Episode 183: Overcoming the Emotional Toll of Infertility

Today’s episode highlights the emotional toll that infertility can take on individuals and couples. Our guest speaks candidly on how her fertility journey affected her mental health, marriage, and perspective towards friends who found easy success with pregnancy.

Hana Peters and her husband started trying to have a baby and soon realized they needed to seek additional support. In this episode, Hana shares her journey. She speaks on the unsolicited advice she received along the way and how this impacted her relationships, her initial reaction to a diagnosis of unexplained infertility, and how she was able to pursue parenthood with a dedicated doctor and through her employer-sponsored benefit, Progyny.

For mental health support and resources, check out:

Progyny Article: Coping with stress during fertility care
This is Infertility Podcast episode: Bonus Episode 10: Prioritizing Your Mental Health During Your Fertility Journey
Employer guide: How to support employees with infertility mental health guide

Guest: Hana Peters, Progyny Member at Salesforce

Host: Dan Bulger, Progyny

For more information, visit Progyny’s Podcast page and Progyny’s Education page for more resources. Be sure to follow us on Instagram, @ThisisInfertilityPodcast and use the #ThisisInfertility. Have a question, comment, or want to share your story? Email us at thisisinfertility@progyny.com.

This episode is also a video! Watch it here:

The toll on marriage

02:57 – 04:28

Hana Peters: After a few months of not…not trying, we started to, like, actually try and do it by the clock, if you will. It was about almost a year into that, that I was like, this isn’t happening, you know, and this is not really great for our marriage, either. Trying to have a baby is fun until it’s not anymore. And it becomes a chore and something you have to do on a schedule. And it took a toll on us. I would cry every single month when I would either get a negative test or, you know, I was very clearly not pregnant. And he would say, It’s okay. We’ll try again next month. And my husband is very even keeled. And I am very not. We’re a really nice balance of each other in that way. So, he was really huge and able to keep me calm throughout it. It was more just like a, we can do this together. We can figure this out. Like it’s been a long time. And that’s okay, maybe it’s gonna be next month, and it was a lot of just alright, let’s go get next go around, you know, but I feel very lucky that I have someone that was super supportive.

The toll on friendship

05:05 – 06:40

Hana Peters: I didn’t really want to tell everybody that we were trying because I didn’t want everyone to constantly ask me like, if they noticed, I wasn’t drinking or something like is now the time? So, we only told a few friends. And even that was hard because at first, they were super supportive. But then you get the advice of just relax or go on vacation, or take Mucinex or eat more pineapple or try not to stress about it which — word to the wise if anyone hears this — don’t say that to people, whether you know they’re struggling to get pregnant or not. I’ve learned a lot in this process about what you shouldn’t say to women or couples because it’s quite triggering. Then you start getting in your head like maybe I should just relax, put the calendar away, take Mucinex or whatever it is. And then when you try those things that your friends who easily get pregnant tell you to do and then it doesn’t work, it’s just another little chip away at the disappointment when you get the negative pregnancy test. So, he and I would commiserate on how hard those things were to hear. I didn’t expect him to like empathize so well with that. But he did. And, you know, it was kind of nice to be like angry at comments together, like that actually helped us get through it.

A good benefit & a great doctor

07:33 – 12:08

Hana Peters: I booked an appointment and got tested. And my egg count was above average for my age. And I was like, okay, okay, that’s a good start. Got the saline infusion ultrasound to see if my tubes were blocked. Long story short, everything came back normal. So, the next step was getting my husband tested. And my husband came back completely normal, above average for his age, and we ended up getting diagnosed with unexplained infertility.I learned from my doctor, that is actually a diagnosis that they really like. My doctor, Dr. Patel, was like, this is great! We’re going to be able to solve for this. This means we have so many options to help you get pregnant. And she was like, hey, you want to freeze your eggs anyway, right? Because I want more than one child, I’m getting older. And I was like, yes, I do. And she’s like, well, why don’t we just go straight to IVF? I think generally, people would, you know, do IUI first and maybe do a couple rounds of IUI first, because it’s cheaper than IVF. A lot cheaper than IVF. But it was in that moment when she said, IVF that I learned that I have Progyny.

Dan Bulger: They did IVF. Hana responded wonderfully. They ended up with several PGT-A tested healthy embryos, transferred one.

Hana Peters: I got a call from Dr. Patel. I was in Target, the smack middle of Target and I answered the phone, and she said, Hannah, you’re pregnant. And I just I’m telling you, those people probably thought someone told me that someone died because I was bawling, crying, I ran out of Target.