For couples going through IVF or preparing to welcome a baby, the focus is often on the immediate: embryo transfers, blood tests, scan dates, setting up the nursery, and preparing for birth. These are big, emotional milestones that deserve our full attention.
But there’s another kind of planning that often gets overlooked — and it’s one of the most important things you can do to support your relationship and protect your family’s future: planning your life together after the baby arrives.
We will be at the Fertility Expo this year to explore the practical and financial side of things — with a focus on how couples can use Binding Financial Agreements (BFAs) to create clarity and confidence in this new chapter.
Why Talk About Finances Now?
When you’re in the process of creating a family — especially through assisted reproduction — your heart is full. You’re dreaming about names, planning feeding routines, and imagining what your child will be like. But alongside all that joy, there can be quiet worries that creep in:
- Who will take parental leave?
- Will one of us stop working altogether?
- What happens to our finances if we’re living on one income?
- How will unpaid labour like feeding, nappies, and housework be valued?
- What if we disagree on how money should be spent or saved?
These are normal and valid concerns. But rather than avoiding them or assuming they’ll sort themselves out, it’s far better to talk about them now, while things are calm and cooperative.
Enter: The Binding Financial Agreement
In Australia, couples can enter into a Binding Financial Agreement (sometimes called a “pre-nup” or “post-nup”) to set out how their finances will be managed — both during the relationship and in the event of a separation.
While they’re often associated with wealth or divorce, BFAs can actually be a beautiful act of mutual care. They allow you to:
- Make sure both partners’ contributions (financial or otherwise) are acknowledged
- Clarify what happens to existing assets (like a house one partner owned before the relationship)
- Set expectations around income sharing, debt, and property
- Reduce the emotional and financial toll of future disputes
- Create a sense of stability, especially if one partner is stepping back from work to care for the child.
Far from being unromantic, many of our clients say that creating a BFA actually brought them closer together — because it forced them to have conversations they hadn’t thought to have yet.
Questions to Explore Together
Whether or not you decide to put a legal agreement in place, here are some questions every couple should talk about before or soon after the birth of a child:
- Parental Leave: Who will take leave, and for how long? What will that mean for our finances?
- Career & Income: Will one of us work less or pause our career? How will we share resources fairly?
- Household Roles: Who will take the lead on feeding, night shifts, cleaning, and admin?
- Financial Decisions: Do we have similar views on spending, saving, and budgeting?
- Future Planning: What if one of us is offered a job interstate? What if we separate down the track?
These aren’t easy questions — but they’re essential ones. And the earlier you start the conversation, the easier it becomes to navigate the changes that come with growing your family.
But What If It’s Awkward?
We get it. Talking about money or legal stuff when you’re in love — and possibly still adjusting to the idea of being parents — can feel awkward or unnecessary. You might worry that raising these topics will rock the boat or send the wrong message.
But here’s the truth: relationships are strongest when they’re built on trust, honesty, and shared understanding. You’re not “jinxing” your love by planning ahead. You’re protecting it.
Think of it like taking out insurance or drafting a will. You don’t plan to need it — but you’re glad to have it if things change. And in the meantime, it gives you peace of mind and confidence to move forward together.
Our Invitation to You
If you’re attending the Fertility Expo — or even if you’re just in the midst of planning your future family — we invite you to take a moment to pause and ask:
Have we talked about life after birth?
Have we explored how we’ll manage finances, care responsibilities, and future decisions as a team?
If the answer is no — that’s okay. You’re not behind. But now is the perfect time to start.
Because preparing for your baby is about more than cots and car seats. It’s about preparing your relationship, your future, and your family’s foundation — together.
What if I told you that half the people who start IVF never complete their planned treatment cycles? Most would guess the main reasons are cost, medical complications, or side effects. The reality is far more surprising and entirely preventable.
Psychology has now overtaken financial barriers as the #1 reason people discontinue IVF. In Australia, where we have public funding support, the psychological burden is literally heavier than the financial load. 47.5% of patients report being “too stressed to continue,” while 76% of women experience clinical-level anxiety symptoms during treatment.
When Sarah walked into her first IVF consultation, she thought her biggest challenge would be the medical procedures. By her second cycle, she was having panic attacks in the car before appointments and dissociating during internal scans. By the time she was meant to start her third cycle, Sarah cancelled, telling me: “I can’t handle feeling this broken anymore.”
Sarah wasn’t weak. She was having a completely normal psychological response to abnormal levels of stress. More importantly, her distress was entirely treatable.
The Perfect Storm: Why IVF Overwhelms Even Strong Coping Skills
Our research reveals that 90% of patients show patterns of thinking, processing, and responding that they hadn’t recognised before – patterns that significantly impact how they experience fertility treatment. These aren’t people with diagnosed conditions – they’re individuals whose successful life strategies become insufficient when facing IVF’s extraordinary demands.
IVF creates a “perfect storm”: daily hormone injections requiring precise timing, frequent blood draws and ultrasounds in bright, noisy medical environments, complex medication protocols, and the emotional rollercoaster of hope and disappointment often repeated across multiple cycles.
For someone who has unknowingly developed workarounds for sensory sensitivities or information processing differences, IVF can feel completely overwhelming. What looks like “being difficult” may actually be sensory overwhelm. What seems like “non-compliance” may be executive functioning challenges with complex protocols.
The Trauma Connection
With approximately 70% of people having encountered trauma at some point in their lives, many entering fertility treatment carry pre-existing vulnerabilities that medical environments can trigger. Medical trauma can develop from invasive procedures, loss of control, feeling dismissed by healthcare providers, or experiencing your body as unreliable when treatments fail.
The intersection is significant: chronic stress affects hormone profiles and treatment response. Elevated cortisol levels can impact egg quality and implantation success. Recent research shows that women with lower stress levels before egg collection had significantly higher pregnancy rates – meaning emotional wellbeing directly affects treatment outcomes.
Prevention AND Intervention: A New Model of Care
Rather than waiting for crisis to develop, the Hope Affirm Thrive program provides both preventive support and targeted intervention. Every participant receives evidence-based accommodations as standard practice: visual medication schedules, written summaries of verbal instructions, sensory comfort strategies, and preparation scripts for medical procedures.
For those needing deeper intervention, we integrate trauma-informed approaches including EMDR protocols specifically adapted for fertility populations, combined with nervous system regulation techniques.
Practical Tools You Can Use Today
Whether you need prevention or intervention, there are specific techniques that can transform your fertility treatment experience:
The 4-4-8 Reset Breath for immediate nervous system calming – inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4, exhale for 8. Use this before appointments or anytime anxiety peaks.
5-4-3-2-1 grounding anchors you in the present moment when panic strikes: identify 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste (sour gummies make for the perfect nervous system disrupter!).
Know When You Need More Support
These tools work well for general fertility stress and mild-to-moderate anxiety. Seek professional support if you’re experiencing frequent panic attacks, avoiding necessary medical care, or if past trauma is being triggered by medical procedures. Needing additional support isn’t failure – it’s wisdom.
Sarah’s Different Ending
Sarah accessed trauma-informed support that identified her distress wasn’t just “IVF anxiety” – it was medical trauma from painful procedures and childhood experiences of feeling powerless in medical settings.
Sarah learned nervous system regulation techniques she could use before, during, and after procedures. We used EMDR to process specific trauma memories being triggered by fertility treatment. She developed self-advocacy skills and connected with others going through similar experiences.
Sarah completed her treatment feeling confident and calm. She said, “I finally felt like an active participant in my care instead of something being done to me.”
Looking Forward: Prevention as Essential Healthcare
At Melbourne Fertility Expo 2025, I’ll be sharing specific tools you can use immediately to manage fertility treatment stress, along with evidence about how early psychological support prevents treatment discontinuation and improves outcomes.
My main talk, “Why 50% of IVF Patients Stop Treatment – And How Emotional Readiness Can Change Everything,” reveals the research behind treatment discontinuation and provides a framework for assessing your psychological readiness. The hands-on workshop, “Your Emotional Toolkit,” teaches four practical nervous system regulation techniques you can use immediately.
That 50% discontinuation rate is largely preventable with the right support at the right time. Don’t let psychology be the reason you stop treatment. It doesn’t have to be.
Elizabeth Bancroft will be speaking at Melbourne Fertility Expo 2025, sharing insights from the Hope Affirm Thrive program and teaching practical techniques for managing fertility treatment stress. Her sessions provide evidence-based tools for both preventing psychological distress and addressing it when it occurs, helping patients complete their treatment with confidence.
About the Author:
Elizabeth (Liz) Bancroft is an AHPRA-registered Clinical and Counselling Psychologist with over 14 years of experience supporting individuals through complex trauma, infertility, and neurodiverse mental health needs. She is the founder of Hope Affirm Thrive, an evidence-based support program designed to help women navigate the emotional challenges of IVF.
Support Your IVF Journey:
If you’re navigating fertility treatment and need emotional support, visit www.hopeaffirmthrive.com.au to learn more about the Roadmap Through IVF program—a comprehensive online 8-week program offering trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming support for every stage of your fertility journey.
Free Resources – Start Here:
Contemplating Treatment?
Starting Your Journey?
- Evidence-Based Strategies Webinar ($29) – A low-cost webinar covering stress management, emotion regulation, advocacy tips, and building resilience for your IVF journey. Access here – https://hopeaffirmthrive.com.au/webinar-evergreen
- IVF Mental Health Survival Kit – Evidence-based tools, advocacy scripts, and grounding techniques to help you stay steady through every stage of treatment. Download here https://hopeaffirmthrive.com.au/guide
