Loss and grief

Losing a pregnancy or experiencing infertility

Miscarriage, stillbirth, failed fertility treatments, or the grief of not being able to have children you wanted. Losses that are often invisible to others and met with inadequate responses. Grief that had no funeral and no formal acknowledgment.

This grief is mourned largely in private, for a person the world never met or a future that never arrived. Well-meaning people say devastating things about trying again, as if hopes were interchangeable. Yours were not. What you lost was specific and real, and it deserves to be grieved specifically and really, with people who will not rush you.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Depression Not just sadness. Shame Not guilt about something you did. Prolonged grief Grief that did not follow the expected path. Loneliness This is different from pulling away. Recent grief Not all grief is stuck or complicated. Chronic pain Pain that has been investigated and treated and remains. Insomnia Difficulty falling asleep. Anxiety The background hum of dread that is always there.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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