The Fertility Diaries 2025

“Sitting Down to Bleed”
By Natalie Zadorozny

How do you write about a story that you’re actively grieving? How do you come home from a classroom of teenagers writing college essays to write one about how you may never have teenagers of your own? Ernest Hemingway is credited with saying that to write, “all you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed”. I’ve done enough bleeding, but I guess, much like our IVF journey, you give it all you’ve got and hope something sticks.

As I type, Chris and I are in the recovery stage after our third egg retrieval. For the third time in six months, the melancholy cloud has descended on our house as we seek refuge in comfort shows, cozy blankets, and the IVF Spotify playlist I’ve made to match the mood. Ray LaMontagne’s “We’ll Make It Through” and Taylor Swift’s “The Prophecy” serenade us as we attempt to continue the laundry and keep the dishes put away, always wondering if we’ll ever have baby clothes to add to our piles or bottles to wash along with our plates. “After 34 eggs were retrieved last week, only one embryo made it to blast” I text my mom as Noah Kahan’s lyrics “I thought I had something, and that’s the same as having something” becomes the soundtrack of our lives. Our parents and close friends don’t know what to say, yet again, so they attempt to say “we love you” with flowers or soup or an encouraging text. And yet, the melancholy lingers. Our future family feels like a pipe dream, and this last retrieval has opened up a new fear to wrestle with for the first time: “Will we be okay if this never happens for us?”.

Chris and I have been married since October 2021. Our wedding was supposed to be in October of 2020, but Covid sidelined our plans, and we postponed a year. “What’s one more year?” We thought. “We will never get another chance to have all our loved ones in one place at the same time. We will not let Covid take that from us,” we rationalized. While we wouldn’t change our decision, we now wonder, “Would one more fertile year have helped?”

Our diagnosis came in August 2024 when we followed the advice of a friend who underwent IUI to get pregnant with her daughter; she encouraged us to “get tested as soon as you think something is up. Don’t waste precious time,” she warned. If it weren’t for her, drug store male fertility tests, and his doctor being willing to test him before we hit the “one year of trying” mark, we still wouldn’t know that Chris has unobstructed azoospermia.

Male factor infertility can be an isolating diagnosis in an already isolating infertility community. My reddit-loving, review-reading, research-obsessed husband immediately attempted to grab onto a lifeboat of connection from any online community of men talking about how it feels to be diagnosed with male-factor infertility, but no one was there. His calls for support echoed off the walls, and loneliness and guilt reached a new level. “Why are there no men talking about this? I know I can’t be the only one”, he mourned. While I found droves of stories and communities of women sharing their IVF stories, the men were silent. Even in the Male-Factor support groups on Facebook, post after post read “Hi all, my husband was just diagnosed”, or “Help! My husband won’t get tested” or “My husband’s results are _____, what next?”. He was hearing from women or doctors, but from no man’s mouth directly about what it felt like to be them. And so, our IVF posture was born: If this journey brings us nothing else, at least we can educate others.

In our well-meaning families and friend groups, it seemed like the baseline knowledge of IVF and infertility problems ended at “test-tube baby” or “that expensive procedure with needles”. Chris and I mused that if most people don’t know much about IVF, how can things like health insurance, political advocacy, or even research make progress? If IVF progress is limited to the people who have firsthand knowledge, we become an incestuous group attempting to finance, research, and advocate by ourselves. Instead, if vulnerability breeds connection, and connection breeds empathy, then the next step feels obvious: share.

We shared with families the difference between the “eggs” they were praying over versus the “embryos” we wanted. We shared with them the financial reality of being on a teacher’s and a proposal writer’s salary and trying to afford three (and counting) egg retrievals just to have enough embryos for two kids (or even one). We shared with some of our co-workers and bosses the strain that appointments and ultrasounds were putting on us during the work week. We shared with our friends the shot schedule, the supplement regimens, the restrictive diets, and the limitations. We shared with our therapists the real emotions and fears that come up because of IVF and infertility.

What we found when we shared was that people are grateful to be invited into that space; they are careful about how they show up; they adapt as they learn. They build authentic empathy for our shared humanity by grieving with us, hoping with us, crying with us, and being angry with us. Now, when the time comes to advocate, understand, and support, they will know. And so we will continue to educate even if our next steps don’t bring us what we want most. Even if it never happens – maybe especially then – we will continue to share.

How do you actively grieve while you write about your story? How do you find hope when it seems like every call has been bad news? You continue to sit at your typewriter and bleed because, in doing so, you give both yourself and your readers the gift of connecting over your shared humanity, the gift of knowing you’re not alone.