IVF nearly broke her mind—then a baby arrived

After an ectopic pregnancy and uterine problems, Marta Milans turned to IVF in Valencia. What she expected was medical treatment; what she didn’t expect was how solitary, physically punishing, and psychologically destabilizing the hormones could be—even to the

Marta Milans remembers the moment she realized she wasn’t just “doing something hard.” She was doing something that could tip her into losing her life.

She had gone into IVF hoping for an answer after an ectopic pregnancy and uterine problems her doctors said needed attention. After her marriage in 2021, she became pregnant naturally soon after—only to discover the pregnancy was ectopic. Her doctors then found uterine problems that required treatment. She didn’t want to wait, so she “jumped right into an IVF journey.”.

Instead of staying put, she went to her native Spain for care. The IVF treatment was in Valencia, at a clinic called Equipo Juana Crespo, where Dr. Crespo treated her. Milans says Dr. Crespo “clocked the problem,” and she underwent surgeries to prepare herself before the IVF cycles began.

She then moved through IVF cycles back-to-back. The goal was a healthy embryo, and she and her doctors put in two embryos, hoping one would stick. Her baby daughter was born when Milans was 42. Now, Milans says her daughter is 18 months old and “is perfect, everything I could hope for.”

The success came with a cost she says no one prepared her for: loneliness that settled into her daily life and a body-and-mind toll that felt hard to explain to anyone around her. “No one prepared me for how lonely the IVF process is. and how hard it is on your body and mind. ” she said. “Everyone reacts differently, but hormones, at least for me, changed what I thought was real.”.

She describes a descent into darkness during treatment. At one point, she experienced vertigo, lack of sleep, and she lost a lot of weight. Her mental state worsened until she says she had suicidal thoughts. She says it changed her personality completely. Even with a supportive partner. she says it was on her to share what she was feeling because “They won’t understand what your mind is going through.”.

Milans says she called her doctors and told them, “sorry, I don’t want to die to become a mother.”

When the IVF process becomes the path to a child, a second attempt can also become a financial and biological reality—because time and supply are never on your side.

Milans says she now has to go through IVF again for baby number two. She explains that she only had two embryos, and both were implanted. That means that if she wanted another child later, she would need more IVF. Her personal life was also shaped by loss during the process: she lost her grandmother. but before her grandmother passed. her grandmother told her. “Don’t worry. when I get to heaven. I’ll send you a baby girl.” Milans says she decided to have faith that it would work.

Now, she wants a second child and says she’s more prepared this time. She ties the pressure to biology: “Biology is biology. and our ovarian reserves go down. and our eggs get worse.” She adds that it is harder to become a mother later in life. but she argues it “shouldn’t be something we don’t talk about” and that people should not have to suffer in silence.

Her experience also pushes back against the stigma she says surrounds fertility later in life. She wants people to understand that having a career and becoming a mother later is possible—and that choosing a career shouldn’t be punished by fertility challenges later. Milans says she booked a job on Peacock’s “M.I.A. ” but filming started when she was three and a half months postpartum.

She describes how busy and unforgiving the schedule was. She had also just evacuated her home in Malibu from the fires. She says she had to fly back to LA to test for the job. then move her family to Miami. and begin shooting two weeks after they moved. During production. she was still feeding her newborn; she described pumping in her trailer and putting milk in the fridge for her 4-month-old baby. with call times at 4:45 a.m. Her daughter was waking up once or twice a night, and Milans says she navigated that with her husband.

Support became another key thread in her story. She says she’s “glad” to have a support system of women, friends, her mother, and her grandmother—though her grandmother is now in heaven. She says she has been lucky because she couldn’t have done it alone.

Milans says motherhood shifted her sense of what she can endure. After giving birth, she says she learned she “can do anything.” “I’ve birthed a human. I am unstoppable,” she said.

But even as she speaks with confidence about what came after. the hardest part of her account lands in what she says she wishes she’d known before the IVF journey began: that the process can be lonely. bodily brutal. and emotionally destabilizing—and that it’s worth taking the mental and physical risks seriously from the start.

IVF fertility ectopic pregnancy uterine problems Valencia Team Equipo Juana Crespo Dr. Crespo mental health hormones embryos postpartum Peacock M.I.A. Malibu fires pregnancy later in life