{"id":418,"date":"2017-05-18T10:26:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T16:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/?p=418"},"modified":"2025-12-11T22:28:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:28:00","slug":"grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/05\/18\/grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"My infertility is profound grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is constantly grieving for the family I desire to have with Matt, for the children I long to hold in my arms and share my life with. It is constantly grieving the loss of what has not happened yet, what could have been each and every cycle, and what may never be. It is grieving the loss of hopes and dreams for my family and my future.<\/span><\/p>\n

My pregnancy loss is forevermore grieving the loss of our child who we never met, but wanted and love still with all of our hearts. It is grieving a life cut way too short. It is grieving what was and what should have been.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of what I once expected for my life — what I thought this part of my life would be like; what I thought conceiving would be like; what I thought pregnancy would be like; what I thought the timeline of my family\u2019s growth would be like. It is grieving the loss of the certainty I used to have about my future, and the innocence I once had. <\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving every day, every month, every year. It is grieving every failed cycle and every failed treatment, and all of the time, money, energy, hope, and love that went into each and every cycle. It is grieving the months passed waiting for the next treatment to begin. It is grieving at every step as we\u2019ve moved on to more and more advanced treatments.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grief that builds over time. Every month that goes by is harder than the last for me. Perhaps when our infertility is resolved in some way and we have been able to move forward in our lives, the grief will stop increasing\u2026 but until then, it accumulates despite our best efforts to work through it. <\/span><\/p>\n

The grief of my infertility is very complex and layered\u2026 in addition to the losses of our hopes and dreams for our family, infertility brings an enormous load of secondary losses that are not always obvious or apparent to an outsider. Infertility has caused the losses of my sense of sense, friendships, control, privacy, normality, and the perception of myself as \u201chealthy\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of my sense of self. As I struggle through treatment side effects and the powerful waves of grief following each and every failure, sometimes I hardly feel like I know who I am anymore. The surreal experience of infertility and all of the emotions that come with it leave me questioning who I am and what\u2019s happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving broken relationships that have not withstood my infertility. Losing relationships during my infertility is pretty much the last thing I expected, but it\u2019s happened and it\u2019s heartbreaking. Unfortunately not everyone is able to sit in the darkness of grief with someone else.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of control. We live in a day and age where our fertility is usually under our control\u2026 most people decide when to have children, are able to conceive within a reasonable time frame, and carry their baby to term. But infertility means that we have lost the ability to decide when and how to bring children into our family — regardless of treatments or other options we might pursue, the outcome is out of our hands. <\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of the freedom to plan and live as we please. Our treatments, appointments, and medications are scheduled around the calendar at the doctor\u2019s office, and as a result, our work schedules and lives in general are dictated by our treatments. I\u2019ve even been put on birth control pills at times to align my cycles to their ideal dates. Infertility is also grieving the inability to plan anything beyond the next treatment — we don\u2019t know if and when I\u2019ll be pregnant, or if and when we\u2019ll need to have appointments, or when I might be experiencing miserable side effects from medications. All of this makes planning anything from a night out to a holiday away difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving an extreme loss of privacy — of my body and of trying to conceive in general. Usually making a baby is a very private and intimate event, but treating our infertility and sharing about our experience has eliminated any and all privacy we once had. Infertility treatments have brought me to the exam table stirrups more times than I can count, and I have been poked, prodded, and ultrasound-wanded over and over. There\u2019s no privacy anymore in our efforts to conceive; we\u2019ve literally been examined under a microscope. Additionally, even though it has been important, sharing with others about my infertility has led to a loss of privacy too — people know many, many more details about our efforts to conceive than they would if I were fertile.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of normality. \u201cNormal\u201d people conceive without trouble and carry their babies to term, but infertility, pregnancy loss, and treatments for infertility have thrown us into a surreal world — these experiences are not normal. It\u2019s not normal to have an ectopic pregnancy. It\u2019s not normal to be try to conceive for three years and not have a baby. It\u2019s not normal to go through 14 cycles of treatment without success. It\u2019s not normal to have injections every day, or have embryos created in a lab and stored in a freezer. It\u2019s not normal for my friends and family to know intimate details about my cycles or doctor\u2019s appointments. Grieving this loss of normality is so huge that one major benefit of going to our infertility support group is hearing others discuss their infertility — it helps to normalize our own experience and makes us feel not so alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is grieving the loss of a perceived healthy body. I am in perfect health in seemingly every other way… but infertility means something is in fact, medically wrong with us, even if there\u2019s not a clear answer about what it is. Grieving the loss of my perceived health has been a frustrating, confusing experience\u2026 I feel healthy, but I\u2019m an infertility patient with a calendar full of appointments and procedures and a closet full of medications. Aside from treatment side effects, I don\u2019t feel sick physically, yet our failure to conceive over and over continues to prove that my body isn\u2019t as \u201chealthy\u201d as it might appear to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is processing all of this grief — both the primary losses of our pregnancy and our family, and also the secondary losses that hit from every direction. My infertility is sitting with grief, time and time again. It\u2019s letting grief overwhelm me when necessary. It\u2019s crying until my eyes hurt, my head hurts. It\u2019s asking Matt to sit with me and letting him wipe my tears. It\u2019s telling Matt to please let me sit alone, quietly in the dark. It\u2019s writing and writing and writing. It\u2019s distracting myself with a book, movie or TV show, because sometimes I need to take an intentional break from grieving. It\u2019s making myself get up, get dressed, go outside, text a friend, get back out there. It\u2019s feeling exhausted because grieving is hard work. It\u2019s wanting to feel happier, wanting to feel hopeful, wanting to feel optimistic, but knowing deep down that those feelings will only come once I work through some of my grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been said that grief only exists where love lived first<\/a><\/span>… While this may or may not be true for all kinds of grief, I do think it is true for the profound grief of infertility. Matt and I want to build a family together because of the love we share, and the love we want to share with children. We\u2019re full of grief for the pregnancy we lost, the family we\u2019re hoping for, and the unknown direction of our future. While we hope, and wait, and try again, we grieve the absence of our children with great love.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My infertility is profound grief. My infertility is constantly grieving for the family I desire to have with Matt, for the children I long to hold in my arms and share my life with. It is constantly grieving the loss of what has not happened yet, what could have been each and every cycle, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[12,62],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-grief","tag-infertility-is"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s7UmuL-grief","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":423,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/05\/30\/hope\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":0},"title":"Hope","author":"Jenna","date":"May 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ll be totally honest -- when I started writing this \u201cinfertility is\u201d series, I thought by the time I got to \u201chope\u201d I\u2019d be ready to write about it. I thought maybe by now I\u2019d have some again or maybe even have some amazing insight about hope after all of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/infertility_is_hope-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":404,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/04\/24\/isolation\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":1},"title":"Isolation","author":"Jenna","date":"April 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I was looking for an infertility book at my local big box bookstore the other day and came up empty handed... again. \u00a0Over the course of my infertility journey, I have repeatedly visited this store in person or looked online for local availability searching for specific books and I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/infertility_is_isolation-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":230,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/11\/01\/looking-for-rainbows\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":2},"title":"Looking for Rainbows","author":"Jenna","date":"November 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"At support group once we were talking about how we are not our infertility and how we can identify ourselves separate from our infertility\u2026. And I understand that on a rational level, but I argued that it\u2019s not how it feels. I may not *be* my infertility, but it *is*\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coping"","block_context":{"text":"Coping","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/coping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"looking for rainbows","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/rainbows-300x294.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":365,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/03\/22\/infertility-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":3},"title":"Infertility is…","author":"Jenna","date":"March 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It was hard to first admit to myself that we were experiencing infertility... By the time I did, we\u2019d already found out I wasn\u2019t ovulating on my own, and as a result I\u2019d been through three cycles of clomid. Even though I had already started fertility treatments, I didn\u2019t consider\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/infertility_is-1-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":453,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2020\/10\/24\/in-the-waiting-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":4},"title":"In the Waiting Time","author":"Jenna","date":"October 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"It is an honor to have my writing included in Emily R. Long's book In the Waiting Time: Messages from Infertility Warriors. My letter posted below is one of 22 letters included in the book --letters written for, and by, individuals with infertility. I hope that our messages and our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coping"","block_context":{"text":"Coping","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/coping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/IWT-Book-Announcement.png?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":34,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/09\/18\/sitting-with-grief\/","url_meta":{"origin":418,"position":5},"title":"Sitting With Grief","author":"Jenna","date":"September 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes I have really bad days. 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