RESOLVE’s National Infertility Awareness Week has drawn to a close, and some of you have written some fantastic posts about this year’s theme “Join the Movement.” We’ll be posting links to your submitted posts in just a few days, and today’s Featured Post by a PAIL Blogger is one of them.
Of course, the cause of infertility is near and dear to our hearts here at PAIL, but this year’s theme “Join the Movement” is a particularly important one since we’re in the business of not just talking about infertility and loss, but building a community around it and sharing with one another. We’re part of the movement year-round and all of you are, too! Part of community is belonging, and this past week’s post “Join the Movement” by Miss Ohkay at The Misadventures of Miss Ohkay was spot-on with the nuances of both technically belonging and emotionally belonging.
Miss Ohkay writes:
But before you can join the movement, you must feel like you belong.
You may not feel like you do. Maybe you haven’t been trying to conceive for very long as compared to others. Maybe you’ve been too nervous to see a reproductive endocrinologist (RE). Maybe you can get pregnant easily but have multiple miscarriages. Maybe you reached a resolution with minimal treatments. Maybe you had a child already without medical intervention but now you’re having trouble conceiving again (secondary infertility). Maybe your diagnosis is unexplained. Maybe you resolved to live child-free. Maybe your infertility stems from your partner’s diagnosis and not your own…
…I do belong, even if I have to talk myself into believing it. Everyone’s infertility journey is different. Everyone’s diagnosis is different. Everyone’s desire and ability to pursue certain courses of treatment is different. Everyone’s outcomes are different. But we are part of this movement together.
(That’s a shameful consolidation of her words, because her post is so perfectly phrased it’s hard to fight the temptation to repost the entire thing here!)
Belonging means a lot of different things to all of us, and similarly, we all occupy a range of reasons for being here in the infertility & loss community. But it’s important to remember that we are still all a part of it if we want to be, however we choose to participate:
Initially, I joined the movement to help myself. I didn’t know anyone my age who’d had a miscarriage. I felt alone and needed support. Now that my daughter arrived via adoption, I don’t need as much support. But I stay in the movement to support others, so they feel less alone.
Please visit Miss Ohkay at her blog and read her full post “Join the Movement.” It got me thinking reflectively about how I feel about my role in “the movement” and what the movement gives back to me. As always, comments here will be closed to encourage feedback directly to Miss Ohkay.
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Miss Ohkay, in her own words: Adoptive mama. Recurrent miscarrier. Blogger. Lawyer. Book reader. Music lover. Political junkie.
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