October: For Everyone Carrying a Loss

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. For some of you reading this, that is a sentence you already knew, because you have been counting Octobers for a while now.

This isn't a post about statistics, though there are a few below. It's a post for the people in our waiting room who are carrying something they rarely get to put down, and who are often asked to carry it quietly.

We see you. We want to say that plainly, because we don't think it gets said enough.

The loss that comes after the fight

There is something particular about losing a pregnancy you worked for.

If you came to us after months or years of trying, after testing, after medication, after a retrieval, after a transfer, after waiting through a window of days that felt like a decade, then a loss doesn't arrive as a single grief. It arrives on top of all of it. You had already grieved the time. You had already grieved the plans. And then you were asked to grieve again, from a place you had fought very hard to reach.

The research bears this out. A systematic review of women undergoing infertility treatment found that previous infertility treatment and previous loss both made the emotional experience of a subsequent loss harder, not easier. Experience does not build calluses here. It often does the opposite.

If you have felt like your reaction to a loss was somehow disproportionate, out of scale with how far along you were, or more than you were "supposed" to feel: it wasn't. Grief has never measured itself in weeks of gestation.

You are in far more company than it feels like

Loss of this kind is common, and it is also strangely invisible, which is a cruel combination. You can be surrounded by people who have been exactly where you are and never know it.

What's documented:

• Miscarriage ends roughly 10% to 20% of clinically recognized pregnancies, with a 2021 review placing the figure at about 15% of recognized pregnancies. The real number is higher, because many losses happen before a pregnancy is ever confirmed.
• Stillbirth affects about 1 in 175 births in the United States. According to the CDC, about 21,000 babies are stillborn each year, which is roughly the same as the number of babies who die during their first year of life.
• The emotional toll is measurable. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis pooling 29 studies and more than 35,000 participants found that within six weeks of a miscarriage, 32.5% of women experienced anxiety, 30.1% experienced depression, and 33.6% experienced significant stress.

We include these numbers for one reason only. Not to make your loss a data point, and not to suggest that common means small. Common does not mean small. We include them because so many people who come through our doors believe they are the only one, and that belief makes an already heavy thing heavier.

You are not the only one. You are among a very large number of people who mostly aren't allowed to talk about it.

The parts nobody warns you about

A few things we hear often, which we want you to know we understand:

The waiting room is hard. Sitting among people at different points in their journeys, some visibly pregnant, is its own small ordeal. If you would rather wait somewhere else, or come at a quieter time, tell us. We will arrange it. You do not need to explain.

The ultrasound room can hold a memory. For patients who received bad news in that room, going back can be physically difficult. Please tell us if that's true for you. There are things we can do differently, and we would much rather know.

Anniversaries land without warning. A due date that passed. The date you found out. The date everything changed. These arrive whether or not you've marked them on a calendar, and they can flatten a week you expected to be ordinary.

Partners grieve, usually more quietly. Research on loss consistently finds that both partners experience grief and depressive symptoms, and partners are frequently overlooked, sometimes positioned as the supporter rather than someone who also lost something. If that's you, your grief is real too, and it is welcome in this office.

October itself can be complicated. An awareness month can feel like recognition or like an exposed nerve, sometimes within the same hour. Both responses are reasonable. You are not obligated to observe anything.

What we want you to know about us

We cannot undo a loss. We can tell you how we try to practice.

We will not rush you. Deciding when or whether to try again is yours, on your timeline. There is no clinically correct interval for being ready. If you need to pause treatment, pause it. Your place here does not expire.

We will say your baby's name, if you had one, and if you want us to. Many patients tell us that the hardest part is how quickly everyone else stops mentioning it. We won't be the ones who stop.

We will be honest with you. If there are answers to find, like a cause, a pattern, or something testable, we will look for them and tell you what we find, including when the answer is that we don't know. Many losses have no identifiable cause. That is a real and frustrating answer, and we will not invent a better one.

You can tell us what you need. Including scheduling, including who's in the room, including how much detail you want. Including that you don't want to talk about it today.

One physician knows your history. Dr. Chauhan plans and performs your care himself, which means you are not re-explaining the worst day of your life to a new face at each appointment. We think that matters more in grief than almost anywhere else.

October 15

October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. President Reagan first proclaimed October as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month in 1988, and the U.S. House of Representatives designated October 15 specifically in 2006.

At 7:00 p.m. local time, families around the world take part in the International Wave of Light, lighting a candle in memory of babies who died too soon. Because it moves through every time zone in turn, there is a continuous wave of candlelight circling the globe for 24 hours.

You can join from your kitchen table. No one has to see it. There is something steadying in knowing that at that moment, in every direction, there are people doing the same thing for the same reason.

And if you would rather let October 15 pass without marking it, that is completely alright too.

If you need more support than we can give

We are fertility specialists. For grief that needs more than we can offer, these organizations are built for exactly this, and all of them are free to contact:

• Postpartum Support International offers a helpline at 1-800-944-4773 (call or text) and free online peer support groups specifically for pregnancy loss, infant loss, and fertility challenges
• Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support provides support groups and resources for families after miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death
• RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association runs peer-led support groups across the country for infertility and family building
• Star Legacy Foundation focuses specifically on stillbirth support, education, and research

If you are struggling in a way that frightens you, please reach out to one of these, to your physician, or to someone you trust. You do not have to be in crisis to deserve help.

Our door

If you are a patient of ours and this month is hard, you can call us. Not necessarily to schedule anything. Just to talk to someone who knows your chart and remembers what you've been through.

If you are not a patient and you are somewhere in this, we hope you have people. If you don't, the organizations above are a good place to start, and our door is open when and if you want it.

We are thinking of your babies this month, the ones we helped you work toward and the ones you lost. We remember them too.

New Hope Fertility Institute of Texas. Houston and Sugar Land.

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This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health care. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Sources

• Data and Statistics on Stillbirth, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Global prevalence of post-miscarriage anxiety, depression, and stress: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Journal of Global Health, 2025
• Psychosocial Aspects of Gestational Grief in Women Undergoing Infertility Treatment: A Systematic Review of Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence
• Longitudinal study of emotional experiences, grief and depressive symptoms in women and men after miscarriage
• Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness, Share Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support
• Loss & Grief in Pregnancy & Postpartum, Postpartum Support International