“I don’t know how to deal with this…” That’s a common response, albeit usually unspoken, for people in the throes of reconciling an infertility diagnosis. Curiously, those are also the same eight words that pop into the head of someone who isn’t dealing directly with infertility when they learn someone close is swept up in…
Category: Changing Perceptions
Your Sanity Matters Much More Than You Think
This post is dedicated to new readers — those who found their way here from the Bitter Infertiles (podcast Episode 20). If you’re new to this blog, I hope you’ll see it’s quite pleasant here. Contrary to conventional wisdom, flowers grow. Laughter is encouraged. All in all, we strive to make this blog a place…
Ms. Tales ‘Anything But Ordinary’
Ms. Magazine and Me Questions and issues around childlessness are significant and worthy of exploration. This was more evident than ever when I found myself on the campus of Stanford University for a Ms. magazine 40th anniversary forum. Fellow blogger, Mali in New Zealand, and I have written extensively on the insidious cultural conditioning that…
What’s Your Litmus Test?
The “why” didn’t fully dawn on me until I was in the final burst of last-minute packing for a Thanksgiving family visit. Our direct flight was just under an hour and half. The destination: a picturesque part of the country, home to the world’s largest international independent film festival, a former winter Olympic site, and some…
Playing Against Type
Have you noticed the way infertile women are routinely portrayed as one-dimensional, downright pitiful creatures in TV and film? It doesn’t matter what era the story takes place in. Swap out the costumes and look beyond the hair and makeup and the character is always the same distraught, hapless woman. Take a recent episode of…
We Have to Believe It to See It
Editor’s Note: In the days following The New York Times profile about my experience “Facing a Life Without Children When it Isn’t by Choice,” I heard from women and men from around the world. Among those who reached out to me was Dr. Wendy Rogers who, it turned out, lived just a few miles away….