Tag Archives: women

I Am What I Am

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There is nothing more important to me than sincerity and authenticity. It doesn’t matter if it involves business, customer service, or education, as long as there is something genuine to build upon, it will work eventually. I don’t do fake or shallow. I do not have it within me. There are times when I would love to hide my true feelings, where it would definitely be to my benefit to do so. It is unbelievably difficult for me, and frankly, I am awful at it. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing; however, I have been told that I “wear my heart on my sleeve.” Guilty. Unfortunately, that simple observation makes everything entirely too complicated.

The other side of the equation is that so many people write me off, particularly in business, because I am short, appear younger than I am (usually), and female. That combination isn’t great in business when you desperately want to be take seriously. Well, that is their loss. There is so much that most people don’t know about me. I’ve held such a variety of jobs at 36 that it is crazy, but it also makes for some great stories. I grew up working at a canoe livery and campground with over 10 years of experience. I’ve interned at IBM and Applied Materials in the aftermath of the tech bubble, and professionally purchased parts for oil wells for FMC Energy Systems. I’ve also worked at a cemetery (yes, really) and managed a convenience store, working my way up from clerk. I’ve also worked as a substitute teacher, working in classrooms grades K-12 (I have subbed at every grade level). I’ve also written hundreds of online articles for the now defunct Associated Content, earning not an insignificant amount of cash. There is plenty more, but I think I made my point. Frankly, I am not an easy person to define. In a world that loves and rewards expertise, I love to learn new things. Keep in mind, that was only my working life.

I am happiest when I am learning, trying something new. It is the one constant I’ve been left with over the years. It is why I decided to become a teacher. Hopefully a teaching career will allow me to put all of these crazy pieces together, especially when I also have the opportunity to be a co-owner in the canoe livery. There is so much I want to accomplish that it overwhelmed me at times. I didn’t know where to begin or how I was going to make it all work. I have a much better idea on how to make it work now, fortunately. The thing is that I could write an even more detailed overview of my educational experiences, including study abroad and alternative spring break, if I chose to do so. All of it has shaped me. There are times when I think the reason why I didn’t do much in my mid to late 20s was simply due to cramming so much into my late teens and early 20s. I did everything I possibly could at Michigan State, including DJing on a student-run online radio station. The one exception is that I didn’t join a sorority.

I am stating all of this to make a point. The entire time I was at Michigan State, going to school, working, studying abroad, and so much more, all I wanted was a relationship. Sad, isn’t it? I am so glad that I didn’t looking back on it. Would a relationship have survived over a year and a half of studying abroad and working? Ah, no. I had friendships that didn’t survive it, much less anything else. Was it worth it? Yes. Definitely. I finally did get the relationship I wanted at the end of my senior year at MSU. Was it worth it? Yes and no. If I could give any piece advice to my younger self, it would be this: Don’t give up your dreams for anyone.

“Yo Soy Yo” means “I Am Me.”

A Cracking of The Heart: The Life of Sarah Horowitz

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A Cracking of the Heart

Goodreads Review – A Cracking of the Heart by David Horowitz

Where do I even begin?  First, A Cracking of the Heart is first physical book I’ve read in quite some time.  Lately I’ve only been reading Kindle version of books.  I mention this because I collect physical books, and frankly, I can’t stand when people bend pages to mark a page.  Well, there were so many passages that I want to remember and revisit that my hardcover version of the book is hopelessly dog-eared.  I will be rereading this particular book, possibly more than once.

It goes well beyond the fact that Sarah, the woman’s whose life is the subject of the book, and I share the diagnosis of Turner Syndrome.  Sadly, Sarah dealt with many more issues and complications than I ever have.  What strikes me most about Sarah’s journal entries and inner dialog in the book is that the struggles she discussed most are the same ones that I have battled most of my life.  It is stated that Sarah never adopted due to her concerns about her financial stability.  This is the reason why I am working so hard to achieve that financial stability.  Everything that I am currently doing in my life will eventually put me in a position to finally create the family I’ve always wanted – hopefully.  There is no other way.  I refuse to believe that I am not meant to have a family of my own.

One passage that deeply disturbed me is the detailed description of Sarah’s failed attempts at finding love.  She did fall in love.  That same man loved her.  However, it didn’t end in marriage.  Instead of choosing to marry Sarah and accepting her for who she was, Joel married another woman.  In the book he admits that he made a mistake, that at the time he was drawn to the physical, and that his resulting marriage only lasted a few years.  He implies that he should have married Sarah.  This is my worst fear writ large.  No matter what I do, no matter how much I love, and no matter what I achieve in life, men will not be able to look past my physical characteristics.  I have yet to be proven wrong.

meaning-of-life

If the truth be told, everyone let Sarah down – society in particular.  In her short life, she continually fought to be taken seriously, fought for her independence, and fought to achieve in spite of the physical obstacles she faced.  Her father, famous political commentator David Horowitz, implies that he regrets certain aspects of his relationship with his daughter.  Father and daughter happened to disagree politically.  Frankly, my personal political beliefs are more aligned with David’s; however, he makes a compelling case against Sarah being naïve or easily manipulated in her convictions.  Even though we may have been in serious disagreement politically, I like to believe that Sarah and I would have had a lot to share if we had ever met.  I love the fact that she, like so many women with Turner Syndrome, was stubborn to a fault.

There is so much in her life to which I can relate.  For example, I share her love of words.  She struggled to find her voice and found it difficult to write about her personal life.  Same here.  In the last decade of her life, she found solace in her Jewish faith.  I am just now discovering that organized religion might have something to offer after all.  It goes on and on.  I like to think that her faith offered her some sort of solace in all of the adversity she faced just to complete daily tasks that most of us take for granted.  It will be a long time before I read another book that touches me on such a deep emotional level.

You can read more about Sarah’s life and the book here.

chapter book

Not My Mother’s Life

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JK-Rowling-Quotes-Images-Wallpapers-Pictures-Photos

Getting Married is Not An Accomplishment – Natalie Brooke – Huffington Post

As my last semester as an undergrad comes to a close (student teaching not withstanding), I can’t help but wonder what my future will bring.  I finally came to the conclusion that I will have to create my own path.  There is no template in my family for what I am about to do.  My mother, and my grandmothers and great-grandmothers before her, married by age 21 and became a mother by age 24.  I do not know what single-parenthood looks like on a daily basis.  Am I confident that I can handle being a single mother?  Yes.  Is that what I intended for my life?  No.

Add in the process of becoming a foster parent and then adoption, and I am clearly in uncharted territory.  Fortunately, I’ve been preparing for this most of my life, and I am fortunate to know several people who have adopted and served as foster parents over the years.  I have resources.  Add in the fact that most of my family lives nearby, and I know that I can do this.  I also have a wonderful group of women with Turner Syndrome that I can lean on for support too.

In fact, a comment by a fellow woman with Turner Syndrome really made me think.  Her statement summarizes what I’ve been feeling for much of my teenage years and then my adult life and nails it.

“What feels lacking is the status given to women for their fertility – and precious little else.  I think we are in the *perfect* position to blow that ideology back to where it came from and help people learn of different ways to make a family and make a life.”

Unless you’ve lived through infertility, I don’t think people recognize the extent to which women are still valued for their fertility.  That brings me to the article above.  As a society, we celebrate marriages and births.  Women are still largely defined through family and marriage.  While privately our family and friends might celebrate our academic and career accomplishments, they are not celebrated in the same way in our society.  Why not?  Who says that one has to marry to create a family?  That may be ideal, but it just might not work for everyone.

Why should I wait until I meet the right man before I pursue my dream of having a family of my own?  I already spent ten years with someone who was not right for me in the hopes that we would get married and start a family.  It turns out that he did want a family, just not with me.  As difficult as those lessons were, I am much stronger for it.  After letting go of that relationship, I was finally free to start pursuing my dreams again.  It wasn’t that my ex prevented me for pursuing them.  Instead I found myself holding back until the timing was “right” and focusing on “us” when there never truly was an “us,” at least not as how I perceived it should be.

Frankly, I would love to meet the right man, someone with whom I can share my life.  If it doesn’t happen, it isn’t the end of the world.  As I go through the process of becoming a foster parent and adopting, I am going to focus on myself and what I want out of life.  I am in a position to create the life that I want.  I might as well make the most of it.

quote jk rowling

The Lessons of Infertility

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Is This Why We Don’t Talk About Infertility? – Pamela Tsigdinos

At times, a writer comes across something so powerful, so visceral that she must comment on it, even if she originally planned to discuss something else entirely.  That happened today.  I came across the article today on Facebook, and upon reading it, I knew immediately that I would have to write on infertility.  I have never read anything as honest or thought-provoking on the subject, and it is wonderful.  Pamela Tsigdinos makes it clear that not everyone dealing with infertility later becomes pregnant or adopts.  She acknowledges what no one tells you, what no one can prepare you for as you deal with fertility issues:  It doesn’t just go away.  Old wounds can be ripped open in a matter of seconds, and you may not fully understand why until later, even if you later become a parent.

The truth is it takes time for the many wounds to heal — and sometimes they re-open.  Each of us comes to terms with infertility in our own way, but even that can be complicated by the weird way society expects us to pretend away something that has shaken us to the core.  It’s only when we can give voice to our infertility experience and be heard that we can find our north star and move forward. – Pamela Tsigdinos

Society does indeed have a weird way of pretending away infertility.  I’ve witnessed it in those closest to me.  When I first learned of my infertility as a child, my mom would reassure me that the technology would catch up with me by the time I was ready to have children.  She, of course, was referring to in vitro fertilization.  In a sense, she was absolutely correct.  However, as I grew up, particularly in my 20s, the more I learned about in vitro fertilization, the more I recognized that it is not for me.  I don’t know how I could put myself through the physical and emotional roller coasters that in vitro demands only to possibly experience heartache time and time again.  It didn’t make sense to me, especially when I thought of how many children need parents and a home.

In contrast, my Grandma R. had quite a different reaction.  In fact, hers cracked me up.  She used to tell me that there was always the possibility that I would fall in love with a man that already had children and had lost his wife, that I would have a ready-made family.  If nothing else, it is a great story, and if you know hers, certainly within the realm of possibility as she saw it.

As for me, when I found myself confronted with my first serious relationship, I panicked.  How was I going to tell him about Turner Syndrome and my infertility?  I shouldn’t have worried; a friend of mine beat me to it.  When I finally recognized that I had to tell him, it was one of the most anti-climactic experiences of my life.  He already knew.  I just wish I hadn’t worked myself over it.  As much as he reassured me that it didn’t matter, it did.  It mattered to me, and frankly, I don’t think he knew how to deal with my feelings.

While it appeared to me that those who knew and loved me understood, my worst experiences were with people who had no idea.  One experience in particular left me shattered.  My ex and I had been together for well over five years, still (thankfully) unmarried.  As we were sitting around a bowling alley enjoying a beer and conversation after putting on a road rally fundraiser, this stranger immediately asks my ex’s mom if she was anxious for us to get married and have children.  This woman I did not know hinted that my ex needed to get with it and marry, have kids already.  I sat there panicked, willing myself to recognize that this woman only meant well.  I fought back a flood of tears.  I then gained a whole respect for my ex’s mom.

In response to the question as to whether or not she wanted grandchildren, she simply said not particularly.  The thing is, I know for a fact that this was an outright lie.  I know she wants grandchildren.  Frankly, she reminds me so much of my own grandmother.  Any child would be lucky to have her as a grandmother.  That day I learned she cared enough about me to shut down a nosy neighbor with a lie.  I will never forget it.

This is precisely why weddings and showers can be so difficult.  It seems to me that as soon as a couple marries, there are immediate questions as to when they will have children.  I can’t stand it.  Why do people feel they can ask such intimate questions such as when someone will get married or have children?  I realize that most people mean well, but I just wish that they would take half a second to recognize that not everyone gets married or has children.  It isn’t always a choice.

One more thing (and this may be a particularly hard concept to accept): children are not the elixir for happiness.  Beyond being massively unfair to expect any child to shoulder that burden — making you happy — it’s important to remember that happiness comes from within, as does finding peace with all the messiness of life. – Pamela Tsigdinos

One would think that so many of the issues surrounding infertility would go away when one makes the decision to adopt.  Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way.  I badly needed to recognize that my happiness is not contingent upon motherhood.  Oddly enough, it was my dad who made me face this, even though I was extremely angry with him at the time.  In all fairness to my dad, I don’t think that he will ever understand why I want to be a parent.  He simply asked me a bunch of difficult questions that I did not want to face.  What it comes down to is this:  I am no less of a person if I don’t have children.  My happiness is not contingent upon whether or not I adopt.  My life will not have any more meaning if I am a parent.  As much as I do not want to admit this, he is correct.

Does that mean I no longer want to adopt?  No.  I want to adopt more than over.  It simply means that it isn’t the end of the world if it doesn’t happen.  There is no one way to be in the world.

Click on picture to read Pamela Tsigdinos's post on infertility that inspired my own.

Click on picture to read Pamela Tsigdinos’s post on infertility that inspired my own.

Chasing Happiness

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meant to be

As February and Turner Syndrome awareness month comes to a close, some old debates in the Turner Syndrome community rear their ugly heads.  Every now and then, someone brings up the subject of how women with Turner Syndrome are portrayed in popular culture.  Believe it or not, Turner Syndrome is portrayed in popular culture with varying degrees with accuracy.  Some stereotypes do more harm than good.

One of my old favorite TV shows, Law and Order:  SVU, once aired an episode named Clock with a protagonist, 17 year-old Janey Speer, with Turner Syndrome.  Originally Stabler and Benson believe that Janey is the victim, but soon it becomes much more complicated than that.  Inaccuracies relating to Turner Syndrome aside, the way in which Janey’s boyfriend is treated in the episode is particularly troubling to me.  Essentially he is treated as a pedophile.  Connor’s motives for being with Janey and going along with her plans – and they are certainly her plans – are continually questioned due to the fact that Janey looks so much younger than she actually is.  Janey’s emotional and intellectual maturity is never mentioned.

The episode is also troubling because nothing is mentioned about hormone replacement therapy and suggests that most women with Turner Syndrome have a short window in which to become pregnant.  I understand that this piece of information drives the plot; however, I worry that it gives younger girls with Turner Syndrome false hope.  While this may be true for an extremely small percentage of women with Turner Syndrome (less than 5%), it certainly isn’t the norm.  This fact was never mentioned in the episode.

There is one particular scene in Clock that I love though.  When Janey is the hospital and her entire plot to become pregnant comes to light, someone mentions that women and girls with Turner Syndrome are extremely stubborn.  While it is fair to mention that I would have been extremely stubborn anyway given family history, I love the idea that it is a trait of women and girls with Turner Syndrome.  Why wouldn’t we be?  We have to fight that much harder to get what we want out of life – and I see nothing wrong with that.

Another well-known portrayal of Turner Syndrome in popular culture, Gwen in The Condition by Jennifer Haigh, is much more realistic in my opinion.  There is a scene in the beginning of the novel where Gwen is compared to her slightly older female cousin.  That scene sticks with me because it is precisely what I did at that age.  While the way in which Gwen’s family deals with the fact that she has Turner Syndrome is extreme and appears false to me, I love Gwen’s reaction to it all.  She comes across as the most levelheaded person in her family.  Ultimately, she realizes what she is missing in her life and pursues it with all that she has.  Her decision to risk it all for love by uprooting her life and starting over in the Caribbean is one of the most personally satisfying endings to a novel that I have ever read.  It is something I would consider if I were in Gwen’s situation.  I couldn’t help but cheer for her sheer force of will to be happy.

Everyone seems to have a different opinion about Clock and The Condition.  I admit that both have their issues, but it still amazes me that Turner Syndrome is portrayed in popular culture at all.  What impresses me is that girls and women with Turner Syndrome are largely shown to be strong willed and determined to let nothing stop them from achieving anything.  It may come across as naïve or overly optimistic, but I would rather be determined than resigned.  Resignation never helped anyone.

Caribe

Women Need to Just Stop Judging Other Women

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mom

Adele Is Freaking Feminists Out and I Love Her Even More for It – Chicks on the Right

Since when are the decisions individual women make for their lives up for general debate?  It happens every single day as far as I can tell, particularly if said woman happens to be a mother.  Men are not subjected to downright mean spirited questioning of their personal decisions once their children are born.  Women certainly are.  In fact, there is currently a post on BlogHer in which a mother discusses the judgement she faced from other women in the face of a necessary C-section.  You can read the article here.  I am not a mother yet, and I still see the debates and judgements happening every single day.  Breastfeeding, immunizations, working mothers, school choices, C-section versus natural birth, etc.  The list is endless.  Is it anyone else’s business other than the family and individuals affected?  It shouldn’t be.  People make different decisions for a wide variety of reasons.

That is where Adele comes in.  She recently stated that she didn’t fully recognize her purpose in life until she became a mother.  I am paraphrasing, but that is the gist of the idea.  She simply is suggesting that she views motherhood as more important than her singing career.  She isn’t saying that all women need to feel the same way.  She isn’t saying that her singing career isn’t important.  She is merely expressing her personal views on HER own life.  That’s it.  I admit that I haven’t personally seen the backlash that she has received for this interview, but I can easily imagine it.  That sad part is, there is just as much backlash against anyone who suggests that women can be just as good of mothers when they decide not to stay home with their children.  No, I am not joking.  This isn’t the 1950s, and there are people who truly believe that people (let’s be realistic here, mainly women) need to choose between career and being a good parent during the first few years of a child’s life.  In fact, I came across just such a Facebook post by a stay-at-home mom yesterday.

In this post, the author of this Facebook post commented on an article titled The Loudest Silence I Ever Heard by Travis Norwood.  She goes on to state that the article, which discusses severely neglected children in a Kazakhstan orphanage, proves that CIO (cry it out) is harmful to children.  The article, which is disturbing and deserves its own blogpost relating to adoption, isn’t the issue.  The issue is this woman’s reaction to it.  She questions the ability of children raised by working parents to form healthy relationships and basically function well in society.  She truly believes that it is a necessity for one parent or another to stay at home with their child at least until age three.  Excuse me?  What about parents who must work?  What about single parents on every level?  Whether this woman realizes it or not, she just heaped a ton of guilt on parents who simply do not deserve it.  Does she not see that most of these parents have the best interests of their children at heart as well?  Does she not know any successful women who juggled career with raising children?  If not, I feel sorry for her.  I know so many.  In fact, most mothers I know do just that.  Successfully.

When will it stop?  I am sick of women using up so much time and energy to tear down other women who happen to do things differently or make different choices.  It is one thing to discuss why you made the personal choices you made.  It is quite another to suggest that those choices work for everyone.  Can we just stop pretending that everyone is the same and there is only one way to be successful?  It is particularly bad with regards to parenting.  There is more than one way to be a wonderful parent.

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Adele

The interview that started it all.

Body and Other Four Letter Words

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This is one of the final – and best – blog posts I shared on my old site.  This is still a topic that I think about and struggle with every day.

There are many reasons why I haven’t blogged in well over a year, but today I’m going to address one of the main reasons.  One of the main reasons I decided to blog in the first place was simply to address issues most important to me, and with the issues of body image and infertility, I’ve failed to do just that.  How do you address something that affects every single aspect of your life?  How do you address something so overwhelming that no one, not even those who love you the most, wants to hear it?  The thing is that the longer I let these thoughts fester, let these words go unsaid, the longer I wonder if there is something I could’ve done for girls and women dealing with the same issues.

As a child, I can precisely pinpoint the moment when I was told my body wasn’t good enough; it was the day I entered kindergarten.  Prior to kindergarten, no one called me fat or felt the need to constantly remind me just how short I was.  Sure, I was a “stocky” kid, but I was also active.  I played outside constantly with my little sister, cousins, etc.  I never felt self-conscious in a bathing suit; I was having too much fun swimming.  I never felt the need to compare myself to anyone else.  Did I envy my older cousins?  Of course I did!  I looked up to all four of them (all female), but even as a small child I knew that to compare myself to someone so much older simply didn’t make sense.

Everything changed in kindergarten.  In gym, I was always picked last for teams.  When we had to line up by height (again, in gym), I was inevitably last or next to last.  Sadly, I was compared to a little girl who was much larger than me.  I just remember the anger and outrage of such an unjust comparison, and yet, I felt empathy for the other girl.  Was that really how other kids saw me?  As time wore on, kids started making rhymes about my body.  25 years later, and I still remember it all: “Short, fat, and squatty; got no face, got no body.”

In some ways things got better in junior high.  I went from being bullied to being mostly ignored.  As others paired off and experimented, I just threw myself into my school work and books.  Sports were never much of an option for me, and unfortunately, sports at the junior high/high school I attended were the key to popularity, especially if you were a girl.  I wasted my time on crushes who couldn’t be bothered to even talk to me, much less date me.  Once my little sister joined me at the same school, I was bombarded with comments such as: “I can’t believe you two are sisters! Your sister is so pretty and popular!”  The implication, of course, being that I was the exact opposite: ugly and unpopular.

As an adolescent, I would’ve given anything to look like my Mom and sister, both of whom I considered relatively thin (though they would both fight me on that one), beautiful, and popular.  At the time, I wanted blonde hair and blue eyes if it meant acceptance.  I remember driving with my Mom in her new red Grand Prix as a young teenager.  GM had completely redesigned the Grand Prix, and my Mom had one of the first redesigned models in the area.  My Mom had lost a lot of weight, and frankly, looked great.  Every time I went somewhere with my Mom, it seemed as though we would get stares, mainly from men.  I couldn’t help but wish I was the one making heads turn, not my Mom.  Despite all of the disparaging remarks my Mom would make about her own weight, I never saw her as anything but beautiful.

Adolescence is hard, but it is even harder if you are short and fat.  At the time, I thought I was huge, and that there was no chance I’d ever lose the weight.  Today, I’d love to weigh what I did in high school.  In college, I proved myself wrong and lost a lot of weight due to walking Michigan State’s campus and walking all over Spain during my semester there.  What I wasn’t prepared for was how I would be treated differently.  People were interested in me, in my life – even a few men.

After college, after moving to Houston, Texas for my first “real” job, things changed.  I took all of the stress of that job, the joy of being in a relationship, and the loneliness I felt before Brian joined me in Houston, and I did what I do best: I used it as a license to eat.  The desk job didn’t help either.  Not only did I gain back all of the weight I lost, I kept gaining more too.  It got to the point that my Dad and Grandma were shocked when I returned to Michigan.  They couldn’t even hide it as I’d gained that much weight.

Today I’m at a point in my life where I’d love to lose the weight again.  I’m single, and frankly, happier than I’ve been in a very long time.  The thing is that I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t admit that I’m scared: I’m scared of all of the attention I’d receive if I did lose the weight.  The experience of having lived through that once left me angry.  Am I really that much more of an interesting person if I am relatively thin?  As I thought through all of that, I realized that losing weight would only be temporary (again) if I didn’t deal with my own body issues.  I’m left wondering how I am supposed to do that when everything in our society states, quite bluntly, that my body, even at its best, will never be good enough on account of my height alone.

If there is anything I want girls and women to take from this, it is this: 

We should not feel we have to be a certain weight to feel loved and accepted for who we are, society be damned.  Never let anyone tell you differently.

We as a society need to come to accept the simple fact that people come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.  Words hurt much more than most people realize.

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Is this what we want for girls?

Through all of this over-thinking of body image as of late, I came to realize that I’ve never truly even liked my body, and much of the reason stems from infertility.  The first thing I ever remember wanting out of life was to be a mom.  At no point in my life did I ever not want a family of my own.  Unfortunately, biologically, it just isn’t going to happen.  Fortunately, I came to terms with the fact adoption is a wonderful alternative a long time ago.  And yet, I’ve never quite forgiven my body for so fundamentally betraying me.

If I resemble anyone on either side of my family, it would be my Great-Grandma Suszko, my Dad’s maternal grandmother. At nineteen, I was working with my Grandma (her daughter) when she opened a package from a niece containing her parents’ wedding photo, newly redone.  My Grandma kept staring at the photo and then back at me.  It was clear she thought I looked like her Mom, although the fact that I was the same age as the girl in the photograph probably helped.  As someone deeply interested in family history, I have a copy of Great-Grandma Suszko’s naturalization papers.  Her physical description could fit me perfectly, with one exception: she was two inches taller than I am.  My Great-Grandma Suszko had ten children, all but one of whom lived well into their 70s.  Add in the fact that my Mom has four sisters, and I came up with one conclusion: My body should be built to bear children.  It just isn’t.

What people who don’t have infertility fail to realize is that dealing with it is an on-going process, not a one-time deal.  Just when you feel you are fine with it, accepted it fully, and have moved on, something happens that forces you to deal with it all over again.  For me, one of the hardest things to deal with was the day I realized that I fully met the medical definition of infertile (I’ll spare you the details).  There just wasn’t anyone I could share that deep sense of loss with at the time, even my boyfriend.  I’ve talked a lot about my experiences with body image, but it just wasn’t complete without discussing infertility as well.  There was a time in my life that dealing with infertility was so painful that I downplayed my desire for a family of my own.  I downplayed it to the point that my own sister never realized that I wanted children.  It saddens me that those I love most can never fully understand due to the simple fact that they are parents.

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