By Caitlin Vinter, LICSW, PMH-C
It was after my third miscarriage, after my therapist had been encouraging me to find a support group, that I made my way to AllPaths.
By this point, I had been struggling with recurrent pregnancy loss for over a year. I was already drowning in my grief, not knowing that it would still be another two years with countless procedures, antibiotics, egg retrievals, and more before we would finally welcome our first son.
There is nothing like the isolation that infertility and pregnancy loss brings.
It’s impossible to understand, unless you’ve lived it, the experience of having everything you’ve known about yourself, your body, and your relationships thrown up in the air and shattered.
Why is it so hard to feel supported and understood through infertility?
This is the question that comes up in conversation after conversation with my clients. So many people are uncomfortable with grief.
The superpower that women gain when having lived through an infertility experience is that we are not. We know how to spot grief in others. We have learned how to sit with them in it because we’ve had to sit in our own. We know how to access that grief within ourselves to connect with others who are drowning in theirs.
Now, 6 years after my first support group with AllPaths, I feel such immense relief to have brought my family building chapter to a close, knowing I won’t have to suffer the grief of another miscarriage, another unwanted period, or that isolation again. That isolation has faded with time, but that grief will always be a part of me; my story has just grown around it.
When I was in the thick of it, when I felt like few people got it, I put pen to paper in hopes that my experience could help illuminate for others how to show up for people like me – people who are grieving and sitting with the weight of the questions:
“Will I ever get to be a parent?”
“When will this end?”
“How do I keep going?”
Here are my thoughts from that time that I try to live by today when showing up to support others.
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Things you can do to support someone going through fertility struggles or pregnancy loss:
1. Anything. Seriously – just do something, anything, and it will be meaningful. This time can be so isolating, dark, and challenging. If a friend had a baby you would probably reach out to congratulate them, occasionally check in afterwards, send a gift (more on this in a minute), bring some food.
But what about those of us who keep trying to have a baby and haven’t gotten there yet? What about those of us who are on that path and then lose the pregnancy, and all the dreams that came along with it? Do any of those same things for these friends.
After my 4th miscarriage my brother sent me and my husband a gift basket of snack foods. We don’t really even eat snack foods, but I can’t express how much love I felt receiving bacon jalapeño crackers from my brother. And I’m a vegetarian. Do. Something.
2. Check in on them periodically. My journey so far has been 2.5 years and I have no idea how much longer it will be. It’s on my mind every single day, but I know that other peoples’ lives keep moving on and it can be hard to remember that I am still grieving every day.
Set reminders in your phone if you need to, but send a text every once in a while just letting your friend know that you haven’t forgotten her struggle. You don’t need to ask details of where they are with IVF or when they get to try next, just simply opening the door and letting that friend decide if she wants to share more. You can even ask, “do you want to talk about it?”
3. Name what is happening. I know a lot of people have said to me, “I haven’t known what to say…” And I get that. I probably wouldn’t know what to say to me either. What do you say to someone who has lost 4 pregnancies?
What you say is that you haven’t quite known what to say, how often to check in, if your friend wants to talk about it, but that she’s been on your mind.
Saying nothing feels like you are telling me that my pain doesn’t exist.
Saying something, even if it’s that you haven’t known what to say, shows me that you see my pain and my grief, and everyone deserves to have others hold their pain with them. You aren’t going to remind me of my sadness by naming my losses, I am already sad everyday and it actually feels so good to know that other people understand that.
4. Check in with their partner. Partners have it so hard too. They may not be going through the same physical experiences of tests, procedures, etc. but they are going through so much too. In some ways their pain can be even harder because it is invisible to so many people. Please tell them they are on your mind, please ask them how they are doing, do something for them too.
My husband’s journey has been so lonely and he has lost a pregnancy, a future child, every single time I have, and has had to watch his wife in physical and emotional pain without being able to do anything. Acknowledge this.
5. Send them something. I don’t usually think of myself as a huge gift person but something about going through all of these experiences have left me feeling like I really want them to be acknowledged. And there is something about knowing a friend or family member took time and energy out of their day where they thought of me and did something for me. A home-cooked meal, snacks delivered by Whole Foods delivery, a candle, a card.
Things not to do with a friend going through fertility struggles or pregnancy loss:
1. Don’t announce your pregnancy to them like they are just anyone. They are happy for you, they are excited for you, and their heart is breaking. Tread lightly with this friend – don’t tip toe around them or tell everyone else and not tell them, but be gentle and kind with how you share this news, knowing they will have feelings that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
The best way that I have had friends or family members share their pregnancy news with me is through email. This gave me time to have that heart sinking feeling, cry a little, and then gather myself before offering a response. Doing it in person, especially in a group, and expecting this person to be purely excited isn’t fair – give them time to process so that they can show their true happiness and excitement for you once they have also moved through the wave of grief that comes with every pregnancy announcement.
Also, one of the best ways friends and family have approached me about their announcements is to acknowledge that it might be hard for me and that if they are sharing in a way that has made it harder or if they have messed up in some way, that they want me to tell them so that they can make it right. Nothing makes you feel more held by someone you love than them humbly saying, “Hey, maybe I’ve messed up, and if I have I am truly sorry. You’re important to me so I want to share this with you and I am open to hearing how I could have done this better.” It’s the best.
2. Don’t check in less with the more losses they have or the longer it’s taking them to get pregnant. Maybe you are losing hope for them and feel even more uncomfortable with what to say. The good news is that you don’t have to be endlessly positive for this friend – “I know this will still happen for you” – in fact it’s better not to be! We don’t know what will happen.
Be willing to put your discomfort aside and do the hard thing. If this is uncomfortable for you, imagine what it feels like for me to be living it?
3. Don’t compare, please. Even if you feel like you might understand some part of what they are going through, the best way to say that isn’t “I get what you’re going through,” but it’s, “I think I have felt parts of what you are going through and knowing how hard that was for me, I can only imagine how much you are feeling and carrying with you.”
Please don’t invalidate your friend’s pain by comparing it to other pain. All of our pain can exist simultaneously and not in comparison to each others’.
4. Don’t be overly positive. In my job we call it toxic positivity when an attempt to be overly positive implicitly invalidates the person’s actual experience:
“At least you can try again soon.”
“Maybe it just hasn’t been the right time and it will be soon.”
“At least you know you can get pregnant.”
What all of these statements actually say is “I can’t handle your pain, I need to make sense of this bad thing, and I don’t really have room for negative emotions.”
I get it, it’s hard. But don’t put this spin on it. When couples or individuals are going through a journey like this, we don’t really know where it will take us or how it will end. We have to hold that the destination may not look anything like what we thought it would. Can you hold that with us? Simply say:
“I hate that you’re going through this.”
“You’re on my mind and I’m here for you.”
Honestly not being positive lets us know we can be more honest with you and lets us not have to take care of your emotions and get real about how much this sucks.
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I hope that these suggestions can find their way to folks who really want to support people they love who are going through infertility, but just aren’t sure how.
The best way to heal from pain and loss is through relationships.
We are wired for connection. There is nothing like being held, supported, and witnessed through a time of grief.
Caitlin Vinter is a perinatal therapist and founder of Era Psychotherapy, a virtual group practice that helps women across the lifespan, specializing in infertility, pregnancy, and postpartum. She is a mom to two little boys, who arrived after her own journey through recurrent pregnancy loss and infertility.