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Saff Mitten: Has Experiencing Failed IVF Cycles Started to Make You Feel Like You Failed?

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Nov 14, 2026, 17:27

Saff Mitten: Has Experiencing Failed IVF Cycles Started to Make You Feel Like You Failed?

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

“When you experience one or more IVF cycles fail, you may find yourself grieving what has happened while also questioning why – and turning that question inwards.

When the clinic can’t provide a definitive reason for why a cycle failed, you may find yourself asking:

Was it something I did?
Something I missed?
Why couldn’t my body do this successfully?

You can know you followed the medical advice and did everything asked of you, but still feel that you have somehow let yourself and your partner down.

Sometimes, blaming yourself offers a possibility that feels difficult to let go of:

if you did something wrong, perhaps you have control over changing it for next time.

But that leaves you carrying responsibility for an outcome that was never fully within your control.

However, when becoming a mother matters this much, another unsuccessful cycle, on top of dealing with infertility in the first place, can start to feel personal.

‘It didn’t work’ can become ‘I’m inadequate’, or ‘my body failed’, or even, ‘I failed’.

Being told to be kinder to yourself may not feel helpful or do much to change your feelings around this in the moment, even if logically you know you aren’t to blame.

In therapy, we can explore what these experiences have come to mean to you, and begin to question where, and how, grief and disappointment have become a judgement about your worth.

You have already carried the demands of infertility and IVF, and the pain of it not working so far.

You shouldn’t also have to carry the belief that this makes you a failure.

I’m Saff Mitten, a counsellor and psychotherapist who specialises in supporting women with IVF and infertility. I also have personal lived experience of these issues, and that is what makes me passionate about doing this work.”

Saff Mitten