What Makes Infertility Grief So Hard

The pain of infertility and miscarriage is different from other grief and in some ways these differences make it harder to cope. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, interviews Dr. Ken Doka, professor at The College of New Rochelle, Senior Consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America and the the author of Disenfranchised Grief; and Kris Faasse, Director of Adoption for Bethany Christian Services, who has many years of experience counseling pre and post adoptive parents dealing with the grief of infertility and miscarriage.

Hit the Highlights
  • Why is infertility grief referred to as “disenfranchised grief”?
  • Why is infertility grief sometimes called an ambiguous loss?
  • What are the typical triggers for infertility grief?
  • What is the quadruple whammy of infertility?
  • Why is the right to mourn so powerful?
  • What triggers can happen after adoption?
  • Do men and women handle grief in a different manner?
  • What are the predominant styles for grieving?
  • How to handle the grief associated with a miscarriage?
  • How can unresolved infertility grief impact an adoption or adoptive parenting?
  • What type of pre-adoption education and counseling can help?
  • Why is adoption not a cure for infertility?
  • How can infertility grief affect attachment in adoption?
  • What are some techniques for coming to term with infertility grief?
  • How do you know if you have healed sufficiently from infertility to move on to adoption?

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Image Credit: Rennett Stowe

Show originally aired in 2013.