"Many of us suffer in silence for myriad reasons. Being a physician with infertility presents a perfect storm of stress, anxiety, guilt, and shame – all of which we know don’t contribute to managing any medical problem.

Consider what it’s like to undergo a typical cycle of in vitro fertilization. You administer nightly hormone injections to grow your follicles in preparation for an egg retrieval procedure. The process usually takes 1-2 weeks, but you don’t know exactly how fast your follicles will grow. For the first week, maybe you just need to arrange to get away from the hospital or clinic for a couple of blood draws. But during the second half of your stimulation cycle, you must physically go into your clinic for daily transvaginal ultrasounds to monitor the progress."

Dawn Baker is an anesthesiologist who blogs at Practice Balance.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "The voices of women physicians with infertility." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/12/the-voices-of-women-physicians-with-infertility.html)