Infertility is nothing short of a crazy emotional roller coaster ride that takes you on its hopeful highs to the fear gripping lowest of lows every four weeks. Because it is letting your hope soar for a few days or weeks, anticipating that surely this time, you will become parents. But to only have your hopes plummet as you watch your dreams die with yet another negative pregnancy test. It’s going from SHOCK after seeing only one line. To DENIAL as you find yourself running throughout the house searching and squinting for the other. All the while, BARGAINING with God to make the impossible possible. And it’s while bargaining with Him, you become ANGRY as you realize that He can, yet He hasn’t. And possibly won’t…at least this time. It’s getting past the feelings of anger and finding yourself depressed as you CRY over the death of your dreams for that month. And it’s only after hours or even days of mourning the loss of what you had hoped that you start to ACCEPT that this month was once again not the one. And so then comes the daunting task of picking yourself back up and starting all over again. Maybe with a little more hope, or maybe not. Either way, your exhausted but ready to fight. Ready to chase after your dreams one.more.time.
The grief that is brought on by infertility is different. It’s unique. And hard to explain. Making it even harder for people to understand. After all, you do not grieve what was lost or what has died. But rather, what never was.
And what you fear might never be.
The grief you feel and the process is also different for every person because the intensity always comes in different forms, waves, and triggers. Therefore grief is not a one size fits all. And because of this, we must never compare each other’s pain, but instead remember that loss is a loss, and it all hurts.
If you are grieving your shattered dreams, broken plans, and deferred hope today, please know you are not alone in your heartache. And you are also not alone in your frustration as you constantly battle to try everything possible so that your body might do what is supposed to be so natural and easy to do, which is grow your family. But for those of you who do not know this type of unexplained grief, chances are someone you know does. Therefore after you finish reading this article, could you please say a prayer for them? Don’t know exactly what to pray? Perhaps pray for peace to overwhelm their anxious minds…hope to be restored to their hopeless situation…healing to manifest in their bodies… the wisdom to know which direction to choose… faith to be strengthened, maybe even restored…and especially for the five stages of grief to soon end as the desires of their hearts are finally fulfilled.
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Wow, this was timely. It seems to have been divinely orchestrated that I get a pregnancy announcement the day my period starts EVERY time, including today. 😦 I wish I could just grieve, once and for all, and that the desire would leave me rather than go through this anymore.