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Lifelong Grief
Both as a survivor of infertility and a therapist who walks with clients through and after the journey, I know it is never simple. This journey leaves us with grief.
And, I am learning grief lasts a lifetime.
Infertility is lifelong, and eventually you must choose how it defines you.
No matter how your story ends up.
For me, it didn’t work. Our family portrait is not complete with the 2.5 kids. The losses and costs of the infertility journey, and the loss of our three babies, are the stones I carry in my pocket every day for the rest of my life.
For many of my clients, it has ended with children, and yet, they too are left with scars for a lifetime.
The scars of the babies who never took a breath of this earth’s fresh air.
The scars of the financial burdens.
The scars of the damage to their relationships.
The scars of losing themselves to the journey.
The scars of anger and bitterness.
No matter how the infertility journey ends, like anything in our lives, we choose how it leaves us. These scars leave us with plenty to be bitter about. There is also plenty to find joy and gratitude in and for.
This is how we find our place in His story and how we glorify Him.
We simply must choose it, because He has our story but in many ways we choose our legacy.
We are always healing and we are forever changed.
Infertility or not, whatever we have had to survive in this life — and we will all have something — it is never I think, all good or all bad. And, I just don’t think we have a choice but to be forever changed by it all somehow. This is the work we must do; the work to be okay; to be better than okay. Because, that is where our choice lies, to choose how to be okay after we’ve survived it.
To choose how we are forever changed because then we will feel and live out His unfailing love.
Both as a survivor of infertility and a therapist who walks with clients through and after the journey, I know it is never simple. This journey leaves us with grief.
And, I am learning grief lasts a lifetime.
Infertility is lifelong, and eventually you must choose how it defines you.
No matter how your story ends up.
For me, it didn’t work. Our family portrait is not complete with the 2.5 kids. The losses and costs of the infertility journey, and the loss of our three babies, are the stones I carry in my pocket every day for the rest of my life.
For many of my clients, it has ended with children, and yet, they too are left with scars for a lifetime.
The scars of the babies who never took a breath of this earth’s fresh air.
The scars of the financial burdens.
The scars of the damage to their relationships.
The scars of losing themselves to the journey.
The scars of anger and bitterness.
No matter how the infertility journey ends, like anything in our lives, we choose how it leaves us. These scars leave us with plenty to be bitter about. There is also plenty to find joy and gratitude in and for.
This is how we find our place in His story and how we glorify Him.
We simply must choose it, because He has our story but in many ways we choose our legacy.
We are always healing and we are forever changed.
Infertility or not, whatever we have had to survive in this life — and we will all have something — it is never I think, all good or all bad. And, I just don’t think we have a choice but to be forever changed by it all somehow. This is the work we must do; the work to be okay; to be better than okay. Because, that is where our choice lies, to choose how to be okay after we’ve survived it.
To choose how we are forever changed because then we will feel and live out His unfailing love.
About this Plan
Bestselling author of Ever Upward, Justine Brooks Froelker, walks the reader through healthy messages of surviving and thriving infertility and loss. A mental health therapist and a survivor of failed infertility herself, Justine guides the reader through topics such as relationships, self-care, shame, doubt and grief. She helps the reader to find their place in God’s story, even when it has not turned out who they had hoped and dreamed.
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We would like to thank Justine Brooks Froelker for providing this plan. For more information, please visit: www.everupward.org
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