Infertility vs. Pregnancy Loss

The journey to expanding your family can come with many labels, especially if it’s not as easy as “have sex, get pregnant.” For many stories, there is more than one label, and while I do not desire to give you a dictionary, there are a couple terms I want to spend some time with – because they matter for my story and perhaps, for yours.

I want to make certain that you know where I stand – and where I don’t. Because I don’t want to tread lightly or disrespect the stories of women in this space.

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Mayo Clinic defines infertility as the “inability to get pregnant despite having frequent, unprotected sex for at least a year.”

After I shared about my pregnancies and early miscarriages, I got so many messages from women about their own infertility struggles and how they are so grateful to not be alone. And while I’m so grateful these articles and my story have comforted those experiencing infertility, I want to be clear that I don’t fully know what this is like because infertility is not my story.

There’s definitely overlap between infertility and miscarriage, don’t get me wrong! But much of the most painful parts of living with an infertility story, I will never understand or grasp. All I can do is sit with you and listen🖤

An Instagram creator (@the_infertility_diary) once described infertility as, “The world moves forward, and you’re stuck in a cycle of waiting and heartbreak.”

Between conversations with those in this community and an online forum deep dive, here’s what I’ve learned about infertility: It’s such a hard battle. It’s a source of worry and pain. It’s lonely. The feelings of defeat and failure are consuming and constant. It sucks. Not having answers for the why is kinda the worst – it also introduces a lot of self-blame and guilt. It’s easy to feel crazy. It’s a tough journey, and it feels so unfair. Jealously of others, even those who experience pregnancy loss, is a common emotion. It’s exhausting. The toll it takes on your marriage can be heavy – sex loses all joy and fun. The callous comments of others (i.e. I wish this baby didn’t stick, it was an accident, oopsie baby, etc.) sting the worse. Resentment and bitterness easily creep in. Infertility has this weird way of redefining your identity, and not in a beautiful, true, God-honoring way.

There is loss, and there is grief with infertility. Rather than mourning a person, though, it’s a grief and loss of dreams and hopes and expectations.

Sarah from The Everyday Joy blog wrote, “When we started trying for a baby, we never anticipated the long and painful journey that lay ahead. Each negative test felt like a punch to the gut and a dagger to the heart, and the dream of becoming parents seemed to drift further away with every month that passed. It wasn’t just about not having a child; it was the loss of a future we had envisioned – family holidays, experiencing milestones, and bedtime stories.”

It's a cyclical grief, tied to both the monthly menstrual cycle and the cycle of life around you. It’s a recurrent grief, reappearing with each period and re-emerging with each pregnancy announcement on social media, child’s birthday party you attend, and holiday gathering.

I imagine it’s something like being an Israelite wandering in the desert for 40 years. Not sure what else to do, relying on God and God alone for the very strength and nourishment to make it through the day. No idea what the next month, the next cycle, the next year will look like.

May the God who sees every silent tear and knows your aching heart draw near to you today. May His comfort cradle you in the waiting, and His peace steady you in the unknown. May hope take root even in sorrow, and may you feel the nearness of the One who calls you beloved—always, no matter what. You are not forgotten. Amen.

Pregnancy loss is exactly what it sounds like: the loss of a pregnancy. It can be broken down into different and more specific labels depending on how far along the pregnancy was. These include (and are not limited to) miscarriage, early miscarriage, spontaneous abortion, chemical pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, and late term miscarriage.

I saw a quote from Heather Kokesch Del Castillo that pretty much sums up the experience of pregnancy loss: “I am the mama to a baby no one else can see.”

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) estimates that over 25% of pregnancies end before 20 weeks gestation. That’s 1 in 4 pregnancies! That’s one million babies that are never held every single year.

One million babies no one ever sees.

One million babies only the parents will remember in a year’s time.

Like infertility, the grief can be overwhelming. Yes, there is the mourning of hopes and dreams and expectations, and there’s the added grief of losing a human, a person, in the process. The grief is often compounded as mom experiences the postpartum hormone shifts and body changes, without a child in her arms.

And this grief is triggered by the smallest of things.

Valentine’s Day was unexpectedly hard for me this year. I wasn’t prepared for that.

When my boobs refused to return to pre-baby size, I had to order new bras. It took me a couple weeks to look at them without crying, a couple more to actually wear them.

When drip coffee finally tasted good again, I mourned that this small piece of my first pregnancy was gone.

Pregnancy loss is also unique in it’s intimacy with death. See, our bodies experienced death. It occurred in us, passed through us, and left us changed for the rest of our days.

I’ve almost died three times, but experiencing death in my body that was not my own was something else. I’m still looking for the words to describe it…pregnancy loss is a spiritual experience as much as it is a physical one.

May the Lord hold you gently in the weight of your grief, tenderly cradling both your broken heart and the life you carried. May His presence be your refuge, His tears mingle with yours, and His love remind you that you do not grieve alone. In every ache, may you sense the nearness of the God who redeems all things, even this. Amen.

The emotional scars are gruesome for both infertility and pregnancy loss. They cut even deeper when we walk these stories alone, choosing to mask our grief, hide our suffering.

This is not how God designed it.

Living with invisible illnesses prepared me to live as an invisible mother in ways I never dreamt of. It allows me grace for the people who assume, and it allows me to bravely answer the question, “do you have children?”

Sister, I will spend the rest of my days reminding you of this: your hard and heavy story was meant to exist with other hard and heavy stories.

Suffering silently only prolongs the storm of shame and guilt and confusion raging around you. Start by sharing with one safe person – let them embrace you with the arms of Jesus, and let your pain be seen.

No matter where you find yourself when it comes to the vast terrain of family planning, your story belongs here, with me, with us 🖤