Being Pregnant
Oh No, We’re At This Stage Again?
Most of you are probably familiar with and have experienced for yourself the Five Stages of Grief that were introduced by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the late 1960′s. While the stages are most commonly used to explain the range of emotions felt when coping with death, they also coincide with the feelings an infertile couple experiences each month. It’s a vicious cycle but being educated and aware of it can help those dealing with infertility to prepare for each stage and allow it to run it’s course. It can also help those who are friends or family of the infertile couple to better understand the ups and downs that they are having.
So this week I’m going to address each stage and speak about my own experience dealing with it and also look to you for advice and guidance because at times I feel completely defeated. Today the first stage, denial.
I first experienced denial before our problem was even diagnosed. After the first year of trying I was still not convinced something was wrong. It was hard to make an appointment with a specialist or to go through with any procedures because I didn’t want to believe we were infertile. I would tell myself:
“It happens to other couples, not us.”
“We just have bad timing, it will work out.”
“We’ll just push things off because surely this is our month.”
Of course we now know there is a problem and denying it is no longer an option.
The denial stage has now turned into something that is revisited every month as I cope with the fact that I’m once again not pregnant. I deny PMS symptoms saying that they could be pregnancy related. I deny the negative pregnancy tests saying that there’s always room for false negatives. I even deny it when my period does arrive and say that maybe I’m just spotting and that’s normal for early pregnancy. I know that sounds crazy but any women who deals with it can probably relate. It’s not logical.
So how do you deal with the denial faze? I’ve tried to balance it with the logical side of my brain but that seems to leave me feeling horribly pessimistic. On the other hand, if I let my denying take over the depression afterwards is much greater. Help please.
Go Back To Being Pregnant
6 Comments
kelly commented on Jul 11 11 at 5:49 pmfor me this was one of the hardest stages. i felt like if i let go of the denial then i was letting go of hope…. to me they seem so hand in hand.
sarahh commented on Jul 11 11 at 7:01 pmI try, with varying degrees of success, to balance my symptom obsession with reminders to myself that symptoms that mean I might be pregnant can also mean anything from PMS to IBS to ‘flu to hypoglycemia to a whole host of mental disorders (why I find that reassuring, I do not know) to a broken ankle (probably). I also try to crack as many (usually inappropriate) jokes as possible through any of the stages – if I can crack a joke about something, it makes it a little smaller, and easier to manage. For the times when those don’t work, I try to make sure I recognize the signs that I’m going off a deep end so at least I know what’s coming next. If I have an idea of what’s coming, it’s easier to get through it. Not fun, but easier. Good luck!
katie commented on Jul 11 11 at 11:10 pmI used to think I just miscarried so at least I was pregnant for like a day. Sick right?
Lauren commented on Jul 12 11 at 9:54 amI don’t think I can help at all with this as I deal with it the same way you do. I try to reason with myself that these symptoms are most likely PMS, but my hopeful side wants to believe that I could be pregnant so bad that I just build up my positive expectations until that negative HPT gives me a sucker punch of reality. It’s a terrible, aching feeling. And.. it just sucks.
Kaitlin commented on Jul 12 11 at 10:03 amI felt the hardest part of dealing with the grief of infertility was never having closure. Every month my period would show up and the grief would come back, and every month we had to deal with the grief and allow hope back in so that we could try again. It is such a destructive cycle, and it is so hard to handle the sorrow of infertility while at the same time holding on to the hope that sometime, somehow, it will work out.
And some months I did exactly what you do. I kept the hope that I was pregnant alive even through negative tests and the beginnings of my period, delaying the grief. The hardest was after our first IVF attempt, when my period was five days late, getting all our hopes up, and then showed up as intermittent spotting for three days before settling into normal. Those three days were a complete hell of hope and despair.
I am so glad you are writing these posts, Melanie. I think both those of us who have been through it and those who haven’t benefit from the insights of your experience.
Maggie commented on Jul 13 11 at 9:31 pmThis post made me cry. We have been trying for almost a year & I have avoided going to a specialist because I don’t want to admit there’s a problem. I have been saying the exact things that you said in this post. Thank you for sharing so much & good luck this month.
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