‘I told my husband to leave me’: IVF leaves hundreds suffering in silence

One in six Australian couples experience fertility problems. One woman has broken down just how her journey left her “broken and lost”.

IVF is taxing, both physically and mentally, but there has been no centralised Australian resource for infertility sufferers to turn to until now.

Body and Soul spoke to the founder of The Amber Network, Alice Almeida, a new platform to inform and support those going through IVF and infertility.

At age 30, Alice Almeida was diagnosed with Stage 4 endometriosis, a severe stage of the condition that may include large cysts on at least one ovary. She would struggle to conceive, and though Ms Almeida didn’t know much about IVF, it seemed like “a natural path” for her.

“I was also very naive and thought it would answer all my problems straight away. It was pitched as the only way I’d be able to conceive, and I thought that it would happen easily, but it didn’t,” she says.

“I was conscious that I was always miserable and didn’t want to drag everyone else down, so I pulled away.

“While it was no fault of theirs, I didn’t get the support I needed or have anyone who knew exactly what I was going through, which is why the IVF journey was so tough… So many women have told me that they felt the same.”

IVF leaves hundreds suffering in silence. Image: Supplied

The most challenging moments were receiving calls from the clinic to find out if the IVF cycle had been successful and Ms Almeida was pregnant.

“The days spent waiting for a call were the longest days of my life, and most of them involved my hopes and dreams of being a mum being crushed in less than two minutes,” she recalls, noting she began to blame herself.

“I started feeling completely responsible and guilty for not being able to give him a child - when things were at their very worst for me, I told my husband to leave me because I couldn’t make him a dad.

“A clinic is medical, and it’s there to get you pregnant. The rest you need to be proactive about, but so many people don’t know what they will need, or where to turn to find out. As a result, most women do nothing and try to cope on their own, leaving them unsupported and feeling more isolated than ever.”

Alice Almeida is the founder of The Amber Network.

Ms Almeida lost her final embryo during Covid lockdowns last year. She was feeling “utterly broken and lost”, but it also inspired the idea for The Amber Network—a newly launched community and support resource for others going through infertility struggles and IVF.

It was the answer to the questions Ms Almeida kept asking throughout her IVF journey: “Why isn’t there...?”

“It was built off everything I wanted and needed during IVF that didn’t exist, or wasn’t easy to find,” she says. “It has been received incredibly well since launch, and everyone’s support has been overwhelming.”

With mental health at its core, The Amber Network has been developed in consultation with psychologists and includes a self-care section offering guided yoga, meditation and breathwork, as well as a calendar to monitor appointments, medicine, and emotions, and a community section to meet and chat with other people.

Almeida and the birth of her first baby, Maya.

“I wanted to give people using The Amber Network somewhere they can learn about all the services available to them, to provide all-round support and care,” Ms Almeida says.

“There’s nothing more important than feeling informed and empowered, particularly when your physical health is under so much stress, and you are making such emotional decisions.”

This story originally appeared in Body and Soul and has been reproduced with permission.