Understanding Infertility Grief: Disenfranchised Grief & Ambiguous Loss
Infertility grief is a nuanced form of grief that affects many different individuals. I want to talk about two ways that infertility grief is unique: Disenfranchised Grief and Ambiguous Loss.
Disenfranchised Grief: Grieving With No Blueprint
Disenfranchised grief is the idea that society often fails to recognize the validity and intensity of infertility grief.
Think about it like this: when you lose a loved one there is a clear response from those around you. Family comes to the funeral, Co-workers send flowers, friends comment their condolences on the obituary and Facebook page. There is an expected public response for this kind of loss. With disenfranchised grief, there is minimal recognition. No blueprint for moving forward or honoring the pain.
Clients that I have worked with note that frequently disenfranchised grief feels like minimization. This might look like people using platitudes towards their infertility experience, avoiding the conversation altogether, not knowing what to say to support them, or simply minimizing their experience with statements like "Don’t worry, your time will come.” These kinds of interactions take away from the deep distress and grief that comes alongside struggling to have a child. Because fertility has long been treated as a taboo subject, society struggles to discuss it in a way that is validating and makes the individuals struggling with infertility feel seen.
How Therapy Can Help:
This is the space where therapy can enter in. In therapy we can discuss the real, raw, deep experience of infertility grief. We can validate that experience, learn how to sit in it, and bear witness to your pain—together. It might sound simple and yet in a society where this kind of grief is dealt with so imperfectly it's a profound experience of healing to be in a space where the depth of your grief is truly honored. In therapy, we can also work through the experience of what it has been like to feel brushed aside in your grief by those around you. We can talk about how you can advocate for yourself to create change in your relationships to ensure that your grief gets the space that it deserves.
Ambiguous Loss: Living in Chronic Uncertainty:
Ambiguous loss is the idea that infertility loss stays open ended. There is space between the next round of IVF, the next IUI, or the next embryo transfer. In those spaces individuals are left waiting, wondering, hoping, and fearing for the future. You are grieving your relationship with your body, your relationship with the medical system, the loss of identity as a parent, your dreams and expectations for this phase of life. To grieve these abstract experiences in our day-to-day lives requires us to be accepting of the fact that infertility requires us to grieve an uncertainty.
This process can feel emotionally exhausting as ambiguous loss asks you to stay trapped in chronic uncertainty. It can put a strain on your relationship as you struggle to talk with those around you about the legitimacy of your loss. It can increase your anxiety as your nervous system is maintained in a state of hyper awareness and high alert. Ambiguous loss can also feel incredibly isolating as there are no common rituals to ground us in our grief. They can create relational tension as different individuals have different understandings and reactions to the grieving process. And in all of that– ambiguous loss can make us feel quite alone.
How Therapy Can Help:
In therapy we can work to hold intentional space for this grief. I can be your partner in the uncertainty and together we can look at what it's like to exist in this uncertainty for so long. We can hold space for the joy and the pain. For the confusion. For the hope and the hard. The therapeutic space can provide a safe container where we can process these feelings and help our anxiety spill over less into our everyday interactions
If you or your partner are walking through infertility, I'd invite you to reach out so that we can talk about how grief is showing up in your fertility journey. While it may not be something we talk about a lot, you are certainly not alone, and I would love to help you find your way through.