Self care strategies work hand in hand with the professional support and personal network around you, giving you a few simple tools for the in-between moments. It can feel empowering knowing you have ways to help steady yourself whenever you need to. It's really about knowing yourself, so if you already have go-to strategies, trust them. If you don't, these ideas are a good starting point.
Strategies for self care
Start your day with something that's entirely yours
A short routine that has nothing to do with treatment, a walk, a herbal tea, ten minutes with a book, won't erase the waiting, but it gives your day something steady before treatment has a chance to take it over.
Try box breathing before the moments that spike your anxiety
A simple four-count breathing pattern can steady you in the minutes before a scan, a call you're dreading, or an injection. This can be done in under two minutes, anywhere.
Move your body, gently, even just for a few minutes
Fertility treatment can leave you feeling disconnected from your own body. Gentle stretching or walking is one of the simplest ways to feel back inside it, with no equipment required.
Let yourself hold both hope and patience at once
These two feelings can seem like they pull against each other, but most people going through this hold both simultaneously and it’s not a sign you're doing this wrong. Just remembering this can help.
Focus on the one next thing, not the whole journey
It's easy to start living in the entire process at once. Bringing yourself back to today, one appointment, one decision, one injection, tends to be more manageable than carrying the whole picture at every moment.
Read the complete guide to self care during fertility treatment
Our guide to self care during fertility treatment goes deeper into all of this, including the full box breathing technique, simple stretches, tools for the hard moments and honest thoughts on waiting, hoping, and everything in between.
Practical considerations before you start treatment
Nominate a support person for procedure days
You don't need a partner to have someone in your corner on the day. Whether it's a family member, a friend, or someone from your wider circle, arranging in advance who can be with you, or at least collect you, after a procedure like an egg retrieval can make all the difference to how you feel on the day.
Set up a simple system for your medication and injections
Monitoring cycles often involve injections at specific times, sometimes daily, and dose changes based on how you're tracking. Without a second person cross-checking with you, it's worth setting phone alarms, using a pillbox, or keeping a simple written log, so timing and dosage aren't something you're holding in your head on top of everything else.
Talk to your workplace about flexibility before you need it
Monitoring appointments are often booked on short notice, early in the morning, and can occur several times a week during a cycle. Having that conversation with your manager in advance, even in general terms, tends to go better than explaining it under pressure the first time you need to leave suddenly.
Keep your paperwork in one place
Referrals, Medicare details, past test results, and clinic correspondence are easy to lose track of when they're scattered across emails and drawers. A single folder, physical or digital, means you're not scrambling to find something when you need it.
Strategies for coping during the two week wait
If you've just had an embryo transfer, the wait until your pregnancy test can be one of the hardest parts of treatment, especially without someone at home going through it with you day to day.
To prepare, read our guide on navigating the two week wait as a single woman.
Remember, you're not managing this alone
While self care is vital, it’s important to keep in mind you’re not alone. It can help to know exactly who's in your corner. Over the course of treatment, you'll have a whole care team working together to support you, including:
- Your fertility specialist, guiding your treatment plan at every stage
- Care coordinators and the medical records team, keeping everything organised behind the scenes, so you're not the one chasing details
- Your nursing team, walking you through injections, checking in on monitoring calls, and helping you understand your results
- A sonographer, tracking your progress through your ultrasound scans
- An anaesthetist and day surgery team, looking after your comfort and safety during procedures like egg retrieval
- Embryologists, caring for your eggs, sperm, and embryos in the lab
- Counsellors, there to support you at any point in your journey, not just at the start
- An after-hours on-call nurse, so you're never without someone to call if something feels urgent outside clinic hours
