I just wrote this piece for HuffPost Parents. National Infertility Week has been more of a struggle for me (and my clients) than I expected. So of course, I wrote it out. Actually, I am shouting it out!
An Infertility Advocate Rears Her Brave Heart
We are halfway through National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW).
And honestly, it is kicking my butt.
Kicking my butt both as a survivor, and especially thriver, of the infertility journey but also as an advocate. This is living in the tension and the complicated gray of life, I teach this every day to my clients and life reminds me of it myself often.
As an advocate, I always shine the light on infertility and educate whoever will listen. I shout at the top of my lungs when it comes to spreading the healthier messages of infertility like: we must be more than this heartbreaking journey, the detriments of the ‘never give up‘ message and that there are many versions of the happy ending.
This advocacy requires incessant sharing on as many platforms as possible this week. Because just maybe my story will reach the person who needs it most in that moment and they will know they are not alone. Because maybe my story will reach the person who needs to tell someone their story and ask for help. And because maybe my story will reach the person who needs to give themselves permission to embrace the complicated gray; to feel lost and confused while at the same time trusting that they do actually know what is best for them on this journey.
But, as the survivor and thriver of infertility, I am also a childfull mother who infertility treatments did not work for. I am the childfull mother who will be forever changed and have to work on always healing the scarred losses of her three never to be babies.
Click here to continue reading over at HuffPost.