The love didn't begin with those pink lines, and it didn't end when the heartbeat stopped. This loss impacts us on a level that is at once spiritual, emotional, neurological and physical...Healing is not about "moving on from the loss", but rather moving on with the love you have for your child...Grief lingers because love came first, and that love never truly leaves us.

There are losses in life that are visible, and there are losses that are invisible. This one feels like both. We didn't lose a child we held in our arms, but we lost the expectation of children conceived through our love. We lost the ease of a future we had always assumed. We lost something deeply intimate and deeply personal.

In many respects, the prospect of permanent infertility is akin to a terminal diagnosis. The weight can feel heavy, almost unbearable. This life - this existence - is for a more magnanimous purpose: to be in relationship with God and to share in His own blessed life. We do not earn it; it is pure gift at the cost of Jesus' Passion, death and resurrection. Indeed, your life has not ended, it has changed.