Loss lives on in ways large and small following an infertility diagnosis and failed IVF. This truth permeates the world of IVF survivors. That’s just one of many topics explored in a new Life Beyond Failed Fertility podcast with yours truly now available on iTunes and on Spotify, Podomatic, and Amazon. Loss Reflections When the podcast…
Tag: loss
Tenacity, Resilience and Grit
Resilience was Scarlett O’Hara’s superpower. There was a time when, like Scarlett in a scene from Gone With the Wind, I felt trapped in a bad dream — lost in pea soup fog. I knew I was off course, and it was far from clear how I would find my way forward. There was a…
Strong At The Broken Places
This week my TV viewing intersected with life in a meaningful way. Larger than life characters reminded me that in the long march of time, it’s how we cope with what comes our way that defines us. In turbulent times, sanity and clear thinking can be in short supply. That was made abundantly clear in…
We Don’t Heal From Suffering We’re Changed By It
We usually want to believe we’ll be grace under pressure, stoic and even sunny in the face of adversity. The truth is we never really know how we’ll respond to unexpected, searing pain and loss — being truly in despair — until we find ourselves facing it head on. Even then we don’t have any…
When Life is Interrupted By Failed Fertility
Missing from many of life’s conversations where infertility is concerned is the male perspective, which is why I was both pleased and surprised to see that the first questions asked during the Q&A portion of The Cycle: Living A Taboo Forum came from men. While I don’t remember the exact dialogue that unfolded, I do…
One Small Step For Infertility Awareness, One Giant Leap For Society
My expectations for September 27 and The Cycle: Living A Taboo were very high — not only for those of us presenting at the forum, but for those who would join us. What transpired surpassed my expectations. As the evening drew near, we speakers assembled in Tribeca from Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Spanish Harlem, Boston,…
The Wisdom of Experience and Value of Seeing the Whole Picture
Update: You can read the “The Grief of Infertility” #losschat transcript from the Twitter Chat earlier this week. The discussion is contained on Storify. Great sharing — we even had a man’s perspective. I’m not sure when I first started watching but every seven years I tune in for a viewing of a documentary series…
Grief Is a Form of Love
It’s been a few years since I first began to pick up the pieces broken and splintered off in the tempest of infertility and failed IVF. Because there were no instructions for reassembly, no “how to cope with infertility” imparted by elders or learned through societal observation, I’ve had my fair share of trial and…
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…
Let’s Change Some Attitudes
“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…