Is it ever possible to know when to quit IVF?

[Londondad44]

I thought this was an interesting, if potentially controversial, subject.

There's an article in today's Telegraph comparing the experience of repeated IVF attempts to gambling, in the sense that after investing so much emotionally and financially, it can become incredibly difficult to walk away when there's still a chance the next attempt might work.
I can see why that comparison might resonate with some people, but equally why others might find it quite offensive.

It made me wonder whether enough attention is given to the psychological side of fertility treatment, particularly the pressure to keep trying and the difficulty of knowing when to stop.
Does anyone who's been through IVF recognise that feeling? Or do you think the comparison is completely unfair?

Here's the article:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/real-life/2026/10/19/ivf-is-like-a-gambling-addiction-fertility/

I have a vested interest in this because we're going through it right now

It was buying hope for me. I swore we would only do one round....but ended up doing a second. The first was unsuccessful and the second was even more unsuccessful. If we had endless funds, I'd probably have considered a 3rd.

I've done 10 cycles - 5 IUIs, 1 fresh transfer, 4 FETs. I have had 2 live births.

Cycle 11 (a final IUI) next month will be our last.

I do think you do come to a point of knowing when enough is enough. I wasn't at that point earlier this year, when we transferred our last embryo. But over the last few months preparing for 2 last go's at IUI, I've reached a point I am ready to move on.

If our last IUI try is negative next month there will be sadness, and there will be a part of me that feels we've wasted money on these last attempts. But I also feel like its been necessary to make peace with moving on.

I think it also depends though how your journey goes. We are very fortunate to have children. I imagine it is an awful lot harder to stop if you don't, and more like you've invested for nothing. I did 2 egg collections and my wife and I had decided the second egg collection would be our last, and it was. It gave us our 2 children, and even during this process of trying for a third I've continued to remain sure that I did not want to do another egg collection.

I don't think the end of an IVF journey is discussed enough. I don't think we would have tried for a third if we didn't have an embryo remaining, and when that embryo didn't stick, it did feel like I'd go sucked back in to trying a bit.

I have 'only' done one full cycle with retrieval etc. but have now had 3 subsequent failed (untested) transfers. We are no closer to finding any reason why we can't conceive naturally, and I already feel like I'm going insane repeating the same thing over and over expecting different results.

I currently think I'll do one more retrieval and get any embryos PGTA tested, but if none of those are viable or result in a pregnancy then we would stop, but hard to know until you're put in that position!

The points in the article around valuing happiness and wellbeing over hinging everything on cripplingly expensive maybes that might never realise.

Haven’t read the article as not a subscriber but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable comparison.

Even my doctors said (after multiple fails) it was just about finding the right one which spurred me on to keep going. I felt it was partly buying hope and partly buying possible closure - to feel you’ve done everything you can even if it ultimately doesn’t work.

It started to feel a bit like I was just going through the motions at one point as it was hard to see beyond so many unsuccessful rounds.

We discussed a limit for how many rounds we’d do but I can’t imagine losing that ‘just one more’ feeling if we’d reached that and could still find a way to afford it. It’s hard to say though as you never know how you’ll feel mentally. If it works it’s worth every penny but there’s a high chance that it won’t, that is a difficult gamble.