This article has been reviewed for clinical accuracy by Dr. Rachel Armstrong
Sometimes the hardest part of reproductive trauma isn’t just what happened. It’s grieving the future you imagined.
Most of us spend years, often without realizing it, imagining what our future family might look like.
Maybe you pictured getting pregnant easily. Maybe you imagined a joyful pregnancy, a healthy delivery, or growing your family in a particular way. Perhaps you always assumed you’d become a parent someday, or perhaps you imagined choosing not to have children at all.
Whether those thoughts were detailed or vague, intentional or unconscious, they are part of what psychologists call your reproductive story.
As psychologist Dr. Rachel Hopkins explains, a reproductive story is “the story that we tell ourselves, both explicitly or implicitly, about what we think it’s going to be like to be a parent someday.” It is a lifelong narrative made up of our thoughts, hopes, fantasies, expectations, and beliefs about parenthood and family.
For many people, life unfolds differently than that story: infertility, pregnancy loss, miscarriage, birth trauma, fertility treatments, a NICU stay, an unexpected diagnosis. These experiences don’t just affect the body. They can change how we see ourselves, our future, and the life we thought we were going to have.
Understanding your reproductive story can be a powerful first step toward making sense of those emotions and beginning to heal.
A reproductive story is the narrative we carry about family, pregnancy, and parenthood. According to Dr. Hopkins, it is: “The story that we tell ourselves…about what we think it’s going to be like to be a parent someday.”
This story isn’t simply about whether or not you’ll have children. It includes:
One of the most important ideas Dr. Hopkins shares is that “everybody has a reproductive story.”
Whether or not you ever become pregnant, have children, pursue adoption, or decide not to become a parent, your reproductive story exists.
She describes it as:
Our reproductive stories are shaped by many experiences, including:
As we grow older, our story continues changing. We begin asking questions like:
If we have a partner, another chapter begins as we blend two different family narratives together and negotiate what our future family might become.
Sometimes life follows the story we imagined. Sometimes it doesn’t.
When reproductive challenges occur, people often discover they aren’t only grieving an event, they’re grieving the future they expected.
Dr. Hopkins explains that reproductive trauma isn’t simply about the physical experience itself.
Instead, “the trauma stems not just from the physical experiences themselves…but from that shattering of our worldview, our expectations and dreams or hopes or wishes for what we hoped the reproductive experience would be like.”
That sentence resonates with many people because it captures something difficult to put into words. The pain isn’t only about what happened. It’s also about everything that suddenly feels uncertain.
Dr. Hopkins defines reproductive trauma as the psychological distress that follows challenges related to reproduction and fertility. Reproductive trauma can include experiences such as:
These experiences can affect much more than reproductive health. They can influence emotional well-being, relationships, identity, and everyday life. People may experience:
For many people, these reactions are surprising because they expected themselves to “move on” more quickly. But grief rarely follows a straight line.
One of the most compassionate ideas discussed in the presentation is that grief isn’t linear. Many of us grow up believing grief happens in stages or follows a predictable path. Dr. Hopkins explains that the Dual Process Model of Grief offers a different perspective.
Instead of moving neatly from one stage to another, healthy grieving often involves moving back and forth between two experiences:
This is the difficult work of grief.
It may involve:
This involves gradually rebuilding life while still carrying the loss.
It may include:
As Dr. Hopkins reminds us, “Any emotion is a normal grief emotion…and there’s also no time prescription.” That can be an incredibly validating message for someone who feels they’re grieving “too much” or “too long.”
Understanding your reproductive story doesn’t change what happened. It can, however, help explain why the experience has affected you so deeply.
Dr. Hopkins describes the reproductive story as a narrative tool that can help people experiencing infertility, pregnancy loss, or reproductive trauma understand the disconnect between the story they expected to have and the story they are actually living.
Instead of asking, “Why am I taking this so hard?” you may begin asking, “What story was I expecting?”
That shift often opens the door to greater self-compassion.
You don’t need to have all the answers. Simply becoming curious about your story can be meaningful.
Some questions to reflect on include:
These aren’t questions meant to judge yourself. They’re questions that can help you better understand your own experience.
When reproductive experiences don’t unfold the way we imagined, it’s common to feel isolated. You may wonder why you’re struggling so much. You may feel like others don’t fully understand. You may even question parts of your identity or future. You don’t have to navigate those experiences by yourself.
Working with a therapist who understands reproductive mental health can provide a space to process grief, make sense of difficult emotions, and explore the story you’ve been carrying for years. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting what happened. It doesn’t mean pretending the loss wasn’t significant. Instead, healing can involve making room for both grief and hope while gradually integrating your experiences into a story that continues to unfold.
As Dr. Hopkins reminds us, everyone has a reproductive story. If your story has taken an unexpected turn, support is available.
Dr. Rachel Armstrong obtained her doctorate from William James College in Boston, MA. She received training and clinical experience in behavioral health interventions and health psychology, including training in clinical hypnosis for IBS, biofeedback assisted relaxation training, and behavioral medicine interventions. She completed her APA-accredited internship at LifeStance Health where she gained experience working in integrated behavioral health settings. Currently, Dr. Armstrong is a postdoctoral fellow at UCEBT.
No matter where you are in your journey, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Therapy can help you process what has happened, cope with what comes next, and move forward with compassion for yourself.
