I get the appeal of a world where there is no gray — only black and white. When there’s only one way there’s no pesky thinking required. The only problem is we live in a complex world where ‘choice’ isn’t always what it seems. And that’s where things get muddy. Amid the rash of stories…
Tag: stigma
Infertility Community’s Black Sheep: Women Who Don’t Achieve Motherhood
Some ‘no-holds barred’ conversations stick with you — like the one Loribeth and I engaged in on surviving infertility and the search for peace in a mommy mad world. (Listen to the podcast here). Not achieving motherhood is a taboo topic in the infertility community, which is why we were unlikely guests on the tongue-in-cheek named…
Blogging From Bed: Is That Acceptable?
It’s past 10 am on a Thursday. I’m writing this blog post in bed. Acceptable or unacceptable? On any typical Thursday my answer would be unacceptable. Not allowed, missy! However, I awoke this morning with stitches and pain emanating from my lower left calf. I softly adjusted my position and gave myself permission to take…
The Infertility Stories No One Advertises
Editor’s Note: Updates (10/26) included below from BBC Health. It’s been more than a month since the op-ed prompted by failed infertility treatments, “Selling the Fertility Fantasy,” ran in The New York Times. Infertility stories that don’t end in a baby don’t grab headlines. But this one did. It reverberated across the infertility blogosphere to the…
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,…
Teach and Learn: Lift the Veil on a Taboo
UPDATE: Hat tip to Amy McVay Abbott, the journalist who wrote Infertility: The Billion Dollar Business & the Heartbreaking Realities and Jody Day for thought-provoking perspectives on our event, The Cycle: Living A Taboo. About the importance of participating in the conversation. Jody wrote: “I get that it’s daunting to attend something where you’ll be…
The Story Behind The New York Times Op-Ed: Selling the Fantasy of Fertility
If you’ve read one breathless headline in popular media about the latest and greatest breakthroughs in fertility medicine you’ve read them all. Articles written about reproductive medicine routinely characterize assisted reproductive technologies (I.U.I, I.V.F., donor eggs, egg freezing and surrogacy) as a “sure thing” when, it turns out, close to 80 percent of the cycles…
Do You Live A Taboo? I Do, Too!
UPDATE 8/27/2013: For those of you around the world who are unable to join us in person in New York City, we’ve opened up a page on our event website to share your thoughts. Please comment below and we’ll include you as virtual participants. …when a path wasn’t clear, the natural instinct was to go…
The Forum: What Would Make You Attend a Public Infertility Discussion?
New celebrity infertility disclosures have been popping up left and right in popular media. Starting in April there was Nia Vardolos on the interview circuit for her new book, Instant Mom. Nia, as reported in various online publications, tried for nearly a decade to have a family, going through 13 IVFs in the course of pursuing infertility treatments, and failed adoptions before…