Bringing infertility into the public forum

Just 5 minutes after writing my last post, I popped on over to Loribeths blog The Road Less Travelled, to an amazing post sharing Aisha Tyler's public revealing of her unsuccessful infertility struggles on The Talk.  I couldn't believe that just after I wrote a post on the lack of available unsuccessful IF stories, there was one on public television.  If I still believed in signs (that's another post!), I would say that this was one sign leading me back on to the path of acceptance of being childfree.

After being really excited about the video, I then watched it to tears streaming down my face.  This was OUR story, right where we are right now.  The devastation at making the choice to not continue with the treatments, the open wound that needs healing before any other decisions can be made, the heartache at not being able to see the man you love being the wonderful father that you know he would be.

It is so important to me to share this story.  The first initial links that I clicked on have opened up to me a world of women who are braving the stigma of childlessness and bringing this hidden issue out of isolation and into the public forum.  I have great admiration for these women and look forward to exploring their missions and their words.

I did a search for Aisha and there was a follow up video to this conversation.  She received such an outpouring of support and twitters to her story that she was overwhelmed with it all.  The biggest thing was how many people wrote to her saying that they were going through the exact same thing - both men and women - and how grateful they were to her for putting a voice to their struggles.  The men were particularly grateful to her for putting their voice out there, for her expression of the males side of things as well.

Thank you Aisha for sharing your personal story to the world.

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