At Times Infertility May Feel like You Are Being Punished or Cursed
By Saff Mitten
You Start Blaming Yourself
When you have been trying for ages and doctors can’t give you a clear explanation - they classify it as “unexplained infertility” - or when you have been undergoing IVF and the “perfect” embryo doesn’t stick, you start looking for answers within yourself. Since the medical side isn’t making sense, you begin to question yourself, and your own worth.
When something feels unbearable and uncontrollable, your mind often tries to create a story that makes sense - even if that story turns against you.
In the absence of a biological explanation, you might look back at every mistake you’ve ever made and wonder if you’ve done something to deserve this. You question whether you’re being punished by the universe. You ask yourself if you’re a “good” person, or if there’s some reason you don’t deserve to be a parent.
It Can Feel Like Your Body Is the Enemy
It’s also incredibly common to start blaming your body. You may feel like it has failed you - and worse, like it has failed your potential children and the future you imagined.
When you’re trying to make sense of something senseless and unfair, you might become deeply critical of yourself. Your body stops feeling like “you” and starts feeling like the enemy. You resent your ovaries, your womb, your inability to get or stay pregnant. It can undermine your sense of being a woman, making you feel fundamentally broken.
Every scan or failed cycle reinforces the idea that your own biology is the barrier to the life you want. Losing trust in your body can feel like another kind of grief — one that’s rarely spoken about.
It’s an exhausting way to live, feeling your body is at fault.
The Bitter Contrast: Why Them and Not Me?
What makes it even harder is looking around at the people who are getting pregnant.
Many women notice people who aren’t particularly kind, people who seem careless, or people who didn’t even want a baby in the first place - and yet they appear to get pregnant easily. They get the positive test on the first try. They have the healthy pregnancy. They get everything they wished for without effort, while you’re sitting in a clinic waiting room for what feels like the hundredth time.
It’s hard to fathom. It feels personal. You may find yourself thinking,
“Why them and not me? I’ve done everything right. I’ve worked so hard for this. Why does someone who doesn’t even seem to care get it so easily while I’m still struggling years later?”
And then comes the shame - the part of you that thinks you shouldn’t feel this way, even though it’s a completely human response.
Please Know: It’s Not Your Fault
It’s natural to feel this way, for your mind to try to make sense of what feels senseless. But the sense of feeling cursed isn’t real, even though the pain is.
The hardest truth to accept is that fertility has nothing to do with being a good person. It isn’t a reward for kindness, and it isn’t a punishment for your flaws. Biology is indifferent. It doesn’t measure goodness, effort, or worth.
You haven’t done anything to deserve the trauma of loss or the physical toll of IVF. You’re simply on the wrong side of a very cruel, very random biological situation.
Blaming yourself or your body is a way to try and find control in a situation where you have none, but you aren't the problem. Feeling bitter doesn’t make you a bad person. Feeling like the universe is against you doesn’t mean you’re cursed. It means you’ve been through more than anyone should have to handle, and you’re tired of watching everyone else get what you’ve been fighting for.
How Therapy Can Help
When you’re spiralling into a place of self-blame and feeling cursed, therapy can be a vital support.
Most therapists can help you explore what you’re going through, but seeing a therapist who specialises in fertility challenges and has lived through the experience, can make a profound difference.
Someone who has been through it themselves knows what it’s like to blame yourself, to wonder if you’re cursed, to turn against your own body. They can offer a depth of empathy that makes you feel seen and validate exactly what you’re experiencing.
In therapy, you can be completely unfiltered. You can express the frustration, the resentment, the grief, and the anger you feel toward people who seem less deserving but get everything you want. A specialist with lived experience provides a safe space to express those thoughts and feelings without judgement.
From there, therapy can help you:
- Rebuild trust in your body
- Reduce self‑blame
- Understand the emotional impact of repeated IVF failure
- Process resentment and comparison
- Make space for grief
- Reconnect with your identity outside fertility
- Find steadier ground in a situation you can’t control.
Final Thoughts
What you’ve been through on this journey is unimaginably hard and unfair. You deserve support, compassion, and understanding as you navigate it. And most of all, you need to know that none of this is your fault. If you would like support from a therapist who has personally experienced this and understands what it is like, please get in touch.
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.