Grief and infertility. Two things I feel the effects of everyday.
It’s been about nine years since I had a miscarriage and eight years since I found out I couldn’t have children. My husband and I were heartbroken. We were told we could try IVF, but it would still be a huge longshot. So, we decided to focus on what we had rather than attempt the improbable.
I say all this, why? Because being in this position is very lonely. From my experience, no one really wants to talk about when the miracle doesn’t happen. People want to talk about the “happy” story of getting pregnant despite the odds or a miraculous adoption where a child (or children) were saved from dire circumstances. They don’t want to hear when the happy ending doesn’t come; the rainbow after a storm. I wouldn’t really want to either.
One morning a few weeks ago while driving to work, I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR. (I have a 30 minute drive, and I usually listen to either NPR or Linkin Park). Host Leila Fadel was interviewing Sara Bareilles about her new album, Good Grief, and her documentary of the same name. Both are about how she has been managing a lot of grief and loss since 2020. Two of her friends died, and she and her husband were on a difficult IVF journey.
Her song, Ladies in a Line, is about that IVF journey. She said there isn’t a lot of conversation with women who have trouble getting pregnant until after they have a baby.
“So, people were willing to talk once they had their family [but not before],” she said. “I have no judgement about that, but I felt really lonely.”
I completely agree and was floored to hear another person say what I’ve been feeling since 2018.
Bareilles said she was going through IVF while she was writing that song and was hopeful she would have a baby by the time it was released so she could talk about her whole process of getting there (miscarriage, IVF, etc.).
“It just didn’t happen that way for me,” she said.
It didn’t happen that way for me either.
Bareilles also talked about another thing that comes with infertility – shame.
“I think there is a lot of shame embedded into when you can’t get pregnant… . It’s as natural as it comes. There is something broken,” she said.
She’s right. You can’t help but feel broken when you can’t have kids. It’s a weird, lonely place to be, and like everything else no one wants to talk about it.
In fact, Bareilles’ comments about it are the first time I’ve heard someone who knows what infertility without the happy ending is like talk about it publicly. That’s a shame because so many women go through this.
I’ve written about it, and I know others have, too. I have friends and family members who tried to know and help my pain, but she is the first person to put words to that specific grief and make it known. Her words also gave me (and I assume others) a freedom knowing there are more of us out there.
I don’t know where I go from here, but I know wherever that is I’m not alone.
Ladies in a Line – By Sara Bareilles
Ladies in a line
Waiting for the fine-tipped needles
Craving just a tiny piece of good news
Doctors have ideas
But tell you nothing is for certain
And medicine’s amazing, but it isn’t perfect
Empty arms with lists of names
The cruel truth of starting late
Life was asking other questions till now
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
The depths of this are changing
Reminds me of the ocean floor
I’m just swimming where they tell me to
Till I can’t swim no more
The thing that keeps me going
Is a quiet kind of faith
What is meant to find me will find me
Anywhere I am anyway
But empty arms with lists of names
Grief is a blanket, it covers everything
Life was asking other questions till now
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
Ladies in a line
