Working through infertility grief is one of the most important things you can do for your emotional health while trying to conceive. That means feeling your feelings all the way through no matter how painful or uncomfortable they are. The more you try to avoid feeling pain, the more that pain festers and grows. What can make this process even harder is when you feel like you have no right to your grief – like you didn’t get the right stamp of Approval.
Maybe it was a comment that made you feel this way such as:
A well-intentioned friend:
“Thankfully you were only 7 weeks along, it could have been SO much worse.”
Your well-meaning spouse:
“Why are you so upset? Let’s just move on and start our next IVF.”
Your well-spoken doctor:
“You had a blighted ovum so technically speaking there wasn’t ever a baby.”
Any of these comments (as well as lots of other things) can lead you to believe that you don’t have a right to grieve. That you don’t have a right to feel loss. That you don’t have a right to be devastated.
This is utter, unadulterated crap.
The bottom line is only YOU can decide what needs to be grieved and for how long. No one – not your doctor, your spouse, your neighbors, your friends or your infertility chat room buddies – can possibly know exactly how you feel (even if they’ve been through infertility themselves). Grief, pain and loss are extremely personal and highly individual so only YOU can determine how you feel. Not sure if you need to grieve? There are no hard and fast rules, but you may need to make time to process grief if you
- Are often on the verge of tears
- Feel sad or upset a lot of the time
- Feel like you’re pushing down painful feelings
- Get choked up often and/or at odd times
Just remember you do not need anyone’s permission or a specific reason to feel what you feel. You do not have to meet any kind of “pregnancy loss criteria” in order to feel sorrow and heartache. For many women, in fact, every menstrual cycle is a new loss that needs to be mourned. My post on infertility grief talks more about this topic and provides some guidelines for how to process grief. I hope you decide to honor yourself and your losses and keep yourself emotionally healthy by grieving what needs to be grieved.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Another on-target post. Grief is ours to honor and process…
So helpful, thank-you!
Im so glad to read in words the feelings I have been feeling for the past 8 months!
Im looking forward on meeting at the group on February.
xoxo
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alena
http://ovarianpain.net