The cold hard facts

Approximately 10-15% of couples suffer from infertility. Multiple studies have shown that women undergoing IVF treatment experience high levels of stress, depression, and anxiety. To add to that lovely tidbit, studies show that there is a strong correlation between depressive symptoms and retrieved oocytes, the higher the depression score the less the oocytes. Awesome right?

So, get depressed as a result of infertility and the circus involved in IVF and you will end up with less embryos?!? fan bloody tastic.

But wait there's more, women with higher depression rates and anxiety have much lower pregnancy rates in general. Oh and then there's the study that shows that women who cope poorly with stress during fertility treatment have a much higher rate of miscarriage during their 1st trimester.  Wowsa

Lets not forget the data that shows women who are successful with their fertility treatment are much much more likely to suffer from postnatal depressive syndrome, and something that has been reported to me from fellow infertility sufferers is that during their pregnancies women who have had to rely on fertility treatment to become pregnant often feel guilty when they are feeling unwell and wanting to complain during pregnancy and also feel like they can never complain when going through the many sleepless nights associated with a newborn.

So basically we're screwed.. it really doesnt matter which way you look at it.