Living with infertility

Today is International Women's Day, which coincides with my need to speak truth on this blog.  My blog.  Where I've been silent for many months.

I've been trying to get pregnant!  And it hasn't been working.  And, for some reason, I felt like I needed to hide.  Why is this struggle pushed under the table for so many of us?  Why do we fear to speak about our fears, our worries, and our truths?

Speaking about the shadow walk I've been doing through the disappointment, the coping, the falling, and the tears also gives me the chance to speak about the strong role I'm taking in managing my own condition through diet, exercise, stress management, supplementation, acupuncture, and therapy.

So to all the women out there who are going through a secret struggle - whether it is infertility, miscarriage, incontinence, prolapse, depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, etc.  I support you to speak your truth.  And I honor your struggles and I encourage you to get help.

Personal and couples therapy have both supported me in this time, even though they sometimes come at odds - and leave me feeling ripped apart.  But the honest processing of each cycle of grief (when you don't get what you're really hoping for - a positive pregnancy test) has helped me not turn to food and alcohol to soothe myself as much.

I also see the role that overeating and eating crap and drinking regularly has in the current predicament I'm in.  I have long wonky cycles that regulate as I take better care of myself.  For all my life, I've never lashed out at others.  I have a delicious talent for harming myself with self-destructive habits in response to my environment and relationships with others.  It has finally come home to roost - taking my stress out on myself shows up clearly in my endocrine system.  Thanks to a cool tool called the Ovagraph, I'm seeing the data of the wonky cycles like never before.

There is pain and suffering in this.  But there is also a desire to live.  And the desire to see a fourth face in my family is something that, at one time, I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle.  Now I want it more than anything.  It's pulling me toward the light.  The light of spirituality over addiction.  The love of Divine Mother in everything.  The knowledge that I am not my thoughts and that I can act in alignment, rather than reacting in fear.

Sisters of the world, this is my truth today.  It's your day to live in real life, in real time, in real voice... with whatever you're going through.