What Fertility Patients Actually Need Between Appointments
Originally aired on The Repro Files Podcast with Ann Marie Luft, BSN, RN, C-RHI
Jenn and I recently joined Ann Marie Luft on The Repro Files Podcast to talk about what led us to build Cove Collective, what peer support actually does for people navigating infertility, and where we think the current system is leaving patients behind. What came out of that conversation felt worth capturing in writing because a lot of it is stuff we don't say out loud enough.
Here's what we talked about.
The support structure hasn't kept up
Fertility treatment has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. More people are doing IVF, at older ages, in more complex circumstances, with more emotional weight attached to every decision. The clinical side of that has evolved. The support side has not.
When Jenn and I were going through treatment, the options were: a weekly Zoom or in-person meeting, a 50,000 person Facebook group, Reddit, or nothing. None of those felt right. The Zoom meeting required showing up, on camera, to cry in front of strangers - on top of a day that had already involved a lot of appointments and a lot of waiting, plus you know - work. The Facebook groups were unmoderated and inconsistent. And Reddit, as Jenn puts it, is the wild wild west.
“Nobody wants to be on Zoom all day and then log on to their support meeting to cry in front of strangers also on Zoom.”
There's also data behind this. Research shows that infertility patients want virtual support, and they prefer it to be text-based. We built Cove because we experienced that need ourselves and couldn't find anything that met it.
What happens between appointments is where the gap lives
In the episode, Ann Marie talked about what she told patients during the two-week wait: keep busy, read a book, try to distract yourself. She said it herself: it's not enough. Because it isn't. The anxiety doesn't pause because the next appointment is ten days away.
That gap - between clinical care and the next appointment - is exactly what Cove is built for. Not to replace the nursing team or the therapist or the RE. But to be there at 11pm on a Tuesday when you need someone who actually gets it and you can't call anyone.
“I felt a lot of support from my nurses when I was going through IVF, but it’s really not their role. And it’s so valuable to have people outside of the appointments that you can debrief with, so that you’re not spending all your time crying in your endocrinologist’s office.”
We also heard this from therapists we've spoken with who work in reproductive mental health: their fertility patients come to session and spend a significant portion of the time venting, which limits the deeper therapeutic work that can happen. Cove can absorb some of that. Show up with us first. Then use your fifty minutes for the harder stuff.
Why we built it the way we did
We've spent years in infertility communities, as patients first, then as people who stayed in those spaces because we wanted to be useful and made deep connections. We know what works and what doesn't. We also learned the hard way what the risks of unmoderated online spaces look like.
In the episode, we talked about being catfished; Spending months building what we thought was a real friendship with someone in our online community, only to discover that her entire infertility journey, including a late twin loss, had been fabricated. When we tried to reach someone in her life to offer support offline, we found her real profiles. She blocked us immediately.
We have a lot of empathy for what that person must have been struggling with to construct that story. And it's also why moderation and accountability matter. In Cove, members can be as private and anonymous as they choose - but on the back end, we know these are real people. The paid membership model exists in part because it creates a layer of accountability and commitment. People who are registered, who have paid, who have buy-in, show up differently than strangers on Reddit.
“One data point can really mean more when it comes from somebody that you know and trust.”
The AI question
Ann Marie raised something we're hearing more and more: patients are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support between appointments. And while that's safer in some ways than an unmoderated forum, it's not a replacement for human connection.
Hearing that Jenn's cousin had a similar retrieval and it resulted in a live birth means something different than a chatbot citing a statistic about your embryo count. Human stories, from people you know and trust, land differently. That's something AI can't replicate.
“There’s something that comes from really meeting someone and connecting with someONE, not someTHING, that actually gets it and is responsive. I think it’s irreplaceable.”
What clinics could do better
Ann Marie asked us what fertility clinics get right and what they get wrong. We tried to answer honestly without being critical of the people doing incredibly hard and important work.
From my own experience: I received a resource sheet at my first consult and essentially never thought about it again. There's so much information coming in at the beginning that nothing sticks. What would have helped more than a better resource sheet is a check-in: intentional, human, timed to a particularly fraught moment like the start of stims, that asked not just how I was feeling physically, but whether I needed more support.
It doesn't have to be a heavy lift. An automated email two weeks after a first consult with a link to resources. A prompt in the patient portal before retrieval. Small touchpoints that signal: we see the whole of what you're going through, not just the clinical part.
“The landscape of fertility treatment has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, but the support structure for it has not.”
The longevity no one warns you about
I started trying to get pregnant in early 2019. It's 2026. My family is complete and I still think about infertility daily. I still have embryos in storage and don't entirely know what to do with them. I still carry the particular anxiety that comes from knowing what it took to get here.
That's the thing no one tells you going in: infertility isn't a chapter that ends when treatment ends. It becomes part of how you see everything that comes after. That's part of why Cove exists for what happens after the positive test too; Gated off from the main community, so people who are still waiting aren't confronted with outcomes every time they log in, but accessible to the people who need it.
Because the support doesn't stop being needed just because the beta was positive.
Listen to the full episode
You can find the full conversation on The Repro Files podcast on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Ann Marie and Elizabeth do exceptional work covering the clinical and human side of fertility, we were grateful to be there.
If this conversation resonated and you're navigating infertility right now, you can join Cove Collective at covefamily.co/findyourpeople.
