What do we do with our infertility grief?

If I’m honest with you, since we lost Nathanael in 2014 and subsequently haven’t fallen pregnant, we have continued to grieve.  We know what’s involved in seeing pregnant women everywhere when your own hope crashes with every menstrual period.

We continue to see those in our own family greet their babies with unfathomable joy.  Becoming a grandfather last year was one of these experiences.  Even though I have unequivocal and unbounded love for my granddaughter, I still don’t know how to process it.

I have come to a position that I don’t need to resolve it.  But the ambivalence toward new life is the requiem of our loss—Nathanael, yes, but the lingering infertility just as much.

There are so many young and not-so-young women and men who are in the same position.  It erodes our sense of being when each month’s hope withers.

The picture above is one of a play model house constructed of bricks.  We make our houses for our families, and our hopes are to make a home, always imagining the children we’ll bring home to that home.

We don’t imagine that our hopes will turn to loss.

We don’t imagine our children will develop illnesses or that they’ll be born with disability.

We aren’t prepared for infertility or loss.  And nobody, it seems, really understands.  Except, that is, for the other millions who silently suffer in isolation like we do.

If nothing else, this post is a reminder to you if you’ve suffered infertility or any variety of grief in regard to children, home and family, you are not alone.

There are others, too, who find the first thirty seconds of flicking through social media feeds triggering. Many people and many couples face the same dilemma silently any random day, of every occasional week, month after month, and, as the years pass, nothing gets better.

The strangest thing is it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got children you ought to be thankful for or not. It doesn’t matter if there’s still hope for the future.  It doesn’t matter if your lot is better than the next person’s.  There’s a hole there.  You still grieve!

It’s too easy to say we need to move on.  But not when you feel it’s your life calling.  That’s the confusing part.  To move on, to “let it go,” is tantamount to cutting an arm off, or denying our very identity.

I just wanted to say that.  Your ongoing grief in terms of broken dreams for family is real, it is important to be honoured, and there’s no point in denying it.  Healing can only come when we’re truthful about how we truly feel.