Your Grief Counts

Earlier this year, I attended one of the most meaningful symposiums I have ever been part of: The Next Frontier: Where Innovation Meets Compassion, presented by the Institute for Reproductive Grief Care and Grossmont Healthcare District. I was, at first, surprised that the organizers had chosen me to present as the topic wasn’t something I had written or talked about extensively. It was a topic that sat close to my heart though and the more I began preparing for the symposium and my role in it, the more I realized that it was time to speak about the topic out loud:

Reproductive loss.

This topic can include when people have miscarriages or stillbirths or when their children make it earthside but not for very long. It can also include the experiences of those who want children but are not able to bear them, due to illness, fertility challenges, or medical histories. It can also include complex grief around adoption, surrogacy, family-building barriers, reproductive trauma, abortion, or the loss of the imagined path to parenthood.

I also have deep empathy for people for whom hearing parents talk about the joys and frustrations of raising children can feel painful, isolating, or exhausting.

My own longing took a different shape. Since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a mother and I’ve always wanted to bear children from my own body. Due to my medical conditions, having a child from my uterus was not available to me. I have long looked into options and made the choice, some years ago, that I would deeply grieve what my body could not give me rather than trying to bear children. I also began looking into other family-building possibilities, including surrogacy, adoption, and whatever options might be available to me. Insurance and access to resources helped me and my wife have a beautiful kiddo, who, at the time of this blog post, is a whopping eight years old and identifies as a tween! I am so lucky to have her in my life. I am grateful that she is here, earthside, with me. At times, I still mourn that I was not the one who got to birth her. This grief is much softer than it used to be, and I am deeply grateful for years of therapy and the support of my loved ones.

My experiences of grief are valid. They count. 

When I met with Dr. Michaelene Fredenburg, LHD, hc, President/CEO, of the Institute of Reproductive Grief Care over coffee a few months ago, I remember telling her my own story and crying. I wasn’t sure why these feelings that I had long worked with were suddenly bringing me to tears. But they were. I sat with her and she held my story and it was then that I realized that I had something to say. I was already on the underrepresented grief panel by that time but it took until that moment when I realized that my grief counted too.

I’m writing this blog post to share that sentiment: Your grief counts.

Whether you had an abortion for medical or other reasons. Whether you wanted to birth a child and couldn’t. Whether you heard a heartbeat and then heard nothing, or some other grief came into your life, your story and your experience counts. It does. It does not need to compare to anyone else’s for it to be grief. 

I wanted to write this down because so often, when I teach, lecture, present, consult, or sit with clients, I notice a desire to shout out that each person’s story matters. It does.

I am not comparing one loss to another's. I am sitting with all of the emotions of the loss, whether it happened a few hours ago, months ago, 10 years ago, or has been years and years in the making.

Attending the symposium was one of the most heartfelt and proud things that I ever have done. I am a better person for it. I learned so much from my fellow panelists, researchers, partners, conference creators, and participants. 

It’s taken me a while since the symposium to organize my thoughts about the experience. What I’ve come to is that the topic of reproductive loss is vitally important and that there is so much to know and that the community who serves this population is filled with some of the kindest, most heartfelt people I have ever met. I am grateful to have gotten to be there soaking in as much as I could about reproductive loss and healing the pain that surrounds it.

This experience also helped me recognize something important about the work we do at Waves. 

If you are carrying reproductive grief, whether recent or long-held, visible or private, your grief counts. You do not have to compare it to anyone else’s pain to deserve support.

Besides being a trained psychologist, I am a deeply feeling person with an extensive ability to sit with far-reaching pain and with people who are in pain. This includes people whose grief does not fit traditional categories, and people who feel their pain is less than another’s and does not need to be seen or acknowledged.

I want people to know that we at Waves can be present with people’s very difficult experiences and emotions. 

I am so grateful to have found another clinician who is also able to sit with the pain of loss, reproductive and otherwise. Dr. Camilla Williams (she, her) is an expert in grief and I am proud that she is a part of Waves. She is my go-to clinician for people grieving a death by suicide and navigating many other kinds of loss.  Her willingness and ability to be with people in some of the most troubling experiences is a very special quality of her vast clinical psychology skills. 

We at Waves do not shy away from difficult situations or emotions. Whether people are interested in approaching these situations head-on or move toward them slowly, we are proud of our ability to bring deep compassion, empathy, skill, and patience in our work.

If you are looking for support around reproductive grief, medical trauma, infertility, pregnancy loss, abortion, or grief that does not fit neatly into a category, Waves is here to help. Please click below and schedule a consultation with us. We would be honored to learn how we can be of help.