At 42, three months into a new relationship, I found out I was pregnant. Seeing that “+” symbol on the First Response stick would have been surprising enough given these circumstances, but the fact that I’d struggled with infertility in my 30s and was told I couldn’t get pregnant without medical intervention made this news just completely unbelievable.

When we are a little further down the grief path — this may be months or years of calendar time — the focus shifts from surviving to acknowledging other aspects of life and thinking about the future. You may still be trying to make sense of this new life, you may feel a desire to start putting pieces together.

Our culture does not acknowledge the profound impact of major life events, and definitely does not provide the space for these types of losses to be openly discussed or shared.

In fact, we are often urged, subtly or overtly, to deal with the loss privately and swiftly.

Yet it is critical to our heart’s health and the wholeness of who we are to integrate the loss into this new way of living, eventually learning to live wholeheartedly with – not in spite of – that loss.