Infertility and Grief
We have been on our fertility journey for six years now. This pathway continues to bring up triggers I never expected and yet I’ve built a connection to my daughter through it. Dealing with grief is a mixture of emotions that are always evolving and changing.
Grief is not simple.
It’s messy.
It’s cloudy.
It comes and goes.
It shows up in unexpected places.
It bonds me with strangers.
It hurts.
It changes.
It is my connection to my daughter.
My experience with grief prior to infertility was minimal. My grandparents died when I was a teenager but I wasn’t extremely close to them. My biological father passed in my early 20’s, but again I didn’t know him. I had pets that die and that was probably the hardest grief I had dealt with. There hadn’t been a life-altering loss to deal with… which I know is a blessing.
I was taught that grief was when a human (or pet) died. You have a funeral, bury that person and they go to Heaven on Hell. I wasn’t raised religiously but these ideas were discussed. I specifically remember my idea of Hell was having to do house chores, especially cleaning the toilet. I didn’t have a strong sense of faith. As I became older I started to search for some faith when life became harder. This was when things began to shift for me.
I became depressed and anxious about two years into trying for a family. It was obvious that I needed some help. I joined a support group for women and began building a foundation for myself. This group was not specifically for infertiles, but I didn’t even know that word existed yet. In this circle was where I began exploring my grief and started to build my faith.
I was so sad but my issues were about things that no one talked about. I wasn’t able to name it and that left me lost and feeling alone. I wanted to look for others that knew this pain... But that meant I had to tell people what I was going through. I wasn’t ready for that jump yet. So I continued to search for something to stand on.
I think I found it in a book, I couldn’t tell you which one. It’s not a unique take on grief, but it was new to me. I read something along the lines of, “Grief can be simply letting go of the life you thought you would have.” This hit me. I had never imagined it being difficult to conceive a child. I knew raising a child would be difficult, but just having one was something that seemed to happen on its own, for other people, at least. Letting go of that vision of my life and being thankful for the one I was living was much harder than expected. I had to accept what was happening and work through the grief that sort of felt invisible and quiet. I had always thought grief was in your face and loud.
How do you mourn the life you envisioned for yourself?
What’s that called?
Who has already done it?
What are the steps to follow?
Will anyone understand what I’m going through?
During this time I started reading faith-based books and leaning more towards a spiritual connection rather than religion. I found that I could feel a bond with the faith that already resides within me. I began practicing rituals that made me feel things on a deeper level and gave me a space to feel whatever came up. This included meditation, affirmations, writing things down, and then burning them, sharing more about trying for a baby, yoga, and taking better care of my mental and physical health. Practicing these opened my heart up to bigger and better things. These actions help lead me back to a happier self. One that was more authentic and honest than ever before.
Being able to identify my feelings as grief gave me a path forward. I was able to see my pain in a way I hadn’t before. I was grieving the life I had wanted to live. I have done all of the other things on my life list: graduate college, get a good job, travel, meet my partner, buy a home… but this step wasn’t going to be as easy for me as it was for others. Struggling with that step was grief. Struggling with any of these steps is a form of grief.
Grief isn’t confined to a single thing. Having it take 6.5 years to become a mother involves grieving. So does having a miscarriage, a failed transfer, delivering a stillborn, not being able to carry your baby, using someone else’s embryos, adoption and the list goes on. There are too many things to list!
Finding a name for my pain was a beautiful way to start my self-work and road to healing. This road is life long and won’t ever leave me. There’s no part that is done. Grief changes as you grow and move through life, but it never truly goes away. I have decided to love my grief as it keeps me connected with my daughter, but I can’t tell you how much work it took me to get to this place.
Your grief is yours and yours alone. You get to choose what to do with it. You don’t necessarily get to choose how it will show up, but if you start to love it grief may be a bit kinder to you. Check out a couple of other posts I have written on grief here:
We are not alone in dealing with this.
Almost every single human on this planet deals with grief in some way or another.
Find others like you.
Ask how they deal… something might work for you, too.