At a time

Since our family was completed with the birth of our daughter, I’ve been quite open about our struggles with infertility, both online and in real life.  That’s the approach we’ve taken with our friends, acquaintances, strangers even (as I get older I feel an overwhelming need to share, yeah, I need to work on that).   I discussed our experience in a leadership workshop that I ran for sixty five senior leaders a couple of years ago.  The topic – trust in leadership.   Vulnerability, and sharing of yourself, inspires trust.

After the workshop, I was approached by a few of my colleagues – albeit privately – about the positive impact of my transparency on them.  One of them had just about given up but decided to try again after she heard my story.  She told me a few months later that she was expecting.  That was the greatest feeling.

It was so different while we were trying to conceive and being disappointed time and time again.   I felt isolated, and very alone.  Even my husband, as tremendously supportive as he was, couldn’t fully cover all the emotional bases.

We hadn’t had specific discussions about when, how or even if we would approach the subject with our kids.  We let it come up organically as we’d never hidden it from them.  When my daughter was around 3, we took them to a milestone celebration for IVF Canada, our clinic.   We met several families who had also been successful with their treatments.  My kids didn’t know why we were there other than the fact that there was entertainment and cake.  So many families, the ballroom was packed.

Our IVF baby will be turning 20 soon.  Thanks to the power of the internet, my first blog, and the one about our infertility struggles, are there for the kids to read.  She’s met a few other young people who were conceived through IVF. It’s great that they can talk about it so openly.  IVF support is getting better and some employers and government have programs.  What a difference 20 years makes – but still, I believe many women and couples suffer in silence and treat the subject as taboo.

I am preparing scenes as an exercise in memoir writing. Our journey to build our family has provided a ton of emotional material.  Those feelings are still pretty easy to access. I have shared some of these scenes with my kids.  I think it’s important that they know how hard we tried.   I hope to inspire them, especially my daughter, to know that great things come from being persistent and facing obstacles.

My husband gives me a lot of credit for how much I pushed, worked hard, didn’t accept defeat as we navigated our journey.  He’s a very private optimistic guy but he sure bore a brunt of a lot of negative emotions and horrible attitude from me.  He always said he would have been fine with life as just a couple.

We would have been just fine without kids.    Frankly, it is just the two of us a lot of the time now anyway.  We have wonderful kids – adults now – who are absolutely lovely human beings. What shining lights they are for me.  They were the catalysts that propelled me on an incredible journey toward being a better human being myself.

Is there anything you’ve previously been private about that you’re now open with?

(I have tickets to see OMD next July- it was postponed from this past summer.  I am excited to finally see them live …)