Breaking the silence: Infertility and stress during stress awareness month

April is Stress Awareness Month, a month to recognize the negative impact of stress. If you’re struggling with infertility, you don’t need a reminder of how deeply stress can affect your life. The waiting, the uncertainty, the endless cycle of hope and disappointment—infertility is an emotional and physical burden that few truly understand unless they’ve been through it themselves.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, exhausted, or completely alone in this journey, please know: you are not alone.

The silent weight of infertility

Infertility isn’t just about trying to conceive. It affects every part of your life — your emotions, your relationships, your sense of self. The stress of doctor’s visits, medical procedures, and waiting for answers can feel all-consuming. And on top of that, there’s the pressure from society, well-meaning (but painful) questions from friends and family, and the unavoidable reminders of pregnancy and babies everywhere.

This kind of stress can manifest in so many ways:

• Feeling anxious or on edge all the time
• Struggling with sleep because your mind won’t stop racing
• Avoiding social situations because they feel too painful
• Experiencing tension in your relationship with your partner
• Feeling like your body is failing you, even though this is not your fault

And yet, despite how common these feelings are, emotional support is often overlooked in fertility care.

The stress-fertility cycle

To make things even more frustrating, stress and fertility are connected. Studies suggest that high stress levels may affect ovulation and reproductive hormones in women, and for men chronic stress may reduce testosterone levels and impair sperm production, motility, and quality.  There are even studies that indicate that women with higher stress levels had lower probabilities of achieving pregnancy during fertility treatments.

This relationship can create a vicious cycle: infertility causes stress, and stress may, in turn, make it harder to conceive. This doesn’t mean you just need to “relax” (we all know how unhelpful that advice is!), but there are tools that have been shown to help you manage stress and it does highlight the importance of taking care of your mental health alongside fertility treatments.

If you are interested in finding out more, we’ve also been discussing the link between lowered fertility and stress and how to manage it here.

You deserve support

If you’re in the middle of this struggle, please know that your feelings are valid. Infertility is incredibly hard, and you don’t have to go through it alone. Here are a few things that might help:

•  Find a community – Whether it’s a digital support group like in Tilly (link to app in blog) or close friends who understand, talking to others who “get it” can make all the difference.
• Give yourself permission to set boundaries – It’s okay to skip the baby shower or politely change the subject when people ask intrusive questions.
• Prioritize self-care – Whether it’s a quiet walk, journaling, or just allowing yourself to rest, taking care of your emotional well-being is just as important as the physical side of fertility.
• Talk to someone – (In app: Sometimes an app like Tilly might not be enough to help you manage your feeling.) A fertility therapist or counselor can help you navigate the complex emotions that come with this journey.

You are not alone

Infertility is stressful, heartbreaking, and unfair. But you don’t have to carry this weight alone. This Stress Awareness Month, let’s acknowledge just how hard this journey is—and remind each other that we are stronger together.