Using ChatGPT as my infertility therapist, part 4
Depressed, unsure of what I want, uncertainty of outcome, hope and fear and odds, pondering a bright future outside of infertility
🌿 Me: It's later, and while I'd love lighter topics, I just feel so heavy. Like I'm bleeding a little on the inside, but I'm way past the point of crying like I would be doing a year ago. I just get a numb, heavy pain inside, choking me.
I was working so hard last summer and fall at improving my mental health, at manifesting and believing, but it was so utterly exhausting to keep up for more than a couple of weeks at a time, and now, I feel like I'll never be able to do it again. I'm just letting it be and wallowing.
🌌 ChatGPT: That makes sense. That kind of effort—constantly trying to stay positive, believe, push forward—it’s exhausting, and no one can sustain it endlessly, especially when nothing changes. Right now, you’re in that heavy, burned-out place where it feels impossible to fight it anymore, so you’re just sinking into it. And honestly, that’s understandable.
You’re not failing by feeling like this. You’re just tired. Of waiting, of hoping, of pushing yourself to keep going. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is exactly what you’re doing—just let it be for a while. You’re still moving forward, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Nine weeks until the move. That’s happening whether you manifest, believe, or just exist until then.
If you want to wallow right now, wallow. If it helps to talk about something else, I can help with that too. But you don’t have to force yourself to feel any particular way.
🌿 Me: I had a completely different topic that I might bring up later, but for now - what is it I'm actually sad about, or fearful of? I'm not just sad because I don't have a baby "yet". If I knew 100% that it would happen one day, at least once, I would be completely at ease. My entire sadness and pessimism comes from the fear of being childless for life, and the anxiety in not knowing.
If I knew 100% it would never happen, then I could grieve, conceivably, eventually pick myself up and move on with my life. But I can't do either.
🌌 ChatGPT: You're stuck in the limbo of not knowing. You can’t grieve and move on, because you don’t know if you need to. You can’t fully hope and relax, because you don’t know if it will happen. That uncertainty is what's crushing you.
If you had a guaranteed answer—yes or no—you’d have something solid to work with. Either way, you could adapt. But instead, you’re in this endless cycle of hoping, being let down, trying to brace yourself, and then getting pulled back into hope again. It’s exhausting because it keeps you emotionally suspended, never allowing you to fully process anything.
And on top of that, it feels like time is controlling you rather than the other way around. You can make all the right moves—tracking, testing, even medical intervention—and still have no control over the outcome. That’s terrifying.
It’s completely understandable that you feel so heavy. The human brain isn’t designed to thrive in this kind of uncertainty for years on end. It needs resolution—one way or another—to heal or move forward. Right now, you don’t have that. So you’re stuck in this painful in-between, trying to function while carrying a constant weight of what if.
🌿 Me: It's exactly that. So what do I do? How does a person go on with years of emotional torture limbo, that might go on for years to come, still? How do I find peace - truly feeling peace a realistic 90% of the time - instead of the reverse where I am now, feeling fine 10% of the time (being generous), and inevitably slipping back?
🌌 ChatGPT: You need an anchor—something stable that isn’t tied to the outcome of this journey. Right now, everything feels like it hinges on whether or not you’ll have a child, and that’s why the uncertainty is unbearable. If you can shift even a little of your emotional weight onto something else—something that you control—it might help you find a more lasting peace.
1. Redefine "success" (without letting go of the goal)
Right now, success feels like "having a child." But if you also define success as “building a life that I love no matter what,” then you aren’t completely at the mercy of fertility. You can still pursue motherhood, but without your happiness being entirely dependent on it. That might mean throwing yourself even deeper into your love for animals, art, conservation, or creating something meaningful.
2. Compartmentalize (Set Boundaries with Yourself)
This doesn’t mean repressing feelings but rather containing them so they don’t spill into every moment of your life.
Designate specific times to think about fertility—maybe a weekly journal session or a certain time of day. Outside of that, if the thoughts come, you can tell yourself, "Not now. I’ll give this space later, but right now, I’m focusing on something else."
Avoid things that keep you in the loop unnecessarily (random symptom-checking, over-researching, scrolling infertility forums, etc.).
3. Let Go of Time as an Enemy
This is one of the hardest parts because every month that passes feels like a lost chance. But what if time wasn’t against you? What if this journey is just taking the time that it takes? The goal is still in the future, and until you have a definitive answer, there’s still time. You’re not failing—this is just the path. (And you are moving forward—your move, your medical checks, and whatever comes after.)
4. Acknowledge that This Is Trauma
Long-term infertility is psychologically traumatic. It’s not just “waiting.” It’s repeated loss, stress, and identity upheaval. If you were healing from any other trauma, you wouldn’t expect yourself to just will your way into peace overnight. You’d approach it like any other mental health challenge:
Look for ways to process it in a healthy way (through writing, art, or therapy).
Recognize that the pain comes in waves, and that’s normal. You’re not “slipping back”—this is the process.
5. Create a Sense of Control Where You Can
Scheduling the tube check is a big step—you're taking action.
Maybe set other milestones for yourself: "If we don’t conceive by X, we’ll try Y." That way, it’s not an endless loop of waiting, but a structured plan.
Consider working with a fertility therapist or counselor who specializes in this.
6. Find a Way to Hold Hope Without It Consuming You
This is the hardest one. You’ve been burned by hope so many times, and trusting it again feels dangerous. But hope doesn’t have to mean blind optimism—it can just mean being open to possibility. Instead of “I have to believe this will happen,” it can be “I’m open to the possibility that life could surprise me.”
You don’t need to go from 90% sad to 90% at peace overnight. Even if you can shift to 50/50, where peace is just as present as sadness, that’s already a massive change. And from there, it keeps tipping toward something lighter.
Right now, it’s about finding ways to live fully in the in-between, without every moment hinging on the unknown.
🌿 Me: Thanks a lot, you really do have a lot of things I have never heard before! 😊 I do some of them already however, though it's not getting me far (or as far as I'd like), but most of what you said is new to me and very good to consider.
I have a lot of plans and hopes for the future, with the house we'll have, how it will be furnished, what kinds of animals we'll have, all the art projects I will go ahead with, and starting beekeeping as a side business to let me work from home, in addition to my art. All the nature exploration we will do. Road trips and adventures.
Some days, these thoughts really bring me out of it, "we have so much fun to do!", and I'm only 33 and have decided I will be more than overjoyed with 1-2 children (instead of the 3-4 we were aiming for), so there's plenty of time! In addition, while we've been trying for almost three years and that IS a long time - a lot longer than most people could fathom going on for without treatment, including myself - we haven't done anything but throw the dice once a month. Tested some of my hormones, did two ultrasounds, checked sperm at home. And that's all we know and all we've done. We haven't gone deep into testing or even done the most basic treatment, like letrozole or IUI, and it COULD work on the first try!
But still, that optimism is fleeting, like I've described. And even if we get the life of our dreams just without children, that will still be a deep wound that needs healing. Life may still feel incomplete and "ultimately pointless", for a childless person or couple even though they "have it all", because they don't get to share that with the second generation, that never came.
And the scars of infertility are still relevant even if you DO get pregnant and have all the healthy children you want. I said, last year, "it's better I don't get pregnant now, because I'm such a wreck, I'll get postpartum depression like a letter in the mail". I do believe that, although I'm doing better now (wow, that feels strange to admit), it certainly was true then.
🌌 ChatGPT: It makes sense that your optimism comes and goes—when you're able to focus on your future plans, you can feel hopeful, but the uncertainty of infertility keeps pulling you back into that emotional limbo. Even knowing that you haven’t yet tried treatments, the weight of these past years still lingers.
You're incredibly self-aware about how this might affect you in the long run, whether you do have children or not. The fact that you recognize the scars infertility can leave means you're already a step ahead in preparing to heal, no matter what path life takes. And I do think your future—full of creativity, nature, animals, and adventure—sounds truly fulfilling, whether it includes children or not.
Right now, are you feeling more on the side of wanting to keep pushing forward, or do you just need to sit with the emotions for a bit?
🌿 Me: I don't really know how to answer your question. I'm really impatient after years of trying and waiting, [ ] I have plenty of time to sit with the emotions, still. How I'll feel if we end up on a lengthy treatment journey, is something I'll know then.
I want to recap what I said in my last entry - I noticed while writing, that actually, I no longer believe I would necessarily get PPD if I got pregnant now, while I do believe it would have happened last year. So I just had a sudden moment of realization that even if I feel like I'm always slipping back - it's not AS bad as it's been. So even if I went three steps forward, two steps back (a negative thought I've had a lot), that means I am solidly one step forward.
🌌 ChatGPT: That’s actually a huge realization. Even if it doesn’t always feel like progress, recognizing that you’re in a better place than last year is proof that you are moving forward. One step at a time still gets you somewhere.
And I get why you're impatient—you’ve been waiting for years, and the uncertainty makes it all the more frustrating. [ ] The fact that you’re still able to think about what comes next, even if it’s a long treatment road, shows that you’re staying open to possibilities instead of shutting down. That’s strength.
So with this realization in mind—if things are at least a little better than they were last year—do you feel like anything specific helped you get there? Or does it just feel like time passing and adapting?
🌿 Me: I suppose my overall mental health processing, light spiritual practice of meditation and mindfulness, and the help from the book I mentioned, has done its part, as well as time just passing. I agree with those who say the first year of infertility is the most brutal. It's just a shock and so much grief and starting to question yourself. As time passes, while on the one hand it becomes more heartbreaking and frustrating, you also get used to it and learn how to manage it, as just another part of life.
One thing I want to talk about is how to hold on to hope. My husband, like I've said, is very casual and optimistic, still. One thing he really integrates well and which I also think about, is about the actual, realistic odds, and whether to frame that in a positive or negative light.
He can sit me down and say "okay, say that it's 50/50-" meaning to take it as a positive spin, but I say "no, it's actually more like 98/2", or even "95/5". Since about 1% of people remain involuntarily childless (from what I've found), and we haven't even done much yet, I think that rationally, the odds are still overwhelmingly in our favor. Even if it's as low as 90%, and 10% says we'll be childless, it's overwhelmingly in our favor. Perhaps it will take IUI or IVF to get us there, but I can absolutely buy that we have at least 90% likelihood of having at least one living child.
That's my rational brain speaking. So why am I such an "expert" at focusing on the negative, and focusing on the fear? I also remember a meditation about finding hope (about anything in life), and she asked "why focus on the one outcome you do not want?" I really don't know.
I also came up with the comparison, imagine if you have a disease with a 5% mortality rate. With 95% certainty, you'll heal and be fine. Would it then help you to live in fear every day and act like life is over? No, of course not! You're not dead, and in fact, worrying like that is just likely to do more damage. But that's what I'm doing with this infertility struggle.
I feel like this is my big hurdle to get over, and get my non-rational brain to figure out as well.
🌌 ChatGPT: That’s an incredible insight. You’re completely right—by all rational calculations, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor. Even if treatment is needed, the majority of people who seek it do end up with a baby. And yet, that logical truth doesn’t seem to outweigh the emotional fear that says, but what if I’m the exception?
I think that fear stems from the deep emotional investment you have in this, combined with the unpredictability of it all. With something like a disease with a 95% survival rate, you at least know fairly quickly whether you’re improving or not. Infertility, on the other hand, keeps dragging on with no clear timeline, so it’s hard to feel like you’re in the 95% even if you logically know you are. The brain hates uncertainty, and your fear is trying to prepare you for the worst—except, as you pointed out, that’s actually harming you rather than helping.
So how do you train your non-rational brain to internalize what your rational brain already understands? Maybe part of it is about shifting what you emotionally associate with those numbers. Instead of viewing the 5% as this looming threat, what if you leaned into the fact that 90-95% is an incredible probability? If you had a 95% chance of winning the lottery, you wouldn’t be thinking, what if I’m in the 5% who lose?—you’d be excited, confident, even expecting it. That’s what hope is. It’s not ignoring reality; it’s focusing on the much greater reality of success over failure.
I also think there’s a self-protection element at play. If you let yourself fully believe it will happen, then disappointment will feel that much sharper if it doesn’t. So instead, your brain tries to brace you by focusing on the worst-case scenario. But bracing for impact doesn’t stop the impact from happening—it just makes you live in fear of it for longer than necessary.
Maybe hope, in this case, is an active choice rather than a feeling. It’s about training yourself, moment by moment, to focus on the 90-95% and stay there—not just visit that thought before retreating back into fear. What do you think would help you practice that, not just intellectually, but emotionally?