Infertility & Fertility Care

Infertility is a medical diagnosis, but the experience of infertility is a grief, a relationship strain, and an identity disruption all at once. The calendar starts to revolve around cycles and appointments. Your body feels like it is failing you. Pregnancy announcements land like punches. The friends who used to understand you are suddenly living in a world you cannot access. And through all of it, you are often expected to hold a full-time job, a marriage, and a smile.

 

At Waypoint, our therapists specialize in the mental health side of fertility care. We work alongside your reproductive endocrinologist, OB, or primary care team to support the part of this experience that medicine alone cannot address. Whether you are trying naturally, navigating IUI or IVF, considering third-party reproduction, pursuing adoption, or coming to terms with the end of treatment, you do not have to do it alone.

 

We also recognize that infertility does not look one way. Secondary infertility, unexplained infertility, infertility for LGBTQ+ parents, infertility after loss, and the grief of the family you envisioned but cannot have all belong in this work.

​

How We Support Fertility Care

Depending on where you are in the journey, your therapist may draw from:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to address the anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and depression that often come with extended fertility treatment

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you stay connected to your values and your life outside of treatment

• Grief therapy for the losses layered into fertility: failed cycles, pregnancy losses, the loss of conceiving naturally, or the closing of treatment

• Couples-focused work when infertility is creating strain, distance, or conflict in your relationship

• Decision support for high-stakes choices including donor gametes, surrogacy, embryo disposition, and when to stop treatment

• Coordination with our nurse practitioners when medication support for anxiety, depression, or sleep would help, including medications that are compatible with active fertility treatment
   

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it normal to feel depressed or anxious during fertility treatment?

Yes. Research consistently shows that women going through infertility experience rates of depression and anxiety comparable to those of patients with cancer, heart disease, or chronic pain. The combination of hormonal shifts from treatment, the grief of each failed cycle, and the loss of control over your own timeline is genuinely hard. Struggling is not a sign that you are not cut out for this. It is a sign that this is hard.

​

Should I start therapy before, during, or after fertility treatment?

Any of the above. Some clients come in before starting treatment to prepare emotionally and align with their partner. Others come in mid-treatment when the weight starts to outpace what they can carry alone. Others come in after treatment ends, whether that ends in a baby, in loss, or in choosing to stop. There is no wrong time.

​

Can you support me if I am doing IVF, IUI, or using a donor or surrogate?

Yes. Our therapists are familiar with the medical, emotional, and relational realities of assisted reproductive technology, donor gametes, and gestational surrogacy. We do not require you to explain the basics. We can focus on what the experience is doing to you.

​

My partner and I are not grieving the same way. Is that normal?

Very. Partners often process infertility on different timelines and with different coping styles, and those differences can create painful distance. Individual therapy for each partner, sometimes combined with couples sessions, often helps couples come back together rather than grow apart.

​

I have children already and am struggling with secondary infertility. Is this the right place?

Yes. Secondary infertility carries its own specific grief, including the guilt of feeling you should be grateful for the child you have while still wanting another. Both things can be true. You belong here.

​

I am thinking about stopping treatment. Can therapy help me decide?

Yes. Deciding when and how to stop fertility treatment is one of the hardest decisions in this journey. Therapy is a place to think it through without pressure, with someone who will not push you toward a particular answer.

​

Do you offer care for LGBTQ+ parents or single parents by choice?

Yes. Our therapists support LGBTQ+ individuals and couples and single parents by choice navigating family building, including the specific challenges of donor selection, legal considerations, and the emotional dimensions of non-traditional paths to parenthood.

​

Do I need a referral?

No. You can request an appointment directly through our website or by calling 919-275-1405.

​

Is this service available virtually?

Yes. Infertility and fertility care therapy is available both in person at our Durham and Raleigh offices and virtually throughout North Carolina.