Five Stages of Grief

It isn't just death we have to grieve. It's life. It's loss. It's change.

Lexie: Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.

Mark: It isn't just death we have to grieve. It's life. It's loss. It's change.

Alex: And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime.

Izzie: That's how you stay alive. When it hurts so much you can't breathe, that's how you survive.

Derek: By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, you won't feel this way. It won't hurt this much.

Bailey: Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way.

Owen: So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty.

Meredith: The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can't control it.

Arizona: The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes.

Callie: And let it go when we can.

Meredith: The very worst part is that the minute you think you're past it, it starts all over again.

Cristina: And always, every time, it takes your breath away.

Meredith: There are five stages of grief. They look different on all of us, but there are always five.

Alex: Denial.

Derek: Anger.

Bailey: Bargaining.

Lexie: Depression.

Richard: Acceptance.

[Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5 Episode 13, “Stairway to Heaven”

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Recently, I wrote about the Sneaky Shred of Hope which has threatened me with all sorts of empty promises, overwriting my conscious brain and all of the systems in its way. Hope can be beautiful. But hope can also be dangerous, especially when you don’t realize how long you’ve been holding onto it, laying awake at night lying to yourself, allowing yourself to believe you can come to peace with the story in front of you and not the one that you once dreamed of.

This - this was denial for me.

The shred of hope that I tried desperately to ignore for the last several years, the one that first lit up back in 2017 when we began to try to conceive. It turns out, we can’t seem to have the only thing we’ve ever really wanted, a big family, or even just one living sibling for our five year old daughter, regardless of walking nearly to the end of the earth to work towards it. No matter how hard we tried, we still fell short. And this isn’t something I take lightly.

In three weeks time, I will say goodbye to this chapter of our lives, to the reproductive organs in my body, and to this constantly nagging, beautiful, heartbreaking remaining shred of hope which I have unknowingly carried around with me every minute of every day since before I ever became a mother.

And that, that’s where I feel angry.

Just the other day, I wrote about my relationship with Anger, and while I can sit with, identify + process the other emotions, and the other stages of grief, I’ve not previously known what to do with anger besides swallow it deep down into the bottom of my belly, and watch as it turns into self loathing and self criticality without a release valve in sight.

So today, I’m trying something different.

I’m going to pass the proverbial pen to my anger, and ask it to write a letter in its own words…

Sometimes, I feel broken beyond repair.

It’s not hyperbole. It’s not dramatics. It’s the raw, brutal truth.

I have spent my life yearning for motherhood. Dreaming of it. Preparing for it. Fighting tooth and nail for it. Infertility had already stolen so much from me—my sense of ease, my trust in my body, my belief that some things just work out. And then, against all odds, it happened. A spontaneous pregnancy. Something I was told could never happen for me. But the joy of that miracle lasted mere moments before it unraveled into a nightmare.

Ectopic.

I’ve learned that the medical term “spontaneous ectopic pregnancy” is such an oxymoron. It implies something natural, like a flower blooming on its own, when in reality, it’s a ticking time bomb inside your body. Mine ticked right past the warning signs and detonated, leaving me hemorrhaging, barely clinging to life on my bedroom floor. A ruptured fallopian tube, the loss of another baby, an emergency surgery in the middle of the night, and a gaping wound inside me that will never truly heal.

I lost Rowan that night.

I lost a piece of myself, too.

And yet, despite all information, despite all of the facts, despite the things I know to be true, I find myself in the bargaining phase, desperately hoping for another spontaneous pregnancy before it’s too late.

That desire is primal, involuntary, deeply ingrained, and overwhelmingly relentless.

It overrides logic and reason, whispering false hope into my ears, telling me maybe, just maybe, it could happen again—this time, the right way. This time, the safe way. This time, the way I always imagined.

But I know the truth. I choose to see the truth, even though I’d so much rather not.

There is no safe way for me to carry another baby. My body, stitched together with trauma and loss, cannot sustain another spontaneous pregnancy. Honestly, it probably can’t sustain another pregnancy at all. The next time, I might not be so lucky. The next time, I might not just lose yet another baby, but I might not make it out safely either. The next time, I might leave behind the family I’ve already fought so hard to build. And I can’t do that. No. Scratch that. I will not do that. I will not willingly leave my daughter without a mother.

And even if I survived, I know in my bones that I could not survive another loss.

Not like that.

Not again.

I may feel broken beyond repair, but I keep walking.

I keep breathing. I keep loving the child I have here with me, the child who calls me Mom and needs me whole. I hold her tiny hand in mine, and I remind myself that I am still standing. Barely, but standing. I remind myself that my relationship with her is the most sacred relationship in my life - that I conceived her and carried her, that I grew her body with mine, that I brought her into this world and then sustained her with my milk. Her cells will always be within me. Her heart will always live inside of mine.

My relationship with my living daughter has evolved so beautifully in the last few months, very much in a way that I had hoped for and am so proud of and grateful for. She seeks me out, she uses me to ground herself, she’s becoming resourced in her own ways, and she has such a pure and fierce love for the things the people around her love too. She is my light, and the most important reason for my fight.

Maybe one day, I will feel less shattered. Maybe one day, the agonizing depression that comes with this non-choice choice will feel less fresh. Maybe one day, I will stop tracing the scars of what could have been. Maybe one day, I will find peace in what is instead of what will never be. Maybe one day, I’ll even be able to find acceptance.

But today, I grieve.

Today, I ache.

Today I am angry.

Today, I am bargaining.

& Today, I remember this quote from a friend written nearly 15 years ago…

we are each magical, even the mean ones.

and we are each broken, even the together ones.

and to all who struggle with wondering

why you did not get chosen or why you did not get to choose,

just remember:

choose you first. and I choose you right back.

-MK, June 2010