How Do I Share IVF Duties With My Partner?

I’m on my first round of IVF and so exhausted by all the logistics involved (not to mention the emotional pieces) — the medications, monitoring, scheduling appointments, and dealing with insurance. I want to share more of the work with my partner, but I can’t figure out how. When I ask him to do things, he does them — but I feel like I still do everything. Help?

— Tired of Taking It On

In talking to couples going through infertility treatments, this is a common theme. Because medical treatments associated with IVF largely happen for the female partner, it feels like this is somehow all your responsibility. And yet, it’s very much a group project, not unlike parenting will be, so this is an opportunity to lean into shared responsibility.

How do you do this?

Most importantly, think about the principle of total responsibility transfer. This is the idea that when you pass off a task to another person, you pass the entire task, not just part of it. As an example, think about being in charge of dinner. In a world of total responsibility transfer, being responsible for dinner means being responsible for planning what to eat, acquiring the necessary ingredients or tools, and then also producing the dinner. Ideally, when we split tasks across partners, we do so with this in mind, so you actually pass over the entire task. It is not nearly as helpful to have someone just cook the pasta.

The reason this is important is that, in many cases, one partner ends up holding a lot of the hidden labor. If you’re doing all the planning, it’s a huge amount of the work, but it is often invisible.

In the context of IVF, it’s easy to fall into this trap. You know you need help, and so maybe you ask your husband to call the insurance company. He’s happy to do it, but it doesn’t help that much. Why? Because you’re still the one planning the call, setting it up, making sure it happens — that’s most of the work.

To get out of this, you need to start by being deliberate about what the tasks are. Sit down — both of you — and make a list of things that need to be done or kept track of. Try to be comprehensive, in the sense of really putting down everything that you’re doing.

Once you have that, figure out how things fit together in complete tasks, and then figure out which ones he can do. I’m guessing there are many you can pass off, once you think carefully about it together.

Final note: I believe what gets in the way of people doing this exercise, in IVF but also later in their parenting, is the up-front investment. And it absolutely is an up-front investment; this will take a little time. But this time will come back to you many-fold, both in time and in happiness. It’s really worth it.