Clouds carry the power of emotions like few things in nature. They all but cry out for attention and hold our gaze with their expressiveness and shifting forms and colors. How can we not look at these dynamic skyscapes? Now, I’ve never been a deeply spiritual person in the classic religious sense, but I’ve always stood…
Category: Relationships
A Sad Daughter Confronts the End of the Long Goodbye
A daughter knows when her parents need her. Each Sunday during this endless pandemic, my 80-something parents waited for our weekly call or Facetime visit. It didn’t take long for me to see my father’s long, slow dance with dementia was taking a significant toll. An abrupt and distressing phone call was not the way…
Unspoken Reproductive Medicine Reality: Facing Life Without Children When It Isn’t by Choice
Eight years ago this week I emerged from obscurity because of faulty reproductive organs and the failure of reproductive medicine. My introduction onto the world stage for a prolonged, painful ‘unexplained’ infertility experience came with a fair amount of hyperventilating. It was, in a word, terrifying. As I wrote in Finally Heard, the ebook followup…
The Exhilaration of Acceptance
It doesn’t matter what age, what ethnicity, what country we hail from — we all desire respect, acknowledgment and acceptance. This very human need manifests itself on playgrounds, in communities and in our day-to-day encounters. It doesn’t need to be a grand gesture. In fact, it’s the gentle gesture that often leaves the largest impact….
Time Warp Tuesday: Advice
When was the last time you took your own advice? And I mean put your very own recommendation into action. It’s usually much easier to hand out advice than it is to act on or internalize your own, isn’t it? Advice is the theme for this month’s Time Warp Tuesday blog hop/writing exercise. This monthly activity involves…
Why Do We Pretend Away Infertility?
Humans don’t do well with emotional discomfort of any kind. This has been proven time and time again, but no more so than with infertility. It can be traumatizing on many levels, but I guess I didn’t realize how difficult an infertility diagnosis can be on other people. They just do not want to see…
Born With Us vs. Them Tendencies, We Can Overcome Differences
The older I get the more intrigued I become with where we derive knowledge and what shapes our view of the world. Apparently we are born with an innate predisposition to favor those who are similar to us (more on that later in this post). Fortunately we also have the capacity to expand our thinking,…
Trading Places: My (M)other Life
It’s day two of the open salon hosted by yours truly and Keiko of The Infertility Voice. We created this dialogue to discuss both sides of the motherhood debate from our unique perspectives. Why? To parse out the concerns and vulnerabilities of transition within the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community without tripping over political correctness and delicate sensibilities….
Non-Moms and Moms Bridge the Infertility Gap
Kudos to all who dropped by to read or participate in this week’s To Mom or Not to Mom open salon. I think we pushed each other out of our comfort zones and reached a new level of understanding … I know I did. The impetus for this idea? It stemmed from my awkwardness about Keiko embarking on a…
The Unintended Consequences of Placing ‘Moms’ on Pedestals
It’s Day Three of the open salon hosted by yours truly and Keiko of The Infertility Voice. We created this dialogue to discuss both sides of the motherhood debate from our unique perspectives. Why? To parse out the concerns and vulnerabilities of transition within the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community without tripping over political correctness and delicate…