Perhaps I should just call this series The Diaries rather than Monday Diaries. Because as soon as I have a routine and a set time to write: it changes.
Lo: the Summer Holidays Hath Arrived.
I’m lucky. I can work around the kids over the next 6 weeks which is great…right? ANDDDDDD also incredibly stressful - if I let it.
Simon and I will share the juggle between us - I’m grateful for this team-like approach. We have a varied, quite complicated rota across the Summer with various days off, 4 day weeks and time away. I’m going to half wing it and half do a week by week check in on a Sunday to make sure I know what the fluff is happening and who is in charge of what!
Things I want to respond to that have been in the media the last couple of weeks
Fertility Anxiety
There was an article in Stylist about this. Now, I haven’t actually read this as it’s behind a paywall and it’s just not something I want to sign up for and forget to cancel at this point - but the headline was something I felt strongly about.
“Stylist spoke to Women who have lived through fertility anxiety, experts in the field and what got them through”
There’s a quote pulled at the top which reads: “I can’t get that time back”.
Now I can’t comment properly on this because, you know, I haven’t read it.
BUT as I’m all about efficiency today (I have a timer on so that this piece just gets DONE as I don’t want to miss another week!) shouting loudly that there is a positive, gentle and self compassionate route through the fertility ride is literally why I do what I do.
We really don’t need to live with fertility anxiety if women - and men - know that the support, understanding, community and ability to access life changing therapy or coaching so you know how to master your inner narrative: is there.
For more than 6 years I’ve been supporting people to find that they have far more control over their inner world than we are lead to believe - I keep reading instagram posts with people saying “I’ve heard the horror stories and I don’t want to put myself through it”...and I just think: hold on.
How can we make a life changing decision about whether or not to have fertility treatment which will affect the rest of our lives, on the basis of what someone else’s experience of it was like?
There are SO MANY variables.
The medical side obviously. Their socio-economic background. The support they have access to. How much narrative they’ve heard about navigating it all and feeling OK vs how much they’ve heard which tells them it’s going to be utterly horrific and ruin everything from finances to their marriage to their bodies?
It should go without saying that I’m not minimising anything here. I know that for many it CAN be brutal and sometimes it doesn’t work - but I’m also lucky to know many women who have been through it and who have built incredible lives afterwards.
My friend Aisha, the amazing Katie and the fantastic Jody Day whose writing I just adore.
But I’ll stand by my point. We shouldn’t be increasing fertility anxiety and fear by ONLY publishing stories in the media (mainstream and social) about how horrendous the whole thing is and without sharing the stories and lives of the women who do not have children after IVF who are deeply happy and comfortable with who they are and what their lives look like.
I have been creating as much support as possible for the last 6 years online. Right now, I’m about to run my online course RECLAIM with a new cohort, the 6 week mindset programme I created in 2020.
Over 1000 students have taken this course. It works. With evidence based techniques to guide people from a total and utter fertility induced fog to a whole new world (or as one person said “a whole new realm of possibility”). You can sign up here. Be quick if you’re reading this on Friday because there’s 50 quid off until 8pm with the code RECLAIM50.
A "bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives".
This is just the most insane thing ever. HOW HOW HOW are we living in a world where the possible Vice President of the USA has, in one fell swoop, reduced women’s value to whether or not their uterus has housed a child?
My coaching and courses work with women to understand their worth as a human and that the value of their lives has NOTHING to do with whether or not they have had children born from their loins.
This inane comment, broadcast to the world, causing so much rage, is a reflection of a view so etched in our societal makeup that the women I work with feel they have failed, they feel shame, they don’t believe they are of value.
Of course the same opinion is not put upon men. Of course it’s not.
Jennifer Aniston responded with a post on social media:
"I truly can’t believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States. All I can say is… Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day."
"I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option, because you are trying to take that away from her, too."
So to sum up: fertility anxiety is heightened and the worth of women has yet again been questioned. Nice.
Last night I watched Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo di Caprio and Meryl Streep in the satirical Don’t Look Up. It was alarmingly close to reality.
The end of the world is coming in 6 months. Scientists have confirmed it. And the only thing those in power are interested in is maintaining control over the population and mining the comet for minerals. The manipulation through rhetoric, spinning narratives, social media - is all far too close to home and FRIGHTENING.
The fact that reproductive rights for women in the US are in question right now is desperate and while we in the UK think we’re safe: it’s imperative those that have something to say on this, stand up, say it, shout about what we know to be true and gather together so that somewhere, somehow, anyone about to go through a fertility journey, or going through it right now: know where to find the support, sense and information that they so desperately need.
World IVF Day
Was yesterday. I am never really organised enough to post about awareness days on social media, but I did share something on my stories last night.
Because as ever, this sort of day brings up a wealth of feelings.
For some, it’s a day to be thankful to science for their families. Me included. After saying goodbye to our frozen embryos and donating them to research last year, my time with IVF is well and truly over - and mix of relief and sadness that my own baby making years are done.
For others, the day brings up alienation: as above…IVF doesn’t always work. And the day on social media, seems to be all about the babies born from the science - not about the ones that aren’t.
So to anyone affected in any way by a day like yesterday; news headlines and very very stupid people making extremely ignorant and offensive remarks (JD Vance it’s you, you are the stupid person) remember that your story is important.
Remember YOU are important.
And if you feel lost in the journey, come and do my course, RECLAIM with me.
We start August 2nd and I promise you have the potential to feel completely different at the end of it.
Alice x
PS thank you, thank you thank you to over 100 subscribers!! I’m thrilled!! Also if you know someone who is lost in the fog of fertility right now, you might want to send them my way. I can really help.