10 Quotes to Inspire and Encourage Those Facing Infertility

Infertility and the holiday season may be a dreaded combination for some couples and individuals. Learning that you will need treatment or third-party reproduction to build your family can be difficult enough, but working through your journey to parenthood during this festive time of the year can be emotionally trying. Casual conversation about babies and the future is commonplace when getting together with family and friends, but it can be a real trial for those who are at any stage of being a fertility patient.

It is up to you and your partner to decide how much or how little you will share, but in the hopes of alleviating any holiday season stress, we’ve collected a few of our favorite quotes on inspiration, perseverance, courage, and hope.

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'I will try again tomorrow.'”

• Mary Anne Radmacher

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?”

• Laura Bush

“When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, Try one more time.'”

• Anonymous

"Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock."

• Anonymous

“As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better.”

• Dr. Steve Maraboli

“It always seems impossible until it's done.”

• Nelson Mandela

“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.”

• Robert H. Schuller

"Courage is going from failure to failure without ever losing enthusiasm."

• Winston Churchill

“Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.”

• Mason Cooley