When an IVF Cycle Ends Before Embryo Transfer
By Saff Mitten
It can be incredibly hard when an IVF cycle doesn’t make it to the embryo transfer stage.
This may happen for a number of reasons. You go through the injections, scans and egg collection, but then none of the eggs collected are mature, or no eggs fertilise. Perhaps embryos start to develop but stop growing before day five. Or you freeze your embryos for PGT testing, and none are deemed chromosomally normal. After everything you have been through, you are told there are no embryos to transfer.
You haven’t had a two-week wait or the opportunity to find out whether this cycle could lead to a pregnancy, and losing that possibility, that chance, can feel devastating.
What those eggs and embryos meant to you
By the time you reach egg collection, you may have spent months preparing for treatment, alongside however long you were trying to conceive before that. There may have been difficult decisions, considerable expense and changes to your work and daily life. You have put your body through treatment and allowed yourself to hope that it could lead to a baby.
Then you wait for updates about how many eggs were collected, how many were mature, how many fertilised and how your embryos are developing. Each update can change what you believe is possible. You might feel encouraged by one phone call, only to receive another that takes that hope away.
Knowing that not every egg will fertilise or every embryo will develop does not necessarily prepare you for hearing that none have made it. Understanding the possibility intellectually is very different from finding yourself facing it.
Those eggs or embryos may have represented your chance of becoming a mother, having another child, or finally moving forward after years of treatment. You knew there were no guarantees, but you may already have imagined a pregnancy, a baby and the life you hoped would follow. Losing that possibility can bring a profound sense of grief.
Not getting the chance to transfer an embryo
You had probably expected to get to transfer, even while knowing it was not guaranteed. Perhaps you had worked out when it might happen, how you would manage the two-week wait or when you could take a pregnancy test. Finding out there is not going to be a transfer can leave you shocked and struggling to take in how suddenly the cycle has ended.
There may also be a painful sense of having been through so much without getting the opportunity you were working towards. You endured the injections, organised your life around appointments and went through egg collection, but never reached the point of finding out whether an embryo could implant.
If embryos have been developing, the loss can unfold over several days as their numbers fall. If you are waiting for PGT results, you may have already felt some relief at having embryos to freeze, only to discover that none are considered suitable for transfer.
Once the clinic appointments and updates stop and you have received the news a transfer isn't possible, you may feel left with the emotional impact of this realisation, while everyone around you just assumes the cycle is over and you will be looking to the next one. Additionally, your body may still be recovering from treatment while you are trying to absorb what has happened and it can feel really difficult to just return to everyday life.
Comparing your loss with someone else’s
Although not getting to embryo transfer stage probably feels really painful and devastating, some women have a tendency to compare themselves with others who had a transfer followed by a negative pregnancy test, or someone who became pregnant and miscarried. Because you didn’t get as far as that, you may find yourself judging your loss as lesser than theirs, even though it feels equally devastating to you.
You might tell yourself that you were never pregnant, that you didn't even get any embryos, or the embryos were only developing for a few days and it is not the same as having an embryo transferred and it failing to implant, or getting a positive pregnancy test and then going on to lose the pregnancy. These thoughts can make you feel ashamed of your grief, as though the strength of your reaction is something you need to keep quiet, or feel the need to explain or defend.
However, different experiences of loss have their own pain and significance. You can recognise what someone else has been through without using it to dismiss what has happened to you. Not reaching transfer does not mean you were less invested, or that the loss should hurt less.
You also do not have to describe your experience as grief if that word does not fit. You may feel shocked, angry, numb, disappointed or exhausted. There is no particular response you need to have, and your feelings may change as you take in what has happened.
When other people don’t understand
People around you may see this as a failed cycle without recognising what those eggs or embryos meant to you. They may not understand the significance of the updates you were waiting for, or how soul-destroying it felt to hear that no eggs had fertilised or no embryos had developed sufficiently for transfer.
Comments such as “at least you can try again” or “perhaps the next cycle will be different” may be intended to encourage you. But they can leave you feeling that the loss of this cycle has been minimised or passed over. You may not yet know whether you want to try again, whether you can afford to, or how you would manage another round of treatment. And you may be caught up in the grief and sense of loss from this cycle ending abruptly in the way it did.
Having to explain your distress, or discuss next steps can be exhausting when you are already struggling. If it feels helpful, you might tell someone:
“I know we hoped this would work, but I need time to take in that it hasn’t. I’m not ready to talk about another cycle yet.”
You may also need to be specific about the support you want, whether that is someone listening without offering solutions, checking in over the following weeks, or understanding that you are not ready to return to everything as usual.
When treatment failure feels like personal failure
When there is no clear explanation for why you didn't make it to embryo transfer, it can be easy to turn that uncertainty inwards. You may replay how you prepared for the cycle, what supplements you took, how stressed you felt, and whether you made the right treatment decisions. Searching for something you could have done differently can become a way of trying to make sense of an outcome that is painful and difficult to understand.
But questions can quickly become accusations against yourself. “Why did this happen?” can turn into “What did I do wrong?” The feeling that treatment has failed can become a belief that you have failed, or even that you are a failure.
You may feel angry with your body or struggle to trust it. This can affect how you see yourself and how you approach any further treatment. Another cycle may bring hope, but also the fear of receiving the same news again.
A follow-up appointment may help you understand what the clinic knows, what remains uncertain and what options are available. Emotionally, though, an explanation may not resolve everything. You may still need space to work through the loss and the beliefs about yourself that have become attached to it.
How IVF therapy can help
As a therapist who has experienced IVF and specialises in IVF, infertility and loss, I understand the treatment process and how invested women can become at every stage of a cycle. At the same time, your experience is unique to you, and so are your reactions to what you have been through. While there may be a shared level of understanding, I want to know what this has been like for you specifically — your feelings, circumstances and concerns.
We can talk about the significance of what you have lost and feelings you may struggle to express elsewhere. That might involve grief for the embryos you hoped would develop, anger about what you have been through, envy of people whose treatment has progressed, or fear about what this means for your future.
If it is relevant to your experience, we can also explore the self-blame that often arises, leaves you carrying responsibility for an outcome you couldn’t control, and examine how IVF has affected your confidence, your relationship with your body and your trust in your own decisions.
If you are considering what to do next, therapy can give you space to think without pressure to reach a particular answer. You may need time to recover, want to discuss another cycle, or feel unsure how much more you can manage. You do not have to arrive knowing what you want to do.
Not reaching transfer does not mean there was nothing to lose. There can be a huge sense of loss, grief and disappointment, all of which are valid and justified — whether other people understand that or not.
If you would like support following an IVF cycle that ended before transfer, I offer online counselling and psychotherapy for women experiencing IVF, infertility and loss. You are welcome to get in touch to arrange a free 15-minute introductory call or a first session.
If this article resonated with you…
I'm Saff Mitten, a specialist counsellor and psychotherapist supporting women through IVF, infertility and miscarriage.
My approach is shaped by my professional training and experience, together with the personal understanding I bring from my own journey through IVF, infertility and miscarriage.
Through both my therapeutic work and my writing, I explore the emotional and psychological impact of these experiences to help women make sense of feelings that can often be difficult to put into words and feel less alone.
If you're looking for support with infertility, IVF or miscarriage, you can follow the link below to learn more about how I support women through these experiences. I work online and support women across the UK.