‘People see our son,’ Aditi says. ‘They don't see the three years it took to get here.’
By the time Aditi* and Rohan* walked into the fertility clinic for their third IVF cycle, they knew the routine by heart. The early morning scans. The injections lined up in the refrigerator. The calls from the embryologist that could change the course of a day, or undo weeks of hope in a matter of minutes.
They had stopped asking whether it would work. Instead, they asked themselves whether they could do it all over again if it didn't.
On World IVF Day, which commemorates the birth of Louise Brown, the world's first baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in 1978, much of the conversation understandably celebrates one of medicine's greatest breakthroughs. But behind every IVF cycle is a story that rarely makes headlines, one of repeated hope and disappointment, financial strain, relationship shifts, and the quiet stigma that still surrounds infertility. For couples like Aditi and Rohan, the science made parenthood possible. The journey to get there, however, was profoundly human.
When they first decided to have a child, neither imagined that becoming parents would become the defining project of their marriage. They assumed, like most couples do, that it would happen in its own time. When months turned into more than a year, they sought medical help.
Friends and relatives immediately turned to Aditi with advice. Was she working too much? Was stress affecting her hormones? Had she waited too long? No one asked Rohan to get tested.
Eventually, the couple learnt that the issue wasn't hers alone. There were contributing factors on both sides. It came as a relief, but also as a quiet revelation of how deeply fertility is still seen as a woman's responsibility.
When Infertility Becomes One Person's Burden
The diagnosis belonged to both of them. The treatment, however, lived almost entirely in Aditi's body. Her days revolved around hormone injections, blood tests, ultrasounds and procedures. She tracked medication schedules, monitored side effects, rearranged work commitments and answered endless questions from concerned relatives.
Rohan attended every appointment he could. He sat beside her after every procedure and tried to absorb whatever fear she couldn't carry that day. ‘But there are parts of IVF where you realise you can't share the load equally,’ he says. ‘The emotional burden is shared. The physical burden isn't.’
That imbalance is rarely acknowledged.
Although infertility affects men and women in almost equal measure, and male-factor infertility contributes to nearly half of all infertility cases, the experience of treatment remains profoundly gendered. The woman becomes the patient. Her body becomes the site of intervention. Even when infertility has little or nothing to do with her reproductive health, she is often the one expected to explain, endure and remain hopeful. It is a shared medical condition that affects couples emotionally, psychologically and financially, even if its physical demands often fall disproportionately on women.
Hope Has A Way Of Resetting Itself
Aditi’s therapist described infertility as a form of ambiguous loss, a grief without closure, where hope refuses to disappear completely even as disappointment repeats itself.
Their first IVF cycle ended before an embryo could even be transferred.
The second carried enough promise that they allowed themselves to imagine life after the pregnancy test. They quietly discussed baby names. They looked at apartments with an extra room.
When the test came back negative, neither of them cried immediately.
‘It was almost like we had forgotten how to react,’ Aditi says. ‘You spend so much energy preparing yourself for both outcomes that when the answer finally comes, you're just... empty.’
Grief after failed fertility treatment is of a peculiar kind. There is no funeral. No rituals. Often, no acknowledgement at all. The loss is invisible, making it difficult for others to understand why it feels so overwhelming.
What It Does To A Relationship
People often assume IVF brings couples closer. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it quietly pulls them apart before helping them find each other again.
For Aditi and Rohan, conversations slowly became logistical. Medication timings replaced spontaneous dinners. Weekends revolved around appointments instead of friends. Intimacy became tied to calendars, procedures and waiting periods rather than desire.
There were days when one of them wanted to talk endlessly about every possibility while the other wanted silence. Neither response was wrong. They were simply grieving differently.
The Cost Nobody Budgets For
Every failed cycle carried two losses. One was emotional. The other appeared on a bank statement.
In India, IVF remains inaccessible for many families, with each cycle costing between ₹1.5 lakh and ₹3 lakh or more, depending on the doctor, hospital, medications and additional procedures. Most couples pay entirely out of pocket, as insurance doesn’t cover infertility treatments.
For Aditi and Rohan, every unsuccessful attempt came with the same conversation.
Could they afford to try again?
They postponed holidays. Delayed financial plans. Measured savings against hope.
‘There comes a point,’ Rohan says, ‘where you stop asking whether you want another cycle and start asking whether you can emotionally and financially survive another one.’
Changing The Questions We Ask
When people finally learnt that Aditi was pregnant, the questions changed overnight.
How far along are you?
Do you know the baby's gender?
When is the due date?
No one asked how many injections it had taken to get there. No one asked how many times they had almost given up.
Changing that narrative begins with something remarkably simple: asking better questions.
Instead of asking women what is ‘wrong’ with them, perhaps we should start asking couples how they are coping. By the time Aditi and Rohan welcomed their son, the years of appointments, failed cycles and impossible decisions had become invisible to everyone else. Friends celebrated the baby. Few knew what it had taken to bring him into the world.
Perhaps that is what World IVF Day should remind us of. While it celebrates a remarkable scientific breakthrough, it is also an opportunity to look beyond the success stories and acknowledge the emotional realities of infertility.
Better awareness isn't just about understanding how IVF works. It's about recognising that fertility care begins long before treatment with earlier diagnosis, equal attention to male fertility, accessible mental health support, affordable care, and workplaces and families that respond with empathy instead of judgement.
Most importantly, it is about changing the narrative that infertility is somehow a woman's burden to carry. Behind every IVF journey is a couple navigating uncertainty together, even if one partner is too often expected to bear it alone.
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.