The psychological impact of infertility has been well documented.

Several emotions have been reported that are specific to women, men and couples. For women, one of the most common feelings that result from infertility issues is loss relating to self-esteem, body wholeness, family durability, comfort in personal relationships, and a perceived threat to the fate of the marriage (Cooper & Glazer, 1998). In addition, infertile women may become depressed, guilty, and frustrated, leading Cook (1987) to conceptualize infertility as a crisis. According to van den Akker (2001), more than half of the women in this study described feeling devastated by their infertility whereas 18% reported that their male partners were devastated and 75% reported that their male partners felt bad about the infertility. In yet another study, Peterson, Newton, and Rosen (2003) show that women reported higher levels of stress related to infertility as well as higher levels of depression than males.

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