Doveras Review: How Stephanie And Mark Are Preparing For IVF

I’m 43, about to be 44 this year. I am doing IVF for the first time in a few months and have a sense of urgency to get pregnant. Our clinic is great — they’re part of one of the best networks in the country — but they only had a few education resources. I was looking for more holistic ways to prepare my body for treatment. I also had no idea what my partner could do to prepare, if anything. 

Doveras was exactly what we were looking for. The IVF & IUI Support program is super intuitive and extremely thoughtful and sensitive to the emotional journey when you're preparing for IVF. The weeks I just needed a break, I never felt like I was “behind”, and whenever I did engage it was always encouraging and I left feeling better about the whole thing.

In a time when there is very little sense of control over your body, this program really helped me regain a sense of agency that I didn’t know I needed. 

Overall, these things stand out to me as very unique aspects of this program that I’m deeply grateful for and didn't find anywhere else. This was the program that held my hand in a way I really needed.

You know that meme where there are a bunch of Spidermans pointing fingers at each other? This is what my fertility journey felt like before Doveras. With no answers about why we couldn’t get pregnant, my partner and I kept looking for whose “fault” it was. If he would smoke weed or I would have wine, there was so much guilt and frustration around one of us ruining our fertility. Nobody wants a relationship like that right? 

I think Doveras really helped us take a step back and realize that it was neither of our "faults" — and really take that to heart. Lifestyle is important, but not the be all and end all. It helped put things in perspective for us. I think it also gave my husband clear guidance on what to do, and knowing how to show up for me and our fertility was really helpful. 

IVF is so expensive that when preparing for it, I went kind of overboard making a million changes and taking a million supplements. I was falling prey to every Instagram “coach” who told me that I needed to do this or that to balance my hormones or support my egg health. These sources threw out so many little tidbits, but nothing really stuck as lasting behaviors. I also got suspicious that eating goji berries or bone broth every day was going to actually help.  

Doveras was extremely different. My favorite part of the experience was the top recommendations. You start by taking an assessment and then they filter through their giant science database and tell you, “hey, focus on this handful of things.” Getting a shortlist of the things that matter for me and my partner was incredibly helpful and felt like modifications we could actually make. They also give you all the science behind each of these top recommendations and all the studies supporting it, so you know it’s real science. 

Another thing that was really unique was that they don’t just give you all the science, they also help you understand if the science is strong or still developing on any given topic. I work in risk assessment and talk about risk all day long. So knowing what lifestyle changes are based on early, emerging, or established evidence was super helpful. 

I’m also someone who likes more woo-woo things like different traditional or indigenous medicines. Even if there wasn’t clinical evidence for some of these practices, Doveras never made me feel silly for wanting to try them. In fact, they were very clear about the safety of different types of behaviors, even if not proven. 

I get stressed out when I can’t manage something or when I don’t feel like I know enough to make decisions. Or worse, that there is something I don’t know about but should: what if there is something that I’m not doing to prepare for IVF that would make a huge difference!? This fueled a lot of rabbit holing pre-Doveras. 

The platform is clearly designed to help you stress less. It helped me feel confident that there was nothing I was “missing” or “doing wrong” to make my treatment as successful as possible. No matter what ends up happening in terms of outcomes, that’s a huge gift. I’ll have no regrets.