When you wake up in the morning what is on your mind? What is on your emotional plate? What are some of the first thoughts and words you use to feed yourself in order to get through the day? Do you have a healthy mental breakfast or don’t you even take the time to sit for five minutes and search for a sense of calm and peace?

The above came from a note from Susan Russo, an acquaintance and relationship expert. She offers a powerful reminder that as much as we worry about what we eat and what position we have sex in and when exactly we are ovulating to the second, we don’t often give a lot of time, energy and attention to our happiness.

I know it may not seem like it, but the ultimate goal here is not to get pregnant – it’s to build your family in a healthy way. You can’t do that if you aren’t in a healthy place. Challenge yourself to find ways to embrace the day you’ve been given, to sit and wait and meditate and know that what you are doing right now is exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

Andrew Delbanco wrote a book a year ago called The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope. In it, he says what we all know is true, that from time to time in our lives we get the feeling that all of the random experiences and sensations and events that we call our lives, don't really add up to anything. That they're just meaningless. This feels particularly true when we are struggling with difficulties and hardship.
We always live at the brink of this chasm of meaninglessness, where with just a nudge, we might tumble into melancholy and despair. "Why am I here?" "What has my life meant?"
"What's the purpose of it all?" Hope, says Delbanco, is the stories we tell that help us make meaning out of our lives. The stories that restore to us our sense of purpose and worth, and make our life worth living again.
Tell your story. Revive your hope. Believe in the power of letting your voice be heard. Maybe it’s in a journal or a blog or an online forum or offer coffee with a friend or in church or….I don’t know. But you do. Clear your throat, raise your voice and be heard. Your story may very well comfort another to know they aren’t alone.

I am always interested in seeing new nonprofits in the infertility space, because just when I think there couldn’t possibly be room for one more – there’s one more. Considering the limited efficacy of the larger groups, I’m not convinced that another non-profit is a bad idea.
Here is the announcement that came across my desk: “2BFertile is a non-profit dedicated to supporting individuals and couples facing fertility challenges. This is a brand new organization with a small but energetic board. We are kicking things off by organizing a 5K for Fertility on April 24th at Lake Zorinsky. April 24th marks the start of National Infertility Awareness Week.”
“We are very excited to be a part of creating awareness about the 38,000 people struggling with fertility issues in Nebraska. Eventually, we hope to be able to continue to increase awareness as well as increase resources and access to resources for those facing fertility challenges. Currently, we are in need of support in any way you can provide it. We are looking for board members, contributions and most importantly help in spreading the word!
As an aside, 38,000 thousand people with infertility in Nebraska isn’t a good number-it seems waay too high, and RESOLVE, a national fertility organization created National Infertility Awareness Week, and I’m pretty sure they’re gonna want their week back.

For more information, contact:
Julie Luzarraga, LICSW, DCSW
The Center for Counseling & Psychotherapy
8021 Chicago Street Omaha, NE 68114
Tel 402-502-1024, ext. 290 Fax 402-502-1555
www.midtownmind.com

We all respond to fertility struggles differently. If you are a person of faith, your faith can be affected as well. To share from a Christian perspective, I have invited Susan Radulovacki to share with us today.

I was a honeymoon baby, born nine months and eight days after my parents eloped. Anticipating the same ultra-fertility, I was extremely cautious about birth control until my husband and I decided to start a family… and couldn’t. The discovery that I wasn’t even ovulating signaled the beginning of our incredibly long and profoundly lonely journey through infertility. We knew no one else going through the same experience – except the strangers we saw, month after month, in the doctors’ waiting rooms.
Despite many losses, we did ultimately become parents – and I promised myself I would do anything I could to help other couples struggling through the same difficult journey.

Several years ago, I started leading a one-of-a-kind, nondenominational Bible study for infertile couples. It is designed to confront infertility head-on, seek God in the midst of it, and ask hard questions about whether the Bible has anything remotely relevant to say. I’m convinced that one of the hardest things about infertility is grappling with unanswered questions and sensing that there is nowhere to go, and no one to talk to, to get answers to questions like “Why us? Why not them? Will this ever end? When, and how? What do we do with our grief? Our anger? Our fear? And, where is God in all this?”

The group draws couples from across the city – some of whom have strong spiritual lives, some of whom have no spiritual life at all. Many of them have left churches that are silent in response to their suffering, in search of compassionate community and sustenance. All of them arrive actively seeking answers to urgent, painful, deeply important questions. And we dig in.

The couples who participate in the class consistently describe it as transformational. By the end of the course, infertility no longer represents only suffering and loss to them. Through our discussions, couples come to see the journey as a time of profound spiritual growth and preparation for a future as parents. I believe God has that same transformation in mind for many couples.

In response to multiple requests, I wrote Pregnant with Hope: Good News for Infertile Couples, which incorporates the ten lessons shared in the class, along with interviews with ten of the couples who went through the class and conceived or adopted soon after. The goal is to enable all infertile couples to experience the benefits of our group – the candid questions, the deep discussions, the helpful insights, the inspiring stories, and most of all, the renewed hope.

I invite you to join in – to bring your need for community, for compassionate understanding, for answers, and especially for lasting hope – and to invite God to transform your infertility journey from a heartbreaking quest into life-changing good news. It is not only possible, it is His deep desire.

Pregnant with Hope is available on Amazon and all major online booksellers. There is also an e-store on the website, PregnantWithHope.com. And, I invite you to subscribe to the PregnantWithHope blog. It delivers insights and inspiration several times a week.

This week, I am inviting some folks-authors, health care providers, movie makers, and more to share some of their experiences with you. Joanne Verkuilen, Founder of Circle + Bloom, a company that creates Mind + Body programs for fertility, is passionate about other women going through the painful fertility journey that she has gone through. She shares this very personal story with the hope of inspiring others, giving comfort to others in time of pain, and offering a few things to reflect.

Here is her story:

I have PCOS and have known about it since my late teens. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome is a hormone imbalance that affects about 5-10% of women in the U.S. It basically puts your ovaries into overdrive, producing many cysts (hence the “poly” in the name) instead of healthy eggs. Throughout my twenties and early into my marriage, the diagnosis that “pregnancy may be difficult” was there lurking in the background, but I honestly didn’t get too hung up on it as it was something to be dealt with at a later time. I was blessed to have two perfect children, but not without a lot of heart-ache and emotional ups and downs along the way.
Our first child came within six months of “trying but not trying.” It was easy, actually. No temperature monitoring, no buying pregnancy tests in bulk, no infertility procedures, and more importantly, very little stress. There was no figuring out when my period was supposed to come, and waiting with baited breath to see if it did. It was living life normally.
The second child, who came almost five years later, was a bit of a different story.
I had two miscarriages along the way and right after my second miscarriage, my husband and I attended the wedding celebration of a very dear friend who was already about five months pregnant. She had on this stunning cream colored dress and her baby bump showed just enough that she looked curvy and round in a beautiful, almost primitive way, like one of those ancient fertility statues showing a swollen figure representing birth and new life. She moved through the crowd effortlessly and her smile never left her face.

I was devastated.

My brain, being depressed and anxious about my situation, ran on its own. It bitched constantly. The negative self talk in my head went something like this:

I am sure that I am causing my own infertility. I can’t do anything right. My low self-confidence causes all of my problems, and being infertile is just another one. I hate how I deal with things. Look at all of those other women who are so secure in who they are, and of course they get pregnant with no problems. I don’t deserve my dreams coming true.

I believe fundamentally that life is a journey, and everything happens, as it should. For me, self-discovery and finding peace happened while commuting on the New Jersey Transit. Once we moved to the suburbs, I found myself very begrudgingly commuting almost one hour each way either on a train or bus. At first, this time spent in quiet solitude was boring and almost difficult. I then started journaling, being completely honest and raw with my pen. Then I started reading constantly, becoming a voracious reader mainly of spiritual books, self-help and fertility books. Some kind of window opened in my brain and I could not learn enough about human nature, what I wanted to accomplish and the ideas and creativity started to pour out of me. It was during this time that I brainstormed the Circle + Bloom program.
Looking back, I am convinced that most of my stress came as a result of “sleeping” through life. Letting my mind-negativity rule my internal and external world. When that started to change – when I became more aware of my thoughts – I could simply let them go. I could acknowledge the fact that the thoughts were negative, and then explore where that thought was stemming from and hopefully find the truth of my being in the process.

The result? Internal peace. Living in the present moment. Being thankful for each and every minute, idea, and expression of my self. Living in a world where I choose positive thoughts, I choose to be grateful and creative, and I choose to love myself. When I do have negative thoughts, I treat it as a wonderful opportunity to learn something more about myself. It’s a true awakening and if I can do it, so can you.
By becoming more aware of your own thoughts, I believe that stress and anxiety from living with infertility can be controlled, managed, and understood from a different perspective. Being aware when you see another woman pregnant, paying attention to the thoughts are running through your mind – but (and this is very important) trying not to label them. Don’t berate yourself for having negative thoughts. Just accept them as is. The simple process of becoming aware of those thoughts, the greater consciousness within you gains greater control of your mind, your well being, your levels of happiness. If stress is therefore reduced, your bodies become more balanced, which could result in improved fertility.

My new self-talk?

“Everything that I have I am grateful for. I feel abundance in my life and feelings of peace and security come as a result. What can I do right now that furthers my goals as a positive contributor to my life, my family and my community?”

About the Circle + Bloom Mind + Body Fertility Program:

There is extensive research that proves stress has a negative impact on fertility. Many times the impact is not incorporated into treatments and procedures that women do to help them conceive. Joanne started Circle + Bloom to give women the opportunity to take more control of their fertility and give them a program designed specifically to address this overlooked link. The program is Circle + Bloom Mind + Body Fertility Program and is based on medical and scientific research and encompasses a proven method to create a mind + body connection to bring about real changes in the body. . You can gain more information at www.circlebloom.com.