When you decide to go for in-vitro fertilization (IVF), you carry with you a combination of hope, faith, and fear. IVF is a miracle of contemporary medicine, a process that allows for life to fertilize in a medium in the laboratory before being implanted in the uterus. But under all that scientific precision lies an emotional ride few are even privy to, because sometimes, regardless of how diligently you try, regardless of how many instructions you adhere to and injections you endure, the cycle fails, and you’re left wondering why?

You may already know about the standard explanations: poor egg quality, sperm issues, or age, but there are more subtle, less spoken variables that can go unobstructed quietly, variables like stress, timing, uterine receptivity, immune balance, or even what happens in the lab. Each plays a role in deciding whether that fragile embryo finds its home or is gone.

Timing, for instance, is critical with IVF. From the initial injections to egg retrieval and embryo transfer day, your body navigates on a fine hormonal timeline. Every second counts, occasionally even hours have an impact. If ovulation occurs prematurely or if your uterus is not prepared upon arrival of the embryo, chances of implantation decrease dramatically. The brief window when your womb is most fertile, or the implantation window only lasts for a short time. If the embryo is transferred too early or too late, it might never be successful.

That’s why some clinics now screen for uterine lining preparedness before transfer, tailoring timing to each woman’s biology. You may not realize it, but that coordination, between endometrium and embryo, is one of the subtle miracles that makes IVF possible.

And then there’s stress. You may have been told to relax through it all, but try telling that to your body. IVF is high-anxiety work. With hormone shots, test results, and waiting around to hear, your body can enter hyperdrive. When your stress hormones like cortisol are elevated, they can disrupt ovulation, uterine blood supply, and the delicate balance of hormones your body needs. You start losing sleep, worrying excessively about each symptom, analyzing every cramp, and worrying about the outcome, and unwittingly, your body tightens up, bracing itself for disappointment.

You’re not alone. Studies have found that long-term stress can decrease implantation rates. It’s one of those ironies of fertility treatment, the more anxious you are, the more your body resists what you’re wishing for. In most environments, fertility clinics have employed mental health professionals as a part of IVF treatment. Patients undergo counselling sessions, learn mindfulness, or group therapy to share what they’ve been through.

In Nigeria, the practice is yet to develop, but some progressive clinics are beginning to offer psychological care. You discover that it’s acceptable to mention that you’re nervous or scared. In fact, you might have to look after your emotional health even more than you need to take your medication.

As the treatment continues, you realize that your body’s readiness has nothing to do with hormones and eggs. The uterus, the area where the embryo must implant, is like the soil where a seed must grow. If the ground is not right, even a healthy seed will fail. Your lining of the uterus must be thick enough, well-nourished, and hormonally balanced.

Sometimes, even when it looks fine on an ultrasound, the lining is bad at the molecular level. Fibroids, scar tissue, or hormonal imbalance can render the soil unkind. You might never have even suspected that you had any symptoms, but small issues like poor blood flow or inflammation can quietly undermine success. There are special tests and scans that try how receptive the lining really is before transferring the embryo.

But there’s your immune system. Normally, your immune cells protect you from illness, but sometimes they get overzealous. They can mistake an embryo, though it holds your genes, for an outside intruder. The immune system attacks instead of nurtures, and implantation fails.

If you’ve had several IVF cycles that failed even with good-quality embryos, you may require screening for immune issues, like high natural killer cells or autoimmune response. It’s not something you can see, but it might be the game changer. Steroid or immune-modulating treatment to calm their systems before transfer. It is a reminder that conception, even in a laboratory, still requires harmony between the body and the embryo, a tender conversation that has to go uninterrupted.

While waiting for results, what happens in the lab may make or break everything. IVF labs are rooms where light, air, and temperature are controlled to the smallest detail. Embryos are highly sensitive; they are upset by even mild changes in air purity or temperature.

When a cycle doesn’t succeed, you’re going to feel broken, you’re going to blame yourself or wonder what you could’ve done differently, but you have to know that IVF is a delicate dance between biology, timing, and luck. Even when all seems right, nature has ways of doing its own thing. What matters is what happens next, how you and your care team use what you’ve learned with each cycle to adjust protocols, listen not just to the physical, but also to the emotional and environmental.

There is now a push for an integrated method of IVF, one that recognizes that your brain, your body, and your environment are closely connected. You may be advised to take a few months to heal emotionally, alter your lifestyle, improve nutrition, or learn to cope with stress before they attempt again. You may try acupuncture, yoga, or therapy to relax your body and reboot you. No longer is it just technology; it’s getting to know you as a unique person.

IVF isn’t something that happens. It’s a process, one that tests your patience, your belief, your resilience. You find yourself celebrating small victories: an acceptable number of eggs retrieved, a healthy embryo formed, a promising lining. You discover that science can accomplish so much, but even science requires harmony, between your body’s rhythms, your mood, and the hands that heal you.

When it does arrive, success is rarely an accident. It is the synthesis of countless adjustments, medication, timing, attitude, and belief. It is the moment when your body, your doctors, and life’s finicky science all arrive in harmonious balance.

Even if your journey has involved its share of heartache, remember this: IVF failure is not failure on your part. It simply means something, perhaps timing, biology, stress, or environment, wasn’t yet in place. It means your story isn’t yet complete. But with every new breakthrough, every improvement in care, the chances roll your way.

Persevere in hope, persevere in effort, tend your mind as meticulously as you follow your regimen of medications. Choose clinics that treat you not just as a patient but as a co-creator, and believe that when science and hope finally meet in a union, life will find a way somehow, quietly, miraculously, and in its own time.