The seven stages of grief are as follows:
Shock and Denial,
Pain and Guilt,
Anger,
Depression,
The Upward Turn,
Reconstruction,
Acceptance and Hope.
But sadness - you may have noticed is not on that list. I suppose it could come under the umbrella of pain or the one of depression as you can feel it within both of these emotions.
Grief is a strange thing. Some people believe that there is a hierarchy of grief and the higher up the list you find yourself the more accepted your grief is. The longer you are allowed to grieve.
Well that simply isn't true.
(Thanks to Zoe Clark-Coates at Saying Goodbye Charity for this quote and image)
All kinds of grief are valid. And those going through it should be given the time and space to come to terms with what they are feeling. Without others trying to add their own agenda to how they think that person should be dealing with things. Everybody is different and everybody will deal with it in their own way. Two people can go through the same loss and come at it in very different ways.
When that loss is a child, a baby, a fetus, an embryo; that loss can come at any stage of parenthood. No matter when that occurs, the loss has the same effect on the parents. They do not just loose them the age they left, they think about them at every stage they could have got to, special occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter etc...
No one can tell you what you are allowed to grieve or not, or in what time frame. From the moment that child was a possibility - they were loved. They were loved before they were even conceived... the thought of them, the idea of them, the dream of them, the love for them all began before they started to grow. This is why when we found out that IVF transfer had failed, we didn't just loose children we had loved for a month, we lost children we could have loved, cherished and cared for, for a lifetime.
These children had been in our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams for our future. We had started thinking what our lives would be like with them. How they would be with their cousins. What they might be called. When their due date could be. How we could announce our little miracle to the world. How could we use our story to inspire and encourage others in a similar situation.
Then the pain and anger you are feeling at your unsuccessful attempt at parenthood. And you begin to ask yourself what was it all for? All the injections, all the tablets, all the prodding and poking and blood tests and physical pain, emotional pain, isolation, scans ... what was it all for? Was it worth it?
The anger and depression you feel at every new parent you see, every new announcement of pregnancy, every milestone others are able to achieve and celebrate and you are no further along, than you were 5 years previously when you began this journey. You start to feel like you hate everything and everyone and you do not even know who you are anymore or where these thoughts and feelings are coming from. Everything upsets you! Everything makes you cry! Love - what is that? Andrea, who is she? Who am I? Where has that positive, optimistic person gone? Why can't I get over this? Why can't I sleep? And where is God in all this?
I am then reminded of this poem:
That no matter how I'm feeling God is always there and he is carrying me. Those feelings of "anger and hate" are not really me. Those ARE the thoughts of grief that I am feeling and that is how they are manifesting within me. In order to get myself back to my natural, loving, caring and optimistic self; I must begin to operate a little self-care and change my mindset to more positive thinking. This involves stripping back from all things that are making me sad, angry and depressed all rolled into one. I do not want these feelings of anger to effect my relationships with family and friends. I do not want to feel negatively about all children I come into contact with and if that means I need to take a short break until the near future. Then that is what I need to do. Does this mean I love them any less? No! In fact it means I love them more! It means I love them ever so much, I just don't want to harm them with the negativity I am feeling at this moment.
I was reminded by our nephew "To keep hope and everything will work out exactly as it should" and that "we still have a chance, it's not over yet." He is right, we have God on our side, he has made us a promise and that promise he will fulfill.
I don't feel I've been through all the 7 stages, but at the time of writing this it has only been 3 weeks since our negative result. Who knows if we will? Or in fact if you have to go through all of them.
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