgment that came afterwards

If you're struggling with the decision between whether to quit trying to become a mom (in some way, shape or form) and embracing your life without kids, send me a DM on Instagram with the word DECISION.  I'll show you how you can get off the fence.

References from this episode:
Ep. 100: From the Partner's Perspective, with Mike Johnson (my hubby)

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

If you are a childless woman looking to up-level her life in a major way, join the Love Your Beautiful, Unconventional Life Retreat, coming up at the end of February 2025.  Book a Retreat Call with Sheri here if you have questions or want to know more!

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

Transcript

So I had someone say to me once, I don't feel as though I belong in the childless not-by-choice community because I didn't have infertility.

And I could understand where she was coming from because I didn't do IVF either. It seemed to me as though all the talk in the infertility communities involved IVF.

And they used all these terms and language that I didn't understand. I felt like I didn't belong. Hmm. seems to be a theme, right?

I didn't feel like I belonged with a mom's. I didn't belong with those women who chose not to be moms.

But I also didn't seem to fit what at the time for me was a new community that I had come across.

That also seemed struggled to have kids like I did, but they went all the way, so to speak. They played their full hand of cards, whereas I didn't.

And I felt like maybe I didn't deserve to be there. And that's what this woman was expressing to me.

And I didn't actually realize that I even felt that way until she said it. So maybe you're someone who is kind of feeling that with me too, but didn't really wasn't able to.

On this solo episode, I'm going to pull back the curtains on my decision on the process not to do IVF on how we sort of got through that decision.

And the reasons why we didn't do it. And so stay tuned. If you are someone who decided not to or did but didn't end up with the baby or someone who never even had the opportunity, but it's still feeling like.

You're alone because you didn't do it. So stay tuned if that's you. Welcome to the Awakening Worth Podcast. I'm Sherri, your host.

I'm so glad that you've decided to join me today. I'm getting into something pretty personal today. My decision not to do IVF.

And this wasn't just my decision. It was also my husband's. We made this decision together, obviously. But... process that was going on in my head was probably pretty different than my husband's.

In fact, I know it was different. And you can hear more about my husband's story. His side was... going through his mind through all of this on episode number 100, he was my guest on that episode.

So if you want to hear the guy's perspective, the partner's perspective, have a listen to that. So what I want to get into today is the, I'm going to talk a bit about the reasons why we didn't do IVF and maybe some of these will resonate with you.

And I also want to talk about how we grappled with this decision and why. So some of the fears and things that really kept us on the fence for a pretty long time actually.

And I also want to talk about how we grappled with the fact that this was a decision, it was a choice and the fears that we had around making this choice or the fears that I had.

I don't know if my husband experienced them, but I think he did a little bit. Well, let's start with the reasons why we didn't do IVF.

First of all, I had already been through a bunch of IUI cycles. So maybe I should actually start with a little bit about my story, in case you haven't heard it before.

So I had my first pregnancy when I was 39. And we hadn't actually been trying until then, and got pregnant pretty quickly.

We were pretty excited about it. I thought, gosh, this is easy. It was only two months after I was off the birth control pill.

And then we lost that pregnancy at about 11, almost 12 weeks. And then we went on to have two more miscarriages at I was 41 and then 42.

And so there was obviously long periods of trying in between that first and second miscarriage. And then another six months of trying between the second and third.

And It was then that we started IUI cycles, and I think we went through about four or five of them.

I think only three that actually came to, like that we went through all the way, and another two that we just ended early because my hormones weren't the right levels, and yeah, I think that was that.

details are pretty fuzzy for me, and I'm not sure whether it's because I blocked them out. Other people seem to have really clear memories of how many cycles they did, and when, and how many IVF cycles they did, and when, and I just, I don't actually have that.

So we ended up in front of the doctors talking about IVF when I was 44. And at that point, it was the only option that was really presented to us as viable was IVF with the donor egg.

So whether for or not to do IVF is already a pretty complicated decision and a complicated. Doing IVF is already a complicated decision, a complicated cycle.

It's, you know, and then throw a donor egg on that and it becomes even more so. Emotions get involved, well, they're already involved, all of it is complicated.

So reasons why we chose not to, because I had already been through a bunch of IUI cycles and I had thought it was going to be successful on the first try.

Even though they gave me the stats, I still thought I went into that first IUI cycle that first. I remember the...

the insemination part of that, IUI by the way, is intrauterine insemination. So it's basically like turkey-basting, if I can use that crude way of describing it, but basically you get a whole bunch of hormones that stimulate your ovaries to create more follicles, and then they take the there.

So I remember that day, when they did that, that the doctor looked at me and he crossed his fingers, and then he walked out, and I remember thinking in that moment, this is sort of an aside.

I remember thinking in that moment, gosh, what a weird thing. Like, this should be an intimate moment with my husband, and there's this doctor that I don't know at all, who is walking out the door with his fingers crossed.

Hoping for us, for me. It was such a strange surreal moment that I remember very clearly. But I also remember thinking that moment, oh, well, you don't need to cross your fingers for me because this is going to work, right?

Like, this is going to happen. And of course, it didn't. I just, I didn't believe it. I just thought it was going to happen.

So by the time we got to IVF, I didn't assume that it would work. In fact, I almost assumed it wouldn't or that it would take multiple tries because I had already been prepped for that.

Whereas I think a lot of other women, it just, we don't hear the stories of the IVF cycles that don't end in babies ever.

We hear the ones that do. We hear the miracle babies. We hear about the miracle babies. And we don't hear about those other sides.

The other other stories where IVF doesn't end in a baby and there's a lot more of those than you think so Our our minds our brains are kind of biased.

We think that it's gonna happen, and I didn't so I Think that was maybe something that made me a bit different from other women who are presented with IVF Like as the as their first option so All that to say that That also that contributed to the choice not to do it By this time I was also tired If you think IVF takes a toll on you, or maybe you don't you know if you haven't been through it then you don't know You're pumped full of hormones you for me.

was driving I was getting up at five in the morning and driving to the closest clinic, which was an hour away, getting blood work done, having an internal ultrasound, is uncomfortable, driving in our home, and then going to work for a full day of work, and then getting up and doing it again, two days later, and then again, two days later, sometimes every day, depending on what your blood work was telling you, what the hormones were at.

So it was exhausting. I was exhausted, and I don't even think I really knew how exhausted I was until after the fact, but I did have enough presence of mind to ask, you know, what, how much more is this going to take out of me, and how much more are they going to be putting into me?

It seemed so invasive. The IUI process was already so invasive. took so many drugs and injections and all the things that I sort of

I thought, wow, like, what is IVF going to be like? So that was another reason. really, that's kind of two reasons wrapped up in one.

I was tired, exhausted. I was worried about the toll that IVF would take. And then also, I was worried about what all those hormones and drugs were going to do to my body, what they were going to do to my emotions, because hormones, of course, we know have an effect on your emotions.

And I really at the time was going through a period of my life where I went off birth control because I wanted to stop taking drugs.

wanted my body to do what it was supposed to naturally in all respects, not just in terms of a pregnancy, but I was cleaning up my life and my diet from all angles.

So I was having trouble imagining all of this, putting all of this into my body and wondering what it was going to do.

And then, of course, the donor egg, so that was presented as the best option, and that really added a whole other element, a whole other complicated set of factors, the emotions, the, you know, course, there's the wondering, you know, am I going to be able to handle the fact that this kid might not express this kid might not be anything like me, and might be a lot like my husband, and how would I deal with And what I thought about later was the fact that when that baby, you know, that baby grows,

from a few cells to an infant, however many weeks to carry for 40 weeks or to two weeks. And that baby is being fed your blood, it is being influenced by your emotions, your hormones, your energy, everything that's happening.

There's no way that that baby is not yours. So if you were someone who sort of needed to hear that, hopefully that shifted your perspective a little bit.

There's tons of research out on the epigenetics, but just from an energetic standpoint, that baby is living inside your body for nine months.

It is yours. It doesn't matter whether it's DNA started as someone else's. So anyway, I wanted to say that just in case you're in the throes of this decision.

I also had some fears around having another miscarriage. So if I already had miscarriages before, nobody could really under, like, they didn't know why.

They didn't do any testing to understand whether it was a, you know, a macro issue, you know, a uterus issue.

We sort of knew that it wasn't there. It didn't appear that there was anything wrong with me. They didn't do any genetic testing, though, to see whether it was an egg issue.

So we really didn't know. So I didn't want to go through that again. I had three natural pregnancies that ended in miscarriage.

What would make this any different? I knew many women who had, you know, their IVF cycle worked, quote unquote, and then they miscarried.

And I wondered whether the chances were actually higher. They say it's not, but I really, I doubted that. And then, of course, I wondered what

it would work at all, whether, you know, I, as I said earlier, I didn't think that I really wasn't sure that it was going to work for me at all.

I, and this is, this is an individual or personal pattern for me. I went through life thinking, well, things don't work for me.

I wait, I feel like I wait forever for things to happen. I waited forever for my husband. I waited forever for the child.

I waited forever for my first client in my business. feel like things, I had this subconscious belief that things don't work out for me.

So I think that was also coming into play. And then deep down, I don't know whether this actually was conscious at the time, either, or maybe this came through later.

Sometimes it's hard to decipher. what was I actually thinking at the time versus what did I realize later on?

Because now it's now Oh, I'm 51. So this is now seven years ago. And I'm not sure that I've got it all straight.

The actual like, when did I think about this and when did I think about that? So the last thing that I did wonder was if it would all be worth it in the end, they say it's all going to be worth it.

You're going to look into those baby thighs and you're going to know a new, a new kind of love.

You will know true unconditional love. And I didn't know if that was true. I didn't know I wondered whether having kids was really worth it.

And I don't think I would have admitted that at the time. It's only later that I could sort of see that I was thinking this.

And I think it was more in the of the line for us was not a baby. And we spent tens of thousands of dollars for just more grief, and we really want to risk that.

So that was sort of how that showed up for me and weighing that against. The having the child. Maybe I don't know I think I underneath of that I was wondering if the child was.

Going to be worth it and of course once you have the child you will always say it's worth it of course.

It is because you love that particular child, but if you don't have that and you're weighing all of the possible consequences, then this is the kind of thing that might come up.

So then we began to grapple with this decision. I start. to wonder, maybe I don't want this badly enough.

As we were starting to lean towards, maybe we should just try to be happy with the life that we have.

And so I started to question myself, maybe, you know, if I want to quit now, if I'm contemplating this, maybe I don't want this badly enough.

And why do I really want it? And so this decision making, I kind of told you all the reasons why we didn't do it.

But I'm jumping back now to the decision making process and the things that were going through my mind, before we actually got to all of these reasons, because there were all kinds of things that that really weighed on us that some were conscious, some were not.

And so maybe just by me speaking, speaking them out loud, some of them might resonate. Maybe they don't. So take what

resonates in and leave what doesn't. So what I have heard others talk about is wanting to make their husband a dad or wanting to make their partner a parent.

Wanting to make their parents, grandparents, and feeling guilty about not doing those things. So making that choice not to do IVF would have meant not doing any of those for me.

I actually didn't feel that, but I know a lot of other women do. So I wanted to put that out there.

I didn't feel guilty about not doing that, partly because my husband was only half engaged. I think he was doing it more for me now that he's evaluated not so much for himself.

My parents certainly wanted to be grandparents. They already were grandparents. They've got three other grandchildren now, but they of course they want more.

And I didn't feel And maybe this was me being selfish. I don't know. I didn't feel that guilt at disappointing them, but I know a lot of other people do.

I also see other women talk about this deep and long seated desire to be a mother. And that was also something I didn't have.

I've talked about this on other podcasts, and it was hard for me to admit at first, but I was not one of those kids that played with dolls.

I didn't walk baby carriages around the house. I didn't pretend I don't even think we played house. played cowboys in Indians.

I didn't like babysitting. When I got to be in my 20s and into the workplace and all the young moms would go on mat leave and come back with their babies, I just felt uncomfortable and closed my office door and just ignore them because I didn't know what to do with infants.

So, I sort of spent my 20s and 30s thinking that that urge, that at baby fever would hit me at some point and it never really did not until really not until I had my first pregnancy and then I thought okay now actually we need to get moving on this and but it wasn't I wouldn't call it baby fever because I still didn't I assumed that I would love and cherish my own infant but I still didn't I still felt very uncomfortable with other people's babies and sometimes toddlers and I was looking forward to adult children because I like having adult conversations but I just assumed that I would love them because they were my kids but I didn't have this I didn't come to come to it with this deep-seated desire to be a mother so I didn't have that but I know that I know that other women do

What I really wanted or one of the things that I really wanted was the experience of being pregnant and not just for three months I wanted the full experience.

wanted to know I felt like I was really Like I was really cut off. I was cut short. I was sort of I Like got three months of it and I wanted to experience the rest of it So I felt like I really missed it On that and I wanted that experience.

I wanted to carry a baby to full-term and I wanted to see how me and my husband would show up in a child.

I wanted to see You know in hindsight looking back to the three that I lost What would they look like?

Who would they be like? What would they be interested in and I? I did want that. I wanted to see how my husband and I Would show up

I also, as I started to say earlier, that I did want to have a relationship with older children, but I also, you know, this played into me, a part of why we didn't move forward was because I didn't like, I didn't love what I was seeing in the world.

I didn't want to be a crazy busy soccer mom or a hockey mom. I didn't want that super busy super mom life.

I like being quiet. I'm an introvert. I like my alone time. And I wanted that relationship with older children when I could still maintain that, I suppose.

So, I don't know if that's... if any of that resonates with you, but those were sort of that was part of my the grappling that I did inside my own mind with that decision.

And it really took years, actually, to tease that all apart. This was not a one and done decision. It wasn't like they said, here's your option, donor egg, IVF, and then we went home and made that decision.

It took, we thought we were going to do it for about six months, prepared for it, and then we had to do some preparation work before they would even consider doing IVF with us.

we had a few months of taking supplements and fixing some things. So we had that time to think about it, and we thought we were going to do it.

And then we decided not to. And then we thought, no, we're not going to. And then my sister-in-law, had a baby.

I remember my husband saying, maybe we should have one of these. Do we want one of these? we do.

And like this all happened over, I think it was 18 months. And really, I think even until my period stopped forever, I still had this little, this little bit of hope in the back of my mind that I would somehow miraculously get pregnant naturally.

And it was only when it really was gone, that I accepted, okay, it's really not happening. So all of these personal reasons for for doing it, not doing it, there were also tangled up with societal pressure.

There was so much noise around me that became came voices inside my head, voices that sit just programming, governmental programming, societal pressure, parental pressure, all the things media advertising, all of those things that told me that I was supposed to want kids.

And there was a time when I didn't know what and which voices were mine and which were everybody else's.

So all of that caused a lot of fear around saying no to IVF. So I want to talk about those because you might be feeling those two or you might be might have felt them if you went through this.

They never belong. Would I ever enjoy going to family barbecues with my friends again. I had a sphere of missing out on something amazing, something that I thought must be amazing.

I had really fear of missing out on all kinds of things. What if my life just got really boring?

That was another fear. What if my husband left me? Then I'd be alone. I wouldn't have kids to fill up the space.

And what if I never found meaningful work or some sort of purposeful, purposeful mission? What if I never felt fulfilled?

And would I ever know true unconditional love? Because at the time I believed all the stuff out there that said that having children is the only way you get to feel that.

It's a different kind of love. Everyone says you don't know it until you feel it, until you have a child.

So I had a fear that I would never know that. So all of those things, you know, those were all the

things that we hear and we do, I'm sure that there's lots of you out there who fear those things as well.

One of the biggest fears though that was really weighing on me and it again I didn't realize this until after it took a lot of teasing apart all of the things like pulling apart this like tightly wound up ball of string and so one of the biggest fears I had was the sphere of judgment.

I wondered if I had a good enough reason not to do IVF, did I have enough good reasons not to do it?

Would people think I gave up too soon and would they judge me for what they thought as giving up too soon?

Would people think I'm selfish because that's what they call people who don't have kids and and also is there something wrong with me?

know, that I'm willing to give up this soon, you know, am I, do I not, because there's something wrong with me that I don't have this baby fever that I don't want to go through with this.

So all of these, these fears, which really boils down to a fear of being judged, which I was judging myself.

And I think all of that contributed to the grappling, the sitting on the fence, because it wasn't clear to me what my intuition was really telling me.

Now, I think this fear of judgment also contributes to many of us saying that we didn't have a choice.

We call ourselves childless, not by choice. And this leads to my final thoughts and ruminations. It's about this because part of this, this judgment, this me saying that I didn't have a choice, this was the reason I initially searched for hashtag childfree not by choice.

I used childfree for some reason, but I remember doing that, childfree not by choice. And then I realized there was this child less not by choice and all these other things.

But I didn't really even admit at first that I had just been through this long decision-making process and ultimately made a choice.

I didn't feel like it was a choice. It was an impossible choice. I see that now, but at the time, I didn't even want to admit that it was a choice because then I would have to experience all of that judgment.

So, this might ruffle some feathers. By the way, because I'm sure there are people out there who legitimately tried every single possible avenue.

I've heard of people doing like 15 rounds of IVF and spent every dime. And so I'm sure there are people who truly didn't have a choice.

They really came to the end of the line. And then I'm also sure that there are people out there who would say, well, there's always something more that you could have done.

And it's those people that were playing in my head. But I also am at the point where I can look at my choices and say, yes, there is something more I could have done.

Would it have impacted my mental health? Probably. Would it have ruined us financially? Maybe. it have ruined our marriage?

Possibly. So it does feel felt like it was not a choice, that I was tell this not by choice, but I think that actually kept me in victim mode.

Once I let all of that go and simply owned that I had made a decision not to do IVF, not to adopt, not to foster, not to have kids, then I was empowered.

Because telling myself that I didn't have that choice was really keeping me in victim mode, I'm a victim of this situation, I'm a victim of this circumstance.

And I don't mean that in a judgmental way, it is, it just, that is how I felt was that I was a victim of this.

And for me, empowering myself felt a lot better. Owning that decision helped me feel a lot better, like I had some control over the rest of my life.

Because You don't have to be in that victim mode. You can empower yourself. And once I finally admitted that I made a choice, albeit not an easy one, I could actually begin living again.

That was when I learned to stop caring what others thought of my choice or my child-free life. It's when I started to do all the inner work on myself.

And that is what propelled me forward and into the life that I now love. And it helped me to take action to process and heal the grief that I felt and to align with what I actually truly wanted.

So if you want that as well, if you are struggling to get through the decision on whether to quit or keep going, I invite you to send me a DM.

Send me a DM on Instagram at Sherry Johnson Coaching with the word. decision. That's all you need to do.

DM me the word decision. And I'll help you tease apart all that is keeping you on the fence so that you can really get at what your true hurt desires and what your heart can handle.

So I'm going link that up in the show notes. My Instagram account is always there. @sherijohnsoncoaching. And that is it for today's session.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. These are just my my opinions, my experience, what I know to be true for me.

And I would love to hear other perspectives. So please tell me. And if you found some value in this episode, click that follow button, subscribe, leave a review, share it with someone else who is going through IVF or who's thinking about it or who went through it so that they can hear a different perspective on why someone didn't.

That's it for today. Come back next week for another episode. Bye for now!