Discover Circle

How treatment works, what affects your chances, and how to cope along the way.

What trying to conceive (and IVF) is really like.

Between cycles and big decisions

Community · 2 threads

Regrouping after a cycle, and the question of how many is enough.

Some of the hardest work in fertility treatment happens when nothing is scheduled: the weeks after a cycle that didn't work, the conversations about money and stamina, and the question nobody can answer for you, whether to go again. These threads hold those in-between times, with no pressure in either direction.

What this section can and can't do

There is no formula hiding in these threads, and the readers here are careful not to pretend one exists. What the threads offer instead is the shape of other people's deciding: the review points couples agreed in advance, the lists written before the next cycle rather than after, the ways people knew they were pausing rather than stopping. Borrow the shapes, not the conclusions; a decision that brought one reader peace could be wrong in every particular for you.

If you are in this in-between stretch now, the site's guide to dealing with a failed IVF cycle covers the immediate aftermath, and what the success statistics really mean can make the numbers part of the conversation less murky. The medical questions inside the decision, what your cycles so far actually suggest, what changing approach might offer, are for your own clinic, and a follow-up consultation exists precisely to ask them.