Infertility Grief Counseling
Grieving What You Imagined
Even when the loss is invisible, the grief is real. Infertility means mourning the baby you pictured, the family you planned, the ease you expected, and the sense of normalcy you hoped for—all while being told to "stay positive." At Dancing Bee Counseling in Madison, Wisconsin, Abby Lemke, MS, LPC-IT offers compassionate support for these quiet, unspoken losses. Your feelings deserve understanding and a space to be honored.
You're Grieving, Even If No One Died
People grieve deaths. They grieve divorces. They grieve lost jobs. But grieving infertility? That confuses people, including sometimes yourself. How do you mourn something that never existed? How do you grieve a baby you never held, a pregnancy that never happened, a family that exists only in your imagination?
The answer is: you grieve it deeply, painfully, and often alone. Fertility grief is what researchers call ambiguous loss or non-finite loss. There's no clear ending, no funeral, no sympathy cards. The loss is invisible to others, which makes it disenfranchised grief: grief that society doesn't fully recognize or support.
But your grief is real. The sadness is real. The anger is real. The jealousy when you see pregnancy announcements, the longing when you pass the baby aisle, the emptiness at family gatherings where everyone has kids but you. All of it is real, valid grief that deserves acknowledgment and support.
Infertility grief counseling creates space to mourn what you've lost and what hasn't happened. You don't have to stay positive. You can just be honest about how much this hurts.
What Are You Actually Grieving?
Infertility involves multiple, layered losses. Understanding what you're mourning can help you process it.
The Imagined Child
The baby you've pictured, named in your mind, decorated a nursery for in your imagination. The child you expected to exist by now. Loss of the imagined child is profound even though that child was never born.
The Expected Family
The family size you planned, the sibling relationships you envisioned, the grandchildren you'd give your parents. Loss of the expected family means grieving an entire future that may not happen.
The Pregnancy Experience
Announcing at Thanksgiving, feeling kicks, having a baby shower thrown for you. Loss of the pregnancy experience means missing milestones everyone else seems to have.
Genetic Connection
If donor gametes or adoption become considerations, you may grieve loss of genetic connection before you've even made those decisions. Mourning the biological child you may never have.
Control and Agency
You planned. You did everything right. Loss of control over your own body and life path is its own grief. Infertility strips away the assumption that effort leads to results.
Innocence and Ease
Loss of innocence about reproduction. You now know things can go wrong. You've lost the ability to approach pregnancy with simple excitement. Loss of ease means grieving what should have been simple.
Identity
If being a parent was central to who you thought you'd be, infertility threatens your sense of self. Loss of identity as the parent you expected to become is disorienting grief.
The Timeline
The age you'd be when your kids graduated. The energy you'd have as a young parent. Loss of the timeline means grieving the life plan that's slipping away month by month.
Why Infertility Grief Is So Complicated
Infertility grief doesn't follow the typical grief pattern. It has unique characteristics that make it especially difficult to process.
Cumulative Grief
Each negative test, each failed cycle, each period that arrives adds another loss. Cumulative grief builds month after month, year after year. You're not grieving once. You're grieving repeatedly.
Ambiguous Loss
Ambiguous loss has no clear ending. You don't know if you'll eventually have a baby or not. You're grieving something that might still happen, which makes it impossible to reach closure.
Disenfranchised Grief
Disenfranchised grief is grief that others don't recognize or validate. "At least you can keep trying." "You're not even pregnant yet." Society minimizes fertility grief, leaving you to mourn alone.
Anticipatory Grief
Anticipatory grief is mourning something before it's fully lost. You grieve the baby each cycle before you know if conception happened. You grieve the family you might never have while still hoping you will.
Chronic Grief
Chronic grief is grief that doesn't resolve because the loss is ongoing. As long as you're trying to conceive, the grief continues. There's no "getting over it" while you're still in it.
Common Experiences of Fertility Grief
Grieving infertility brings a range of emotions. All of them are normal.
Sadness
Deep, pervasive sadness that comes in waves. Crying unexpectedly. Feeling heavy with sorrow.
Anger
Anger at your body, at the unfairness, at people who get pregnant easily, at the universe.
Jealousy and Envy
Jealousy when friends announce pregnancies. Envy of strangers with strollers. Guilt about feeling jealous.
Guilt and Shame
Guilt about past choices. Shame about your body not working. Guilt about how infertility affects your partner.
Emptiness
A hollow feeling, like something is missing. Emptiness where your expected life should be.
Yearning and Longing
Intense yearning for a baby, for pregnancy, for the life you imagined. Longing that doesn't quiet.
Isolation and Loneliness
Feeling alone even in a room full of people. Isolation from friends who don't understand. Loneliness in your grief.
Numbness
Shutting down to protect yourself. Not feeling anything because feeling everything is too much.
When Grief Hits Hardest
Certain situations reliably trigger infertility grief. Knowing your triggers helps you prepare and cope.
Pregnancy Announcements
On social media, in person, at work. Each one reminds you of what you don't have. The worst are the "surprise" or "so easy" announcements.
Baby Showers
Being invited is painful. Not being invited is painful. Attending feels impossible. Skipping brings guilt. Baby showers are grief landmines.
Mother's Day / Father's Day
Holidays celebrating parenthood when parenthood eludes you. Mother's Day and Father's Day can be the hardest days of the year.
Holidays and Family Gatherings
Christmas, Thanksgiving, family reunions. Questions about when you'll have kids. Watching cousins play. Holidays amplify infertility grief.
Due Dates and Anniversary Dates
The due date you calculated after a positive test. Anniversary of starting treatment. Dates that mark what should have been.
Baby Aisles and Nursery Stores
Walking past baby sections. Seeing tiny clothes. The physical spaces designed for parents-to-be that you can't enter without pain.
Pregnant Friends and Strangers
Your friend's growing belly. The pregnant woman at the grocery store. Constant reminders of what your body isn't doing.
Social Media
Ultrasound photos, birth announcements, family photoshoots. Social media is a minefield of triggers that can ambush you at any moment.
Processing Infertility Grief
Grief counseling for infertility creates space to mourn, understand, and eventually integrate your losses.
Witnessing Your Grief
Perhaps the most important thing: someone who truly sees and acknowledges your grief. No minimizing. No "at least" statements. No pushing you to be positive. Just witnessing the reality of your loss.
Naming the Losses
We identify and name the specific losses you're grieving. This process, called grief work, helps you understand why the pain is so big. You're not grieving one thing. You're grieving many things.
Processing Emotions
Grief brings complicated emotions: sadness, anger, jealousy, guilt, shame. Therapy provides a space to feel and process these emotions rather than suppressing them because they're "not nice."
Coping with Triggers
We develop specific strategies for managing grief triggers: pregnancy announcements, baby showers, Mother's Day, family questions. Having a plan reduces the ambush quality of these moments.
Meaning-Making
Meaning-making is finding purpose or understanding within suffering. This doesn't mean everything happens for a reason. It means finding your own meaning in this experience, whatever that looks like for you.
Living Alongside Grief
You may not "get over" infertility grief, especially while you're still trying. We work on living alongside grief, finding moments of joy and connection even while carrying loss.
Who Seeks Infertility Grief Counseling?
Months or years into trying with grief accumulating each cycle
After failed fertility treatment grieving the cycle, the embryo, the hope
Processing pregnancy loss alongside infertility grief
Struggling with pregnancy announcements and can't understand why they hurt so much
Feeling isolated because no one understands what you're grieving
Angry at everyone telling you to stay positive when you need to grieve
Considering stopping treatment and grieving the end of this path
After deciding to stop grieving the family you won't have through birth
Wherever you are in this journey, if you're grieving, you deserve support.
Schedule a ConsultationQuestions About Infertility Grief
Is infertility considered a loss?
Yes, infertility is absolutely a loss, often multiple losses. Researchers use terms like ambiguous loss, non-finite loss, and disenfranchised grief to describe infertility grief because it doesn't fit the typical grief mold. You're grieving the imagined child, the expected family, the ease of conception, your sense of control, your identity as a future parent, and your life timeline. These are real losses even though there's no death and nothing tangible to point to. Infertility loss and grief deserve the same acknowledgment and support as any other significant life loss.
How do I cope with infertility grief?
Learning how to grieve infertility is a process, not a destination. Coping with infertility grief involves several approaches. Allow yourself to grieve rather than pushing feelings away or forcing positivity. Name the specific losses you're mourning, which can help you understand the depth of the grief. Find at least one person who truly validates your grief, whether that's a partner, friend, support group, or therapist. Limit exposure to triggers when possible by muting social media accounts or declining baby showers without guilt. Create rituals to honor your losses, whatever feels meaningful to you. Seek counseling for infertility grief from a counselor who understands fertility-specific grief, sometimes called infertility and grief counseling. Most importantly, stop expecting yourself to "get over it" on a timeline. Grief takes as long as it takes.
Why am I grieving infertility when I haven't lost anything?
This question itself reveals disenfranchised grief: the belief that your grief isn't legitimate because nothing "real" was lost. But you have lost things. You've lost the naive assumption that pregnancy would happen easily. You've lost months or years of your life to treatments, waiting, and hoping. You've lost the family-building timeline you planned. You've lost confidence in your body. You've lost emotional energy to failed cycles. You've lost connection with friends who moved on to parenthood. You're grieving not having children on your terms, not having children at all yet, and possibly never having biological children. These losses are real and valid, even without a death or a funeral.
What are the stages of infertility grief?
The classic "stages of grief" (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) don't map neatly onto infertility grief. Infertility grief stages are more like recurring waves than a linear progression because the loss is ongoing. You might experience denial when you first learn of infertility, anger at your body or the unfairness, bargaining with treatments or lifestyle changes, sadness that comes in waves, and moments of acceptance. But then a new failed cycle or pregnancy announcement can restart the cycle. It's more accurate to think of fertility grief as cumulative and cyclical rather than staged. Acceptance in infertility often means accepting uncertainty rather than accepting a final outcome.
When should I see a grief counselor for infertility?
Consider seeing an infertility grief therapist when grief is affecting your daily functioning, relationships, or quality of life. Signs include: intense emotional reactions to pregnancy announcements that don't ease over time, avoiding significant parts of your life like friends, family, or social events because of grief triggers, feeling like no one understands what you're going through, carrying anger, jealousy, or sadness that feels overwhelming, struggling in your relationship because of grief, or feeling stuck in grief without any relief. You don't need to be in crisis to benefit from fertility loss support. Processing infertility grief with professional help can provide relief and coping strategies whether you're early in your journey or years into it.
Why See a Fertility-Specialized Grief Therapist?
Understanding Invisible Loss
General grief counselors typically work with death-related losses. I understand the unique nature of fertility grief: the ambiguity, the ongoing nature, the lack of social recognition. You won't have to convince me your grief is real.
Knowing Fertility-Specific Triggers
Baby showers, Mother's Day, pregnancy announcements, the baby aisle. I understand these triggers and can help you develop specific strategies for managing them without generic grief advice.
Navigating Cyclical Grief
I understand that infertility grief cycles with your treatment cycles. Each month brings renewed hope and renewed potential for loss. This cyclical nature requires different approaches than grief with a clear ending.
ASRM Training
My training through the American Society for Reproductive Medicine prepared me specifically for the mental health challenges of infertility, including the complex grief that accompanies fertility struggles.
Infertility Grief Counseling in Madison, Wisconsin
Dancing Bee Counseling provides specialized infertility grief therapy from our Waunakee office. Telehealth sessions are available throughout Wisconsin.
Dancing Bee Counseling
Serving Dane County and Beyond:
Your grief deserves a witness. Reach out when you're ready.
Abby Lemke, MS, LPC-IT
Reproductive Mental Health Specialist
I founded Dancing Bee Counseling because I saw how many people were grieving infertility alone, without anyone to truly witness their loss. Our culture doesn't make space for mourning infertility. There are no rituals, no sympathy cards, no acknowledgment that what you're experiencing is profound grief.
In my practice, I create that space. I believe infertility grief is real, that it deserves to be witnessed, and that you shouldn't have to pretend to be okay when you're not. Whether you're still trying or have stopped, still hoping or processing the end of a path, I'm here to sit with you in your grief.
Your Grief Deserves to Be Witnessed
You don't have to grieve alone, and you don't have to pretend you're fine. A consultation is simply a conversation about what you're carrying and how therapy might help.
In-person in Waunakee · Telehealth throughout Wisconsin