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Decluttering Baby Stuff

February 22, 2013

releaseIn her blog Baptism By Fire, Wolfers wrote a wonderful post about our emotional attachment to clutter, and how she wasn’t yet ready to let go of her baby-related items.

It’s been a couple of years already since I reached the point of being ready to let go of my baby clutter, so I was surprised by the emotions that stirred up when I read her post.

As I never actually became pregnant, I accumulated only a few baby items. It took me several years before I had the courage to say goodbye to them, but when I did let them go, it was sad, but not difficult. I was ready.

The things that brought on the strongest wave of emotions were all the books I’d bought over the years as I’d tried to uncover the magic formula to my fertility. I had books on Chinese medicine, diet, mindfulness, you name it, and I can remember feeling so angry when I put them in the donation box. I felt as if I’d been taken for a ride by these authors who had promised me a miracle. I felt duped and cheated—and really, really mad.

They’re out of my life now and largely out of my mind, but even though they’re gone, they’ve still left a mark where they used to be. And sometimes that mark gets sore again.

What have you held onto and what have you been able to let go?

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: childfree living, childless not by choice, fb, letting go, letting go of baby clutter, releasing

Fertility Planit Show Report

January 18, 2013

Fertility PlanitLast weekend, I was at the Fertility Planit Show, speaking on a panel about Letting Go. I wrote about my trepidation in a post last month and so many of you were incredibly supportive that I thought I ought to report in on my experience.

As anticipated, it was very strange for me to be at the show. I walked around the exhibition hall glancing sideways at the booths for everything from adoption agencies to cryogenic storage facilities to banks offering IVF loans. I spotted a few organizations whose paths I’d crossed on my own journey, including one of my former doctors, who apparently had no recognition of me (probably because he’d spent little time looking at my face, if you know what I mean.) I’ll admit that my pulse quickened and my chest tightened as I walked around. I didn’t feel any pull to get back into the fertility game or any tempting new possibilities, but I could feel some of those old, anxious, emotions creeping back in.

The panel itself was great. About 50-100 people sat in the room and I’m told another 22,000 watched online! Attendees asked lots of questions and I was glad I had answers to many of them.

The hardest part for me was looking out at people in the audience who I knew were coming to the end of their infertility ropes. I could feel they were in so much pain and it was incredibly courageous of them to come and listen to this panel on a topic I know they didn’t really want to face. Part of me wanted to climb down off the stage and just hug them and the other part wanted to kick the world in the kneecaps and scream that these perfectly nice people didn’t deserve this. But I didn’t do either of those things. I sat on the stage, told my story, and answered as many questions as I could.

The upshot of the whole experience is that I’m very glad I accepted the invitation to speak. It was ultimately very rewarding to speak from a place of peace and healing.

As an added bonus, I got to meet two incredible women, Melanie Notkin and Tracy Cleantis, who I’ve known for some time through the blogosphere. I also made connections with some wonderfully compassionate therapists, who specialize in this area. More about this aspect coming soon.

The show is coming back to LA next year and you can bet I’m adding plenty of suggestions to my speaker survey of more ways to bring this crucial topic out into the open.

If you’d like to see the panel discussion, it’s available to download on the Fertility Planit site or you can view below.

Video streaming by Ustream

Thank you all again for being so supportive and encouraging on this new step in my journey.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Health, Infertility and Loss Tagged With: childfree, childless not by choice, fb, fertility, Fertility Planit Show, Infertility, letting go

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