Infertility is not your fault...

t's one thing to understand this about infertility. It's another to believe and feel it.

Especially with so many "experts" out there who are capitalizing on intended parents' willingness to do ANYTHING to become and stay pregnant.

Books such as "1000 Needles - How to Increase Your Odds and Take Control of Your IVF Journey" written not by a doctor but by someone who's had a successful IVF journey, is just one example of advice gone wrong. Books like this leave women feeling sick with guilt over using microwave safe Tupperware, plastic bags, cosmetics, scented candles, cleaning products, touching a printed receipt at the grocery store, to name a few of hundreds of everyday items that should be avoided like the plague due to their inherent toxins which are "all endocrine distruptors that will affect egg quality and implantation". If you're not eating 100% organic, de-stressing enough, exercising enough, but not too much, avoiding caffeine, sugar, dairy, gluten, alcohol, testing for food allergens and avoiding any inflammatory foods, taking 35+ supplement pills a day, drinking only filtered water, getting acupuncture, questioning and researching your fertility doctor's medical protocol then you're simply not taking the process seriously enough and maybe you should feel guilty after your IVF transfer fails or your egg retrieval doesn't yield a high number of viable eggs.

If someone has been doing IVF for years, trust me, they have done everything listed above and MORE and would do it again in a heartbeat if it actually meant a guaranteed pregnancy. BUT there's a reason our fertility doctors are not suggesting these intense regiments. It's because the studies aren't there to back it up. What this "advice" does is make women who already feel immense pain and guilt feel even more like it's their fault that their body isn't doing what it was built to do.

After years of testing, trying different medical protocols, and 6-month stretches of following every lifestyle recommendation out there, I have accepted our fertility doctor's recommendation that we utilize a gestational carrier. And I'm working on not carrying the guilt.

#surrogate #ivf #ivfjourney #ivfstrong #surrogacyjourney #surrogate #intendedparents #surrogatebaby