Trying again after loss is one of the most quietly brave things a person can do.
And yet no one talks about how incredibly complicated it is—not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. The hope and the terror. The longing and the dread. The way you can feel so ready and so completely unsure all at the same time.
I remember the first time I saw two pink lines after my loss. My heart didn’t leap. I didn’t cry happy tears. I didn’t make a cute announcement or surprise my partner. I just stared. And then I sat down on the bathroom floor, shaking. Because the first time had taught me something I now couldn’t un-know: positive tests don’t guarantee happy endings.
It’s not that I wasn’t grateful—I was. But I was also terrified. And no one prepares you for how hard it is to carry both gratitude and grief in the same body.
Trying again after loss isn’t just trying to conceive. It’s trying to trust again. Trying to believe that your body isn’t broken. Trying to stay grounded when your brain is scanning every twinge, every symptom, every lack of symptom. It’s trying to breathe when your heart is constantly bracing for another blow.
You become an expert in hyper-vigilance. You Google every single thing. You convince yourself it’s happening again. You try not to count the days—but you count anyway. You try to relax, but what does that even mean when your body feels like a battleground between fear and hope?
It’s exhausting. It’s isolating. It’s relentless.
And it’s also deeply misunderstood.
People love a comeback story. They want your next pregnancy to be redemptive, to tie the grief up in a bow. “This is your rainbow!” they say, like that label is supposed to wash away the storm. But those of us who’ve been through it know: a new baby doesn’t erase the one you lost. A rainbow isn’t a replacement. And healing doesn’t mean forgetting.
In fact, trying again often reactivates the grief in ways I never expected. There were moments I felt guilty even hoping again—like I was betraying the baby I lost. There were other moments I felt resentful, like I’d been robbed of the innocence I once had. I used to think pregnancy was joy. Now I knew it was risk. Now I understood how thin the line really was.
I wanted to trust the process. I wanted to be excited. But more than anything, I wanted to protect myself.
And honestly? That’s what trying again is, for so many of us. It’s not blind hope. It’s cautious, calculated courage. It’s deciding to move forward even when your heart is still limping. It’s allowing yourself to want something, knowing full well what it costs.
If you’re in that place—trying, hoping, grieving, bracing—I want to say something very clearly: there is no “right” way to feel.
You might feel numb. You might feel wildly anxious. You might not connect to this new pregnancy right away. You might over-connect, because you’re terrified you won’t get the chance again. You might cry. You might not.
None of it makes you less of a mother. None of it means you’re doing it wrong.
Loss rewrites everything. And trying again means learning how to walk with a heart that’s been cracked open. It means being gentle with yourself, even when the world moves on. It means finding strength not in fearlessness, but in persistence.
If you’re trying again, or thinking about it, or even just trying to make peace with what happened—please know this: I see you. You are not alone. And you are not broken.
You are navigating something unbelievably hard with unbelievable grace, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
This isn’t the story we asked for. But it’s the one we’re living. And I believe, with everything in me, that there is space for both your grief and your hope. There is room for you to honor the baby you lost while holding space for the one you hope to meet.
Trying again doesn’t mean moving on. It means moving forward—with a heart that remembers, a body that aches, and a spirit that still believes in the possibility of joy.
You deserve support. You deserve tenderness. You deserve to be held.
Because trying again after loss is not just brave—it’s sacred.
