Holding Space for the Body: Infertility and the Limits of Control

When you begin trying to conceive, your relationship with your body inevitably shifts. What was once a place of familiarity, a quiet background presence, becomes something to track and analyze. The body, which used to simply be, now demands your constant attention. Every sensation is scrutinized, and every shift in rhythm becomes a question: Did it work? Is my body working? Can my body do this?

For many, infertility changes everything about the way we relate to our bodies. The process is far more than just physical—it’s a confrontation with the expectations we’ve placed on ourselves. We are taught that our bodies, like the rest of life, should respond to effort. But when 1 in 6 people globally face infertility, we begin to see that this idea—that we can control the body with enough discipline, that it will deliver if we just try hard enough—is built on a false promise.

Infertility challenges not just our bodies, but the cultural scripts we’ve internalized about control, productivity, effort and worth.

---