The Complex Journey of Pregnancy Loss: A Personal Reflection
Just last week, I was speaking with another mama and soon-to-be mama who were swapping tales of their conception journeys, pregnancies, birthing experience, and the vision one was holding for her approaching due date. I sat there desperately trying to recount these same joyful moments. Instead, my recollection of pregnancy is faint.
Unlike the blissful ignorance of my first pregnancy, my fifth (and first successful) pregnancy was enveloped in fear. Fear of losing another baby, fear of my ability to withstand a grief so consuming, fear of loving something so fiercely only to have my heart broken. And so protection became my savior until my eyes locked with our daughter.
I never intended for this to happen, but self-preservation meant that this would be the only way to survive this pregnancy.
I stopped writing about my fertility journey after Darcy was born.
There’s an unspoken misconception that someone who has suffered infertility is miraculously cured the moment they hold their baby in their arms. That all of the pain, suffering, and unimaginable heartache is erased from their memory. And while yes, a live birth is ‘technically’ the triumphant moment that signals an individual is “cured,” it does not erase the prolonged period of painful suffering.
For almost two years since giving birth to our daughter, my memories and lived experience of infertility and pregnancy loss have sat just below the surface of my consciousness — close enough for me to watch over them and not so close that they can control me like they once did.
At each scan, I held my breath, waiting to hear her heartbeat, but never once allowed myself to believe I was “cured” from infertility.
Meet Elisa
As a Mama, wife, CEO, executive, and fertility advocate, Elisa is passionate about redefining motherhood.
