Grief and the Fertility Journey: What No One Tells You

There’s so much that’s not said about the fertility journey and the deep grief that’s experienced when family building doesn’t go as planned. You don’t have to lose a pregnancy to be grieving. If your path to parenthood isn’t going as planned, you’re already having a grief experience, and we need to start naming it as such. It’s the kind of grief experience that reshapes how you see yourself, your relationships and your future. In this blog post, I share some thoughts about grief and the fertility journey.

Most people don’t have language for what they are experiencing. We live in a society that doesn’t name the fertility journey as a grief experience so many people suffer through it feeling like something is wrong with them. The truth is that your reaction is very appropriate to the magnitude of what you’re facing. 

Fertility grief is real, layered, and deserves the same care as any other profound loss. It’s different from other types of grief experiences. 

What makes fertility grief so unique 

Fertility grief is invisible

You’re mourning something that’s not tangible or visible. It’s an imagined future not yet realized and is deeply personal. 

It’s cumulative grief 

It’s not a singular event. It’s recurring. Every month that goes by without a pregnancy is a loss. Every negative pregnancy test. Every failed embryo transfer or a cancelled transfer. It’s grief on repeat. 

The grief is disenfranchised  

It’s not easily recognized or openly acknowledged in society. There are no rituals or acceptable ways to publicly mourn. The grief begins the moment the story you imagined for yourself falls apart. Many people don’t know what to say or how to support. They may minimize the loss or not recognize it at all. 

There’s so much loss on a complicated family building journey that until we begin to understand the meaning of what’s been lost, we can’t fully understand the magnitude of our grief.

The story of parenthood begins long before the arrival of a child. You may have imagined how many children you’d have, the age gaps between them, how you’d share the news of a pregnancy or who you’d tell first. That vision is deeply embedded in your sense of self and your future. When the story unfolds differently from how you imagined it, there is profound grief.  

Naming the losses 

These are some of the losses I help clients name:

Loss of health identity

A medical diagnosis changes how you see yourself in your story. It’s a story you never imagined for yourself. 

Loss of control

You may have spent numerous years trying to prevent a pregnancy which may have given a false sense that you could also control when it happens. 

Shattered belief systems

Beliefs that you once held deeply become shattered. You can eat well, exercise, take good care of yourself and still have difficulty conceiving. The realization that effort does not guarantee outcome or that good things happen to good people is difficult. 

Loss of identity

Many people lose their sense of self and struggle with the changes. Maybe you were more carefree and optimistic and now see yourself entirely different. How could you possibly feel like your old self when the worst thing has happened to you? It’s okay to grieve the version of you that existed before your world was rocked. 

Relationship changes 

Some relationships shift and some end. When the relationships become medicalized, intimacy feels different. Partners grieve differently and which can lead to feeling disconnected. Friendships with people who have children can become painful to navigate. The conversations feel different and avoidance increases. This withdrawal from friends makes sense as we live in a child centric world. When you’re going through infertility, your world can feel smaller considering there are so many emotional landmines to navigate. 

Your story then and your story now

Understanding your original story of how you imagined things would go is an important part of the healing process. This exercise of naming the hopes, dreams, desires and expectations of the life you wanted to build is a powerful place to begin. I encourage as many details as possible when doing this. You can then begin to see how things went off course and how far away you have traveled from your original vision. This is a helpful exercise in understanding more of what you’re grieving and makes the loss more visible to you. It’s harder to dismiss or minimize your experience when you can actually see what you’re grieving. 

You don’t have to wait until it’s “over” to grieve. You don’t have to lose a pregnancy to grieve. You are allowed to grieve the version of the life you imagined for yourself. You are allowed to grieve while hoping. If you’re looking for support with navigating a difficult fertility journey, schedule a phone consultation to discuss how working together can benefit you.