What Defines You? Is It Your (In)Fertility?
Chapter six of Fully Fertile: A 12-Week Plan for Optimal Fertility is entitled, Identifying and Eliminating Your Stressors, and in it, a section is dedicated to your job and the stresses it brings to your life:
is entitled, Identifying and Eliminating Your Stressors, and in it, a section is dedicated to your job and the stresses it brings to your life:So many women who are trying to conceive wonder if quitting their jobs would reduce their stress, and, therefore, enhance their chances of getting pregnant…Here’s the problem. So much of what we do for a living shapes our ego identity…
This got me to thinking…
Am I defined by my job? Is what I do from 9-5 Monday through Friday (and then some) what I choose as the most important part of my identity?
For me, that answer is no.
I like what I do. I care about the work that I do. But if someone were to ask me, “who are you?” I probably wouldn’t refer to the job that pays me until much further down the list.
At the same time, I had a hard time with posting during Celebrity Week because I didn’t want to define hard-working women by their fertility and methods of conception above their careers and considerable accomplishments.
So then, what defines me?
A few months ago, I made the conscious decision to stop using the term “infertile,” because I don’t think it’s productive or helpful to define myself as something I don’t want to be.
The other evening, on the eve of our anniversary of ten years together, my partner and I sat on our little balcony, popped open a bottle of champagne (FET cycle hasn’t started yet) and started listing our favorite moments, times, events, things from the last ten years. Everything from life-changing experiences (trekking to Macchu Picchu) to mundane moments that have simply stuck in our collective memory (shared jokes, strange friends).
We were there until the sun went down.
Ladies, this little celebration was so affirming, so energizing, so necessary. Not only did it remind me that I am not defined by my lack of ovaries, it gave me example after example after example of how wonderful my life has been, and is, in so many ways.
And that there is more to life than the next cycle, the next shot, the next two week wait. Those things are a part of me, but they aren’t all of me.
Beyond fertility, what defines you?
Tags: , career, defining self, ego, fertility, fully fertile, identity, infertility, job, stressors, trying to conceive, trying to get pregnant, trying to have a baby, two week wait, vocabularyRelated Stories
POSTED IN: IVF, cancer, celebrities, feminism, infertility treatments, living with infertility, motherhood, shared experiences
2 opinions for What Defines You? Is It Your (In)Fertility?
acne-care>
Jul 3, 2008 at 12:11 am
eliminating stress is one of the ways of increasing your fertility.
luna
Jul 3, 2008 at 1:35 am
my grief counselor used to refer to my infertility as my “unable to conceive (again) as yet.”
it’s hard NOT to be defined as NOT a mother (to a living child). sure, I am other things too. but that one is still overarching, I hate to say.
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