Infertility=Grief Part 2

I remember so vividly one summer day in 2013 (one year after my Dad passed away), I was walking down a street in Edina, Minnesota heading to my favorite store, Anthropologie. I was in town briefly on my way up to our family’s cabin in Northern Minnesota. I slowly walked by a restaurant I had eaten at with my parents a couple years prior, remembering that dinner with them. All of a sudden out of nowhere, I couldn’t catch my breath and began crying. Just the simple act of walking by that restaurant reminded me that my Dad was gone forever. He wasn’t coming back. I thought I had already accepted it, but there I was grieving like it was just moments after he passed away a year earlier.  

That moment in 2013 was when I truly began to understand what people meant when they said that grief comes in waves. Sometimes out of nowhere a huge wave (of emotion) crashes into you and almost takes you down. And then other days, it’s more calm and steady waves that you experience. The problem is that you never can prepare yourself for the big waves. 

When you’re grieving the loss of a loved one, it might be easy to identify why you are feeling the way you are feeling. You are missing a physical person who is no longer here anymore. Grief from infertility is more complex, in my opinion. You haven’t “lost” anything physical, but you still seem to feel this great sense of loss and sadness at times. You experience “waves” too, just like other people do.  It’s confusing and emotional.

It’s been just shy of 5 months since I found out my last IVF round wasn’t successful. It was my grief that motivated me to write my first ever blog post entitled “Infertility=Grief”. It was easy to express my feelings then because they were so fresh and raw. I knew exactly why I was feeling the heaviness and sadness I felt. 

I have mentioned in one of my other blog posts “Go to Napa”, that ever since my last failed IVF cycle, I have been praying for my desires to match God’s plan for my life. Since then, I’ve lost the desire to do IVF again (at least for now). It’s felt really freeing. I’ve enjoyed the summer not worrying about anything and doing my best to live. It’s been working for me and I’ve felt overall pretty content these last few months.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

Months ago I stopped tracking my ovulation and no longer pay attention to when I am supposed to get my period…but both are always somewhere in the back of my mind.  I’ve really tried to work hard at not hoping for a random, miracle pregnancy. But let’s be honest, for those of us who go through infertility, it’s almost impossible not to hope. 

I had just finished a round of Whole 30, so my body was the healthiest it had been in a long time. I didn’t do it for fertility reasons; I just wanted to get to a healthier place. I had some strange things that happened to my body a few weeks ago- I was tired, I felt nauseous, I had random spotting. I started wondering….could this really be it? I looked at where I was at in my cycle and it definitely was a possibility. After all this time and all I’ve been through, I wondered, would God really bless me with a natural pregnancy? Would I, Stephanie (who has the worst luck at everything), actually have the fairy tale ending?

I truly thought it was real. I kept telling myself to stop having hope….there was no way it was going to happen like that. But you can’t reason with a dreamer. I looked to see when I was supposed to get my period and anxiously waited every day to see if it would show up. 

Of course, just like my extremely punctual and reliable husband, it showed up on time just when it was supposed to. That morning I felt a mixture of sadness, embarrassment, shame, relief (only because I am heading to Napa in a week) and a couple days later….grief. Heavy, take-your-breath-away, don’t-want-to-get-out-of-bed, unexpected grief.

I guess I was surprised I was feeling grief because I truly thought I was at peace with where I was. But the reality is that I want a child.  I’ve always wanted a child. I’ve wanted a child since I was a child. I’m not just going to be able to accept that it’s not going to happen for me in the matter of 5 months. My feelings will come and go in waves, just like they did when my Dad passed away. I can try my hardest to live and be content with where I am at in life, but also equally feel like there’s something missing from my life.

And that’s the hardest part of infertility and grief…how do you still find meaning and contentment in your daily life when your life dreams/goals/plan have been taken away from you?

I don’t have the answer for you, unfortunately. I wish I did. 

If you’re going through this too, just know there is someone else out in the world struggling with the same thing. And pray. Never stop praying. I do know that my life can be just as meaningful and beautiful if I don’t have a child, it’s just figuring out what that means for me. And unfortunately as much as I would like to, I don’t think I’m going to figure it out overnight.

Stay tuned as I continue on my journey…