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The "So Now What?" Podcast


I am a Fertility Survivor.  The kind you enter into treatments hoping you will never be... childless.  After several rounds of IUI and IVF, at some of the leading Fertility Centers, I was told I was no longer a candidate for fertility treatment.  It left me asking myself...

So now what?

For the years that followed, I tried to put myself back together and tell myself I would be OK, but I wasn't.  I was shattered - I felt alone and failed by the whole process and especially, my body.  I yearned for others that felt the pain I felt and someone that could help me navigate a life without a child. 

I didn't find it, so I decide to create it.  

Fast forward to today. I am still childless, but my beliefs about my life have changed.  I decided that I can create meaning and purpose in my life even though I am not a mother.  I've learned to love myself and the body I felt failed me as a woman.

If you've been on this journey, hop on and join me as we create something we were not offered.  Let's create a sisterhood for the bravest women I know.  We brush ourselves off and don't let terms like: Failed, Unexplained, Miscarriage, Not-viable or Advanced Maternal Age define us anymore.  

 

Sep 21, 2021

In our last episode we talked about becoming aware of our beliefs. Your Beliefs create your future. When we challenge ourselves to identify our beliefs around our journey, we start to decide where these beliefs are taking us; if we want to continue our journey with this belief. We can create new beliefs that will write the story of our future so we can live the purposeful and meaningful life we are all destined to live.

Start with picking just one of your beliefs and begin there. One of the first beliefs that I chose to focus on was

I am, a failure be my body didn't do what it was supposed to. My body did not get pregnant.  I did not have a viable embryo.  I did not have a viable pregnancy. 

Is this true? Is this true anymore? How does this belief make me feel? Is that a feeling I want to feel?

Often times we have to dig way back into an experience in our past to recall where that belief materialized. Sometimes it didn't even come from something we personally experienced. We listen to the beliefs and practices others follow and chose to engrain them into the core beliefs we have for ourselves.

Or it could be words others said about you. Maybe someone once told you  something about yourself.

Just as easily as you accepted this into your life, you can show that bad boy the door.

I've also noticed that as crappy as the belief may be, we have such a hard time separating it for ourselves. We create a codependency with the beliefs we have of ourselves because I didn't know there was another option of something else to believe. How could I possibly not believe this? So many other people believe this, so there must be proof for this. It's justified.

If I didn't believe this anymore, what in the heck will I do? You know what you will do? You will get to work deciding what it is you want to believe about your life. What you believe you are capable of. What your future will look like.

Just because your life didn't turn out like you thought it would, planned for, prayed for, are you willing to let that define you forever?

Are you willing to deny yourself the chance to create new beliefs based on the future you want. We have so much more power and control than we give ourselves credit for.

The only difference between me and those that believe they are victims of infertility, that purpose and meaning without a child is impossible, is that I decided I wanted to believe something else about my future. I had no clue what, but I was open to learning.

You have the ability to fight for the beliefs you want now.  Its easy to think I am a failure because my body didn't produce a child or because my doctors used the medical terminology of "unexplained infertility" or "failed cycle" to classify my treatments. Their words were no longer part of my belief system about me.

That word failed is describing a blip on the radar in this life of mine. So as you begin to write your story of your future, you 100% have The ability to decide what you need to believe in order to live it.

Please follow me @stitchcoaching.