Life After Pregnancy Loss: Finding Your Rainbow

In the infertility community, a “rainbow baby” refers to the baby you have after experiencing infertility and/or pregnancy loss. It’s thought that the baby is your rainbow after the storms you’ve endured. This is a beautiful sentiment and there are numerous stories of courage and resilience in which individuals share how they have endured significant physical, emotional, and, often, financial stress to finally have their rainbow baby.

While it is important to highlight these stories of hope that can follow pregnancy loss, it is just as important to emphasize that the path to your “rainbow” does not always need to include having a baby at the end. Often, after someone has experienced miscarriage or infertility, there is an assumption from loved ones, friends, and maybe even ourselves that we must try to have a baby again and soon whether that means trying to conceive again, utilizing assisted reproductive technology, or exploring other options such as adoption.

After my miscarriages, I was often asked when my partner and I were going to try again and was told “don’t give up” when we started to wonder whether we wanted to continue trying to have children. While these words of support were given with the best of intentions, they also assumed that there is only one “right” path after pregnancy loss, namely to keep trying to have a baby. If this is the path you and your partner want to pursue, that is amazing. However, it’s important to take a moment to reflect and to consider what next step you want to choose for yourself.

The keyword here is choose. Pregnancy loss has a way of taking away our ability to choose. For example, it can feel like control or agency is taken away from you after a miscarriage. You experience a painful emotional and physical trauma without any say in the matter. Additionally, choices such as when to have a baby or how to have a baby may become dependent on factors outside of your control such as medical factors or even financial limitations. Consequently, pregnancy loss can leave individuals feeling disempowered and helpless (Wojnar et al., 2011). These findings highlight the need to support individuals in recognizing their agency after loss.

How to Find Your Rainbow

As mentioned above, the “rainbow” is considered your refuge after the storm and while that can mean a baby, it can also mean a host of other paths. One way to identify your rainbow is to consider the word fertility. While we often limit this concept to the ability to conceive children, fertility refers to richness, fruitfulness, and generativity. Thus, having a fertile life can mean creating a life that has meaning, worth, and richness that is not dependent on the ability to have children, but rather on cultivating a life that embodies your definition of fertility.

In finding your definition of fertility, it is helpful to consider your values. Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), values are defined as activities or concepts that give our life meaning such as learning, connection, or family. Our values can be thought of as our compass to help us make choices based on the directions in which we want our lives to go. Making values-based decisions have been found to lead to increased levels of life satisfaction and empowerment in one’s life (Fledderus et al., 2012). To identify your values, consider the following questions:

• When do you feel grateful or appreciative? For what?
• What gives you a sense of pride, achievement, doing it well, doing it the way you want to
• What inspires you? What infuriates you?
• When do you feel you’re living life your way? Doing what?

Your answers to these questions will provide valuable information regarding the relationships, activities, beliefs, goals, and desires that are most important to you. For example, perhaps you will learn that you feel most inspired when you are in leadership positions or mentoring others or that you feel most appreciative of opportunities you have had to travel and experience other cultures. These insights can be used to help guide you in identifying your values and using these values as a compass to consider what choice you would like to take next.

It’s important to note that our values and dreams are not static. Perhaps, based on your current values, the path of seeking to build your family is the path you would choose, or maybe you decide what you need right now is to focus on your current relationships or your passion of writing. My intention here is not to advocate for any specific dream, but rather to share that the path to finding your rainbow or living a fertile life is not limited to one road. Pregnancy loss can leave us feeling adrift without a say in what our future holds. Thus, it is so important to acknowledge and hold onto the power you do have in your life, whether that means pursuing the family you dream of or taking the time to consider what other beautiful paths your life could take.