Making a fertility treatment game plan: Part 2 - 📅 Timelines

The scheduling and time requirements for fertility treatment may seem a little daunting. Not only is there the day-to-day impact, there's the longer term planning around the treatment cycle itself (and that's even before everything involved with pregnancy!). But with a little thinking ahead, it's very manageable. Here's how to handle it like a pro, even if you're embarking on your first cycle. 

While going through treatments there are lots of appointments and often lab work- and sometimes, these things can be on short notice. While many clinics may be able to help you by scheduling appointments outside of your normal work hours, this isn't always possible. For those appointments, treatments, and test you know ahead of time, plan ahead for getting time off work or asking friends or family to take on other tasks and errands. And, if you can, come up with a back-up plan for if you ever do need to get away on relatively short notice. Who can you call for help? What can you move around? 

Another timeline question to think about before starting is, if you don't find immediate success, how long are are you willing to pursue each treatment before moving in to the next? It's good to give this some thought before you start the process, because the emotional investment can make you stick with things longer than you would have otherwise- and it will help you to know you have a plan. I stubbornly stayed on Clomid for way too long. When it didn't work after 3 cycles my doctor wanted start talking about other options but I felt that next month would definitely be “our month”. I took Clomid 7 months in a row then decided to take a few months off of treatments.

This brings me to one more thing to think over in your timeline: will you want to take breaks from treatments and/or TTC? Fertility treatments can be physically, emotionally, and financially challenging. It helped me to take a couple months off of treatments every so often. One friend of mine planned out her breaks ahead of time. They would do up to 3 cycles then take a break for 2 or 3 cycles depending on how she was feeling. This helped her keep from getting burned out.