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Saff Mitten: During My Long IVF and Infertility Journey, Certain Moments Stand out Vividly…

Saff Mitten/saffmittentherapy.co.uk

Aug 21, 2026, 16:02

Saff Mitten: During My Long IVF and Infertility Journey, Certain Moments Stand out Vividly…

Saff Mitten, Counsellor and Psychotherapist at Saff Mitten Counselling and Psychotherapy, shared on LinkedIn։

“During my long IVF and infertility journey, certain moments stand out vividly. One of them is after I had finally got pregnant during my third IVF cycle, but I experienced a missed miscarriage discovered at 10 weeks. There is nothing that can adequately describe the devastation I felt when that happened. It broke me and I slipped into a real depression.

After I was finally coming out of that a little bit, and I was trying to re-enter the world, we went to a local cafe for brunch and sat outside in the sun. It was a big step for me as I had found it difficult to leave the house or do very much at all for quite a while. And my grief still felt very fresh.

While my partner was inside ordering, a woman with a baby approached me and asked, ‘Would you mind if we share your table? It is just me, my husband, and our baby’.

I felt frozen on the spot, and struggled to speak. Everything in me said NO. I couldn’t bear to be this close to a baby, any baby, but especially a very newborn baby like this was.

My normal response would have been to be accommodating and to say sure. But I knew I couldn’t bear it and would need to leave.

So somehow I found my voice, and I said: ‘I am really sorry, I just can’t be around babies right now’.

I had to advocate for myself and my grief and loss in that moment.

She could clearly see and hear the pain I was in, as soon as I said that, and she said, ‘Sorry, I understand, we will sit somewhere else’.

After that interaction, all my feelings were reactivated anyway, though, and all I wanted to do was get up and go home and retreat under the duvet.

But I didn’t. I stayed. I sat in the sun. I had my coffee and food. And I talked with my partner.

Somehow in doing that, I reclaimed something small for myself. And it was the first step of many, in slowly reintegrating back into life, while still grieving and still living with the not knowing if I would ever get to hold my own baby.

The point of this post is that pregnancy loss, miscarriage, or baby loss – whatever you call it – can be devastatingly hard. And IVF and infertility are also incredibly challenging.

And your pain, your grief, your discomfort, your inability at times to be around pregnant women or babies, is completely valid.

You don’t need to feel you are being selfish or rude in saying NO. In not attending events that feel too painful and challenging. Or in not letting someone with a baby sit with you while you have brunch.

It is not only Ok to look after yourself and what you need, it is important.

Your grief matters, you matter, and your loss matters.”

Saff Mitten: During My Long IVF and Infertility Journey, Certain Moments Stand out Vividly…