Pre-IVF Preparation for Couples: The 14-Week Window

WORK WITH ME

After fifteen years, I hear the same things

Not from research. From the room.

Fourteen weeks before a cycle, for both of you — the part of it nobody else is looking at.

THIS IS FOR YOU IF ANY OF THIS SOUNDS LIKE YOUR HOUSE

“I’m making forty decisions a day and every one of them feels like it might be the wrong one.”

Coffee. The gym. Whether that glass of wine at your sister’s wedding mattered. Nobody has ever told you which of them count, so all of them do.

“I’ve given up so much and it still didn’t work.”

The dinners. The holiday. The promotion you didn’t chase. And the answer everyone offers is to give up more.

“They keep saying unexplained.”

Unexplained means we did not find it. It does not mean it was you. Those are different sentences and nobody ever separates them for you.

“Nobody has asked him a single question.”

Half of every embryo is built from his cells, in the same window as yours. In fifteen years I have watched women carry the whole weight of a diagnosis that was never only theirs.

“He says he’s fine.”

He is often not fine. He is often reading the same things you are, at eleven at night, alone, and buying supplements he has not mentioned. Men in this process go quiet. It is rarely indifference.

“We don’t talk about it any more.”

Because every conversation goes to the same place, and one of you has decided to stop bringing it up to protect the other.

If more than two of those landed, you are in the situation I work in.

The cycle takes fourteen weeks. So does everything it does to the two of you.

Everyone treating you is looking at eggs, sperm, lining, protocol. All of that matters and none of it is what I most often watch break.

What breaks is quieter.

Sex becomes a date supplied by a clinic. Two people who wanted each other start performing on a schedule, and one of them starts dreading it.

You stop going to things. Not because you can’t drink — because not drinking invites a question, and answering it means telling people something you are not ready to tell them. So the restriction cost one glass of wine, and the concealment cost the evening, then the friendship, then six months of not being in your own life.

And you stop sitting on the sofa together for no reason at all. Touch that isn’t leading anywhere. It’s usually the first thing to go and the last thing anybody mentions, because it doesn’t look like a fertility decision.

You are the only two people who know what is happening in your house. And you have both been performing optimism at each other for months.

That is not a side effect of this process. For a lot of couples it is the largest thing that happens in it, and there is nobody in the room whose job it is to notice.

I am not a therapist and I will not pretend to be. But I am in your week, both of you, for fourteen weeks — and I say the thing out loud when I see it.

Fourteen weeks. Both of you. Together or separately.

Sperm are made from scratch in about seventy-four days. Eggs finish maturing over roughly ninety. Those windows overlap almost exactly — which means the fourteen weeks before your cycle are the one period when both halves of an embryo are being built at the same time.

To be precise about what that does and does not mean.

This is about one cycle — the specific eggs and sperm that cycle will collect. By the morning of retrieval, that material is already made. The cycle gathers it; it does not build it. Changes made after that point cannot reach those particular cells.

It is not a statement about your fertility. Not about your age, not a countdown, not a last chance. If this cycle does not work, the next one has its own fourteen weeks and the work starts again with new cells.

I say that plainly because this field is full of people using time to frighten you into deciding quickly. The window is real. The urgency is not mine to sell you. If the timing is wrong, I will tell you so on the free call and you will not hear from me again.

Week one — the assessment

Ninety minutes with both of you. Your history, your last cycle, your results, and how you actually live — hour by hour, not a questionnaire.

Within seventy-two hours you each get written findings. Yours and his, separately. Specific, sourced, built around your window rather than a generic protocol.

I will not work from guesses about your biology, which is why this is week one and not optional.

Weeks two to fourteen

• A call every other week, both of you. If one of you cannot be there, we still meet and the adjustments still get made.
• A private call for each of you. One-to-one, and it stays that way. People say things privately they do not say in front of each other, and those are often the things that matter most.
• Private messaging, separate threads. What he asks stays between him and me, and the same for you. Answered within one business day, Monday to Friday. Most of the questions that matter arrive at eleven at night, not on a scheduled call.
• Your plan adjusted the whole way through — including whether a DFI test is worth doing and when to place it, so the number reaches your specialist in time to be useful.
• A library of stress, sleep, movement and food resources built around the plan, so you are not rebuilding your week every Sunday.

Together or separately, and that is the point

Most men will not join a weekly video call about fertility. That is not a character flaw and I stopped taking it personally years ago.

So he does not have to. He can send a message at midnight, take one private call, and never appear on a joint one. The work still gets done on his half.

He is fifty percent of the embryo. He should not have to become a patient to be included.

What it costs

$4,500 for the fourteen weeks. Both of you. Everything above.

Cycle sooner than fourteen weeks? The full window is fourteen weeks — twelve supporting egg and sperm development, two supporting you through stims and transfer — but you can step in at any point along it. Whatever time you have, there are preventable strains worth preventing and lifestyle-linked inputs your biology still responds to. Book the free call and we will look at your unique position — what is realistic now, and where to start.

Payable $1,500 a month across the window, if that is easier.

Against a cycle that costs twenty thousand dollars or more, this is the part you can actually decide about.

I take a small number of couples each month, because the private calls and the messaging do not scale and I will not pretend otherwise.

Dr. Lejla Fazlicic, D.Ac, L.Ac: Illinois-licensed acupuncturist for 15 years, including two years (2022–2024) at Pulling Down the Moon, Chicago, working with IVF patients alongside their clinics.

What this is not

This is education and coaching. It is not medical care and it does not replace your RE, urologist or clinic.

I do not prescribe, order tests, interpret labs clinically, or advise anything about your protocol or medication. I do not contact your clinic on your behalf.

I do not promise outcomes. Nobody honest can. No one can tell you why a cycle failed — it is multifactorial and there is no single thread to pull. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

What I can commit to is this: at the end of fourteen weeks you will know exactly what you chose and why. You will not be carrying forty rules you never examined. And whatever happens, you will not be left wondering whether there was something obvious that nobody told you.

Where a plan calls for a supplement, you can order through a practitioner dispensary and I earn a margin on those orders. I tell every couple that before they buy anything, nothing in a plan depends on it, and I will say plainly when the evidence for something is weak.

Questions couples ask before booking

How long before IVF should we start?

Fourteen weeks. Sperm take about seventy-four days to be made, and eggs finish maturing over roughly ninety. Changes made inside that window reach the cells your cycle will use; changes made after it largely cannot.

What if our cycle is sooner than fourteen weeks?

The full window is fourteen weeks for a reason: twelve weeks support development — the months in which sperm are built and eggs finish maturing — and the final two support you through stims and transfer. That is full-cycle support. But you do not have to enter at week one. You can step in at any point in that window, and whatever time you have, there are preventable strains worth preventing and inputs your biology still responds to. The free call is where we look at your unique position — how many weeks you have, what is realistic in them, and where to start. And if I ever believe your money is truly better spent on your next window, I will tell you that instead of taking it.

What is your success rate?

I do not give one — and not because the answer is bad. Because there is no honest number. Your biology, your history, your clinic’s protocol, and this particular cycle make your odds yours alone; a percentage built from other couples tells you nothing about the two of you. And I have watched what a number does. It becomes the thing you measure yourselves against at two in the morning — one more thing to obsess over — and the obsessing itself feeds the exact loop we work to break. I will not hand you that. Anyone in my position quoting you a success rate is selling attribution they cannot prove. What I can promise is the work: both of you, in writing, adjusted across all fourteen weeks, alongside your clinic’s care.

What if our clinic is skeptical?

Some are, and honestly — fair. They have watched a lot of things get sold to people in your position. Tell them exactly what this is: lifestyle and wellness guidance for both partners that never changes a medication, never contradicts a protocol, and puts everything in writing they are welcome to see. Most physicians have no objection to sleep, food, heat, and timing being taken seriously. Your clinic leads; I work in the space around their plan — the part of the week they never see. And if your doctor has concerns, bring them to the free call. I would rather answer them than have you paper over them.

Does my partner really need to be involved?

Yes. Half of every embryo is built from his cells, in the same window as yours. Working on one half is working on half the problem.

He will not do video calls. Can he still take part?

Yes, and most men choose exactly that. He can message me in his own thread, take one private call, and never appear on a joint one. His half of the work still gets done.

Is this medical treatment?

No. It is education and lifestyle coaching, and it sits alongside your clinical care rather than replacing any part of it. Medical decisions stay with your RE and urologist.

What does it cost?

The free 15-minute call costs nothing and carries no obligation.

The program is $4,500 for the fourteen weeks — both of you, everything listed above — payable $1,500 a month across the window if that is easier. There is nothing else to buy.

Do you sell supplements?

Where a plan calls for one, you can order through a practitioner dispensary and I earn a margin on those orders. I tell you that before you buy anything, you are never required to use it, nothing in a plan depends on it, and I will tell you honestly when the evidence for something is weak — including when that means not taking it.

Start with the honest question

Fifteen minutes, no cost, no pitch. Is this your window, and is there anything here worth preventing?

Sometimes the answer is no. I will say so, and you will leave knowing something you did not know before.