My grief-related tattoo is a full-backpiece. It is a seascape with three otters and many sea creatures. I got it in Seattle over the course of a year at SAS Ink in 2021. It relates to my five-year IVF journey.
When people ask about my tattoo, they see a watercolor seascape sprawling across my back. Three playful otters, a school of fish, and graceful jellyfish dancing in currents. What they don’t see is five years of heartbreak, hope, and the kind of resilience that only comes from navigating the invisible grief of infertility.
The story begins long before the needle touched my skin. My husband and I had always lived near the sea, and during our dating years, we had what we called our “otter experience” at an aquarium. We fed them and watched these creatures hold hands as they floated, refusing to let go.
When we started our IVF journey, doctors assured us it would be “simple with science.” One round, they said, should do the trick. But our path was anything but simple. I rushed to complete my first egg retrieval before my insurance changed, beginning what would become a five-year odyssey of three retrievals and two transfer attempts that spanned multiple states as we chased both better medical care and a better life.
The financial burden of fertility treatments in America drove me to find creative solutions. I forged friendships through what can only be described as a secret international internet group for families going through IVF. I secured necessary medications at a fraction of the cost. This network became my lifeline, teaching me that resilience often means accepting help from unexpected places, like strangers in Canada, Mexico, and India.
Each element of my tattoo tells part of our story. The jellyfish represent the eggs retrieved that didn’t turn into Embryos. The fish symbolize the embryos we created, tested, and froze that didn’t make it to a baby, even after implantation. But it’s the three otters that capture the heart of our journey: two holding hands, my husband and me, steadfast through every disappointment, and a smaller one, the child we fought so hard to bring into our family, who didn’t come from IVF at all.
The breaking point came after five years. We made the excruciating decision to stop trying. On April 1st, 2018, a friend of ours gave birth to her first child via IVF. We were so happy for them, but also heartbroken for us. We gave away five years’ worth of accumulated baby items to them and decided to stop trying and just be a family of two with our pets. We would heal, but the universe’s timing felt like a cruel joke.
If the calculations mean anything, they’ll tell you exactly what happened on the weekend of the fourth of July. Six weeks later, I could tell my husband I was pregnant on our wedding anniversary. And exactly one year after our close friends had their baby, our daughter arrived. April Fool’s Day had never been so significant in my life, but here we are, a circus act indeed, our little clown who would forever change our world.
But resilience isn’t just about weathering the storm; it’s about learning to dance in the rain that follows. My battle with postpartum depression lasted two years, a different kind of invisible struggle that left me fighting demons in my own mind. During this period, in 2021, I found myself in a Seattle tattoo parlor, choosing to mark my body with the story of our journey permanently. This tattoo took a whole year to complete—so many sessions, tears, and stories.
As a funeral director, I’ve witnessed countless forms of grief. But my IVF experience taught me a lesson about disenfranchised grief, the grief that society doesn’t always recognize or validate. The loss of dreams, the monthly mourning of what could have been, the isolation of struggles that happen behind closed doors, the time and money spent, the loss of control over your own body. This understanding transformed my practice, allowing me to hold space for families experiencing all forms of loss, especially those that remain hidden.
My tattoo is more than ink and artistry; it’s a testament to the resilience required when life refuses to follow the script we’ve written. The watercolor style wasn’t chosen by accident. Like water, we learned to adapt, flow around obstacles, and find new paths when the old ones were blocked. We call our daughter our “da-otter” now, a playful reminder of how humor helped us survive the darkest moments.
When clients sit across from me, planning services for their loved ones, they don’t know about the seascape on my back. But they benefit from its lessons. I understand that grief doesn’t always come with a body to bury, that some losses are carried silently, that resilience sometimes looks like simply getting up each morning and trying again.
The otters in my tattoo will forever hold hands, just as my husband and I did through every injection, procedure, negative test, and finally, through the joy and challenges of parenthood. They remind me that resilience isn’t about being unbreakable; it’s about holding on to each other while learning to float in uncertain waters, trusting that eventually, somehow, you’ll find your way to shore.
Resilient A.F. is not about being unbreakable, but about finding strength in vulnerability and allowing my journey through disenfranchised grief to create deeper understanding as I help families navigate their losses, both visible and hidden.
Trust that your grief is valid, even when others can’t see it. Find your “otters—” those people who will hold your hand through the uncertainty. Remember that resilience often means accepting help from unexpected places, just as I found strength through international fertility groups and learned that asking for support isn’t weakness but wisdom.
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