On a regular Friday morning in June, in the corner of a doctor’s office, under fluorescent lights, my husband and I unexpectedly found out we would never be able to conceive naturally.
The doctor informed us of this life-changing diagnosis matter-of-factly, and as though we were just another appointment on his schedule. Yet in a single conversation, the entire trajectory of our lives felt like it was flipped upside down.
It took quite a long time for reality to sink in. My husband and I walked out of the office carrying little direction and an overwhelming sense of loss. We had walked in expecting answers but instead, we left feeling burdened and heavy with grief.
If you have experienced infertility, chances are, you are familiar with this feeling.
In the months that followed, I started counseling and began to process the diagnosis. My counselor used what I found to be a helpful analogy to make sense of my grief. She compared grief to a ball trapped inside a box. At first, the grief box is so small that the ball touches every side all the time. Every moment, well-meaning question, and pregnancy announcement bump into the grief box. It feels impossible to escape.
Over time, however, your world begins to grow. As you process, mourn, and heal, the box gets a little bit bigger. The grief does not disappear, and the ball might be your lifelong companion, but it begins to no longer occupy every moment of every day. It becomes a part of your story instead of your entire story.
If you have found yourself researching embryo adoption, your story may have started much like mine. Somewhere along the way, you have experienced loss. Whether it was years of infertility, failed treatments, miscarriages, or the realization that your family would not grow the way you had always imagined, you know what it means to grieve.
Embryo adoption is filled with extraordinary hope and incredible beauty. It offers families a path they may have never imagined and creates opportunities for life that are nothing short of miraculous. But it is important to acknowledge another truth as well: embryo adoption exists alongside loss.
Grief During the Embryo Adoption Process
Many families are surprised that when they begin the embryo adoption process, they find themselves grieving all over again. After years of processing infertility, you may think you have already done the hard emotional work. Then you begin filling out paperwork, discussing preferences, reading placing family profiles, or are waiting to be matched, and suddenly emotions you thought had settled begin to resurface.
That is normal.
All of this can be reminders that this journey looks different than the one you once imagined. Choosing embryo adoption often represents a turning point and can make infertility feel “real” and “final” in a new way. It means embracing a new path toward parenthood. That realization can bring both incredible excitement and profound sadness.
You may find yourself celebrating a match one day and grieving your infertility the next. You may feel immense gratitude while simultaneously mourning the biological connection you once hoped for. Those emotions do not contradict each other.
Hope and grief are not opposites, and often walk hand in hand. You can be deeply grateful for embryo adoption while simultaneously grieving the path that brought you here. Those emotions are not mutually exclusive, and they do not have to compete.
Grief After Embryo Adoption
One of the biggest misconceptions about grief is that it has an ending. The truth is, your box might get bigger, but the ball inside will not necessarily disappear.
After being matched, after a successful transfer, during pregnancy, or even after welcoming a child into your family, moments of grief may still appear. You may wonder what life would have looked like if infertility had never been part of your story. I want to assure you that feeling those emotions does not mean you love your child any less. It does not mean embryo adoption was not the right decision. It simply means your journey mattered.
Healing from grief does not mean that you have to forget the path that brought you here and the loss that entailed.
Embryo adoption does not erase the painful chapters that came before it. Instead, it becomes intertwined with your story, which is now shared by two families. One family lovingly entrusts their embryos to another, and one receives them with hope. Both journeys carry emotion. Both involve sacrifice. Both are woven together by compassion.
Moving Forward with Hope
If you are in the middle of this journey today, I want to encourage you with this: there is no timeline for grief. Give yourself permission to celebrate the victories while honoring the losses. Allow yourself to cry when you need to, ask for help when you need it, and embrace hope without feeling guilty.
Your infertility diagnosis does not have to be the end of your story. It can be the beginning of a chapter you never expected to write. For many families, embryo adoption becomes part of that story not because it erased the grief, but because it proved that grief does not have the final word.
The ball may never completely leave the box, but over time, your life grows around it.
And one day, you will realize that while grief is still part of your story, it is no longer the author of it.
To learn more about embryo adoption and donation, visit EmbryoAdoption.org.
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