I don’t think I realized the deep desire people feel to be grandparents until I was out of college, when I heard women in a church class I was taking talking about how their grandchildren bring them so much joy in life. Before then, on account of my own age, I’d never thought about being a grandmother, only a mother. I’d longed to be a mother, but now I saw for the first time how women also long to be grandmothers. And men long to be fathers and grandfathers, too. 

One of the things that has surprised us repeatedly while walking the road of infertility for over three years has been the amount of suffering it has caused not only us, but our parents and family as well.  

I am suffering, yes, but so are the family members around me. They are suffering because it’s hard for them to watch me suffer. And they are also suffering because they are also missing the relationship that they could have had with a child of mine. While I know that it isn’t my fault,  sometimes it can feel like it is. 

Though I have never conceived, I work in the realm of pregnancy loss. When a baby is lost to miscarriage or stillbirth, or really when any grandchild dies before their grandparent, we say that grandparents grieve twice: Once for losing their grandchild and again for seeing their child suffer. In many ways it is the same in infertility, but with the added complexity that they are grieving a child that never actually existed, but that they wish had. 

Whether grieving a lack or grieving a loss, grief hurts, and the process isn’t linear. It’s complicated. Some days are easier than others. Some days we want to share and some days we want to isolate. Some days we have hope and peace and others despair and fear. Sometimes we have energy to think positively and sometimes we are convinced this is the end of the road and a meaningless and childless future awaits. 

For my parents, I think having grandchildren from my brother and sister is of course very fulfilling – being able to be a grandparent fulfills that longing in their hearts – but in a way it makes it worse. It is also so hard for me to see my widowed mother-in-law longing for grandchildren she doesn’t yet have. They know how much joy children bring to their life and they long for me and my husband to be able to experience that and for them to be able to experience that with us. The beauty of the human person is that they are unique and irreplaceable – so having one can never replace the others.

As we have begun the process of discerning adoption, we’ve also had to consider my family in ways I hadn’t thought about beforehand. How will the child fit in socially and age-wise with the other grandchildren? How will we explain adoption well to the other children? How will we pay for it? How can we make sure the potential adopted child feels a sense of belonging and experiences trauma healing? The child isn’t just adopted by me and  my husband, but rather join an entire family with all our joys and challenges. 

In a way this has become an unexpected burden of infertility – to deal not only with my ache, but also the ache that my infertility has caused my family. It feels like not only am I suffering, I’m causing suffering for others in a way that’s not my fault but I also can’t control. Some days the shared nature of the burden makes me feel better and some days it makes me feel worse. 

My story is still messy – it’s not tied up in a bow and I’m not sure I’m yet qualified to give advice while still in the middle of my story. But, since I wish someone had shared this possible dynamic with me, I hope that by sharing it with others I can help them feel more seen and prepared for this aspect of grief.

Chaney Mullins Gooley has spent a decade in the pro-women pro-life movement, currently as the Assistant Executive Director of Heaven’s Gain Ministries, which serves families experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth.  Chaney is married to Patrick and they live in Alexandria, VA with their beloved cat Amy and especially enjoy spending time with their 5 nieces and nephews.