Creating Family: Infertility Awareness Week

To all the people who had to surrender the dream space they held for pregnancy and bringing into the world healthy babies, healthy children.

To all the people who believed for decades that they would give birth and regenerate the DNA of their ancestors, who met finality instead.

To all the people who had to let go of all of this and more, who had to take the name Infertility and be reduced to stigma, taboo, and outsider pity.

Who had no one to talk to about the deep grief and loss, and few to validate it but strangers who share the isolating experience in a pronatalist world.

I see you and love you, I recognize the dream space that became so empty.

In this moon cycle, I am focusing on creating family. Personally, I could say I have been creating family since I met my partner in 2014. And in another light, I’ve been creating family since I met my soul sisters — from early childhood to adolescence to adulthood. I have a handful of sisters who share life without judgement, offering love and space to be authentic. These women offer family. My partner arrived with two small children, and I would also say that as we had our first sleepovers and celebrated our first Halloween, first Christmas together, we defined ourselves as new family. This happened without legal paperwork or ceremony or medical intervention. Family occurred naturally, in a different way. People come together in love and they form a bond, I call it family.

This is not to negate the experience of those who create family in the conventionally recognized way. This is to celebrate all the families that occur in all the ways possible.

On the last day of National Infertility Awareness Week 2021, this is what I can say, this is what’s in my heart to share. A big part of the struggle is not being able to find the words, but feeling heavy waves of emotion. I offer this to everyone who gets it, to be certain they are not alone.