When should I give up trying for a baby?

When should I give up trying for a baby? How do I know when it’s the right time to stop?
Funnily enough that was one of the very first questions I asked my doctor when I was going through my Assisted fertility journey…
And what this wise man told me, and I always think of him, his ethics and compassion with great gratitude, was ‘You will know’.
So, I am going to offer the same piece of advice to you – You will know.
Your body will know, your mind will know, your heart will know, your gut will know. Every kind of somatic intelligence you have, will be there to guide you and assist you in your decision and the carving of your new path.

If there is one moment in the fertility journey that I highly recommend asking for the support of a mental health professional to walk with you your path, it would be this decision crossroad.

Knowing this point when to stop trying can be very very difficult. It is about that point that’s very individual for you and your partner where you get to the point where it becomes untenable, you can no longer continue the IVF, or trying, or whatever it is in your specific situation. It can be a very difficult point to reach.

Firstly, I encourage you to seek some external support and to assist you in reaching that point. Secondly, it may be that you’re not reaching that point if you’re with a partner at the same time. That can also be something that a therapist, or a coach, or a counselor could help you with but it’s really important to know that often we’re exploring this a little earlier than we need to, just a little. I find that when you’ve been going through IVF for quite a while, several cycles, these are the thoughts that start to creep in: “when is it time to stop?” and that is really individual for you and your journey and your partner, it’s something that you can really address better with some external support.

It’s also about knowing that you’ve got certain closed doors so say “right, we’re closing the door on IVF” and knowing that there are other doors that are open to you. There are alternative routes to parenthood and maybe it’s exploring those, at this point when you’re considering it, which helps you close the door on the previous route and then move forward into a different way. It may also be that for you this is the end of the road and I encourage you to look into some of the communities around there, some of the wonderful support mechanisms that are out there, and resources to help you with the grief and the how-to move on from an unsuccessful fertility journey.

When it comes to knowing the right time, I think if you’ve been through failed treatments, it’s really important to talk with your fertility consultant about what the further options are for treatment. Again, be prepared for them to be open and it could be that you need to consider alternative routes, for example, donor conception and you need to understand what that might look like. In terms of knowing when to stop, only you know and it’s really important that you and if you’re in a relationship that the pair of you have talked this through and you are really open and honest about what that means and what that looks like.

It might also be worth looking around other communities, if for example, treatment hasn’t worked and you haven’t been able to have a child or maybe it’s been a second or third child, looking at communities who you can identify with so you can get support, so for example there are amazing childless communities that you could find more out about and understand how people are talking about this so there are people you can relate to. Similarly with the other scenarios I just explained, but only you know what’s right with you. In terms of stopping treatment, that’s a conversation to have with a fertility consultant that you’ve been working with to find out if there’s any unanswered questions, if there’s anything you’ve not tried and to really ensure that you don’t have any regrets.