Implantation Loss Is a Loss Too and Needs to Be Grieved

Implantation loss is a very painful loss that should be grieved

Implantation loss, a failed transfer of a fertilized embryo, is a very real, complicated, and painful loss for the individual or couple hoping to conceive. It’s also a loss that our culture is not set up well to support. Infertility treatments are physically laborious, time-consuming, and draining processes that are often overwhelming. Between the hormone shots, blood work, doctor appointments, egg retrievals, and all that waiting, there is usually a reasonable amount of emotional disassociation required just to get through the process and its many unknowns.

In particular, the day of implantation is long-awaited and hard-fought after the process of IVF and embryo transfer. When the embryo doesn’t successfully implant in the uterine lining or attaches but causes an early miscarriage, it can be devastating. If you weathered the whole process and almost got to the finish line, implantation loss can bring deep disappointment and complicated grief.

Implantation loss is both a concrete loss of an embryo and your hopes and dreams for your family

What makes grieving implantation loss so complicated is that it can represent multiple losses: the embryo you related to as how you would become a parent (including a parent again if this is not your first child); the feeling that your body let you down; and the loss of a dream of becoming a parent with this hoped-for baby that you would carry and/or care for. The timing also can feel like a loss if you banked embryos and precisely considered when you wanted to try for a kid. Having kids is usually something we think of on and off throughout our lives, and more seriously plan for when we’re ready. Because these dreams can be a long time in the making, Implantation loss can be a big wallop to the system for both the individual and the couple.

Our culture struggles to support individuals and couples grieving implantation loss: That doesn’t mean rush by it

We live in a culture that prefers knowns, quick fixes, and easy solutions. Get fast relief and move on. We’re also more comfortable with grief when it’s similarly clear-cut. A person dies, we grieve, and have a memorial or funeral. In contrast, there is no road map for grieving implantation loss. The loss is abstract—the baby wasn’t born into the world, but that embryo meant something to the individual or couple. There are no norms like funerals or burials. There isn’t even language to fully capture the complexity of grieving someone you had hopes of knowing and parenting, yet wasn’t quite here.

Because of this, it can feel easier to rush past the grief rather than slowing down to fully feel the loss and sit with the gravity. This can be especially tempting when you want to get to the goal of having a baby. However, grieving implantation loss is better than letting it fester. The loss will still be there, no matter how long it’s ignored or put aside. Resisting this grief can be taxing on both the individual and a couple. Avoiding grief also risks having these feelings come out in funky ways even years later, whether being flooded with feelings when seeing a baby photo or pregnancy announcement, or when your hoped-for due date comes up.

How do you grieve implantation loss?: Create your own rituals 

When someone we love dies, we know it’s going to hurt. When someone loses a loved one, we know how to meet them with grace, curiosity, and understanding. With implantation loss, we don’t quite know what to do or how to be close in the same way. This means we have to work to create our own ways of making meaning or rituals around this loss.

The first step can be as simple as naming and embracing the loss as a loss (“I think I’m grieving”). This is a way to claim the grief for yourself and your family. Let others in too by asking them to be close to the grief, framing it so they can hold you while also learning how to care for someone dealing with an abstract loss like implantation loss (“I’m hurting right now. This is a loss. You can ask me questions or I might just need to be sad about it right now while you sit with me”). 

Rituals also help the grieving process, allowing you to mark what the loss meant. Because there are few precedents for grieving implantation loss, you can get as creative as you want. These rituals can be as simple as writing a letter to yourself, the embryo, or the person you were hoping to meet, explaining what the process and hoped-for baby meant to you as an individual, couple, and family; taking a grief walk with a close family member or friend to give you space to talk; listening to a song that is particularly meaningful to you to give yourself the words and feelings it elicits; or making art that symbolizes the process for you and your family.

Therapy can also help make meaning from implantation loss

Often, when in the midst of infertility treatments, feelings can take a backseat. Even though the process brings up a lot, you’re just trying to get through—the clock is ticking (and sometimes it is) and there’s no room to fall apart. Therapy is a way to take time to be with the grief of implantation loss in a setting that can hold these under-discussed feelings. Sometimes implantation loss makes room for and raises other previous losses from childhood or early adulthood. These can be other hopes and dreams dashed by disappointing news or a devastating losses, including working hard and not getting into a dream school, a parent you hoped would be there but frequently disappointed, the way your body may have previously let you down, or a death of a friend, family member, or sibling you wanted more time with. In therapy, both individuals and couples can slow down to fully feel the grief of this implantation loss alongside the earlier losses that may come up.

A huge task in therapy is also to avoid rushing through the grief and, instead, make meaning from it: What happened? What do you make of the loss? What are you thinking and feeling? What does this embryo mean to you and your family? More than just adding the experience to the list of your life and plowing forward, therapy can help find a deeper understanding and acceptance of implantation loss, as well as, eventually, decide how and if you want to try again.