970x125
I have to confess, the idea for this blog post was inspired by a song playing on the radio. I stopped to listen, as it happened to be one of my favorite bands, Fleetwood Mac. I know the song well, “Never Going Back Again.”
This is where I began.
The Pattern Beneath the Words
The line is simple:
“Been down one time, been down two times / I’m never going back again.”
On the surface, it is about the unraveling of the relationship between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
But beyond that, it speaks to a very specific kind of experience. One that is familiar and repetitive. One where we question why we are doing what we are doing, yet continue anyway, perhaps against the odds, even when part of us already knows what is coming.
The Rhythm of Fertility Treatment
If you have been through fertility treatment, you know this rhythm.
You gather hope, allow yourself to imagine, and that propels you forward despite the uncertainty.
Then something happens that you were not quite prepared for. The cycle fails.
A loss happens. While devastating, you gather yourself back together. Your support system shores you up, and you keep going.
At first, this repetition can feel like determination. But what happens when it is your third, fourth, or fifth try? The emotional repetition wears you down.
When Your System Starts to Learn the Outcome
There comes a point where you begin approaching things with a muted mix of hope and caution. Hesitation replaces the instinct to jump right in. Allowing yourself to go through this again comes with a cost you already understand.
This is not pessimism. It is learning.
When Hope Begins to Carry Risk
Hope becomes a double-edged sword. It is no longer just something that supports you. It becomes something that exposes you in an anxiety-provoking way. It becomes mercurial. It can carry you into the clinic and collapse on the drive home. It shifts with every symptom, every scan, every stray comment from someone who means well. It can feel like a very bad co-dependent relationship with treatment.
What do people even do at this point?
Some people notice they begin pulling away from hope altogether. They stop letting themselves picture a due date, a name, or the moment of telling family. Imagining feels too risky, but they keep their fingers crossed.
Others move between intense optimism and emotional shutdown. They are all in the week before a test, then emotionally close that door ’til the results are in. Others use distraction. The people around them are not always sure which version they are going to get.
But all of these ways of trying to manage risk.
The Question That Changes Everything
At some point, a different question begins to emerge.
Can I keep going?
It slowly becomes:
What will this cost me if I do?
What shifts at this point can be difficult to recognize in the moment, but it is vital. It is the moment you step back into the picture. Not just the outcome. Not just the possibility of success. But the impact of the process on you as a person.
The Moment of “Never Going Back Again”
It happens because you are intimately familiar with loneliness, exhaustion, shame, disconnection, and the looping thoughts that return night after night. From within this shell-shocked state, something begins to emerge. You start to recognize something that was always there, but often pushed aside in the process: Your Self and your well-being that has been put on hold.
For some, this moment arrives suddenly, as a final and unmistakable feeling. For others, it builds slowly over time. But when it comes, it is often clear. The emotional cost of continuing has become too high, and stopping brings an unexpected sense of relief.
What surfaces is often a quiet recognition: I finally accept what this is doing to me, and I need to pay attention to that.
This Is Not Failure
“You don’t know what it means to win.”
In the song, there is a line: “You don’t know what it means to win.” Its meaning becomes clearer over time, not as a statement about success, but rather as something earned through experience. It reflects the kind of understanding that comes from having been through something enough times to know what it costs you. And that is where it starts to matter.
Reaching a point of stopping is not failure. It is not a lack of strength, commitment, or caring. It is the result of having been through something enough times to understand a new truth: you matter.
And while there is one kind of strength in continuing treatment, there is a different kind of strength in recognizing when to stop. One does not invalidate the other.
In a world where success is measured by outcomes, it can be difficult to accept that internal shifts, like recognizing your emotional limits, are also a form of success. But this is where the meaning of that lyric deepens. It is not about winning in the way we usually define it through external outcomes. It is about the kind of experience that changes how you define winning altogether. A definition that includes both your desires and the acceptance of finally including yourself in the cost of it all.
What does that look like in practice? Often, it is small. Noticing the toll on your body and no longer waving it away. Naming what the two-week wait has done to your relationship. Allowing yourself to want something other than a baby, even briefly, without the guilt that usually rushes in.
These are quiet acts of revolution and inclusion. They are how you stop being only the means and become part of what matters again.
There are multiple valid truths, including the ones that do not result in babies.
