Infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy termination, surrogacy, adoption, chosen childlessness… there are many reproductive experiences that don’t follow the socially supported narrative. For those of us who aren’t represented in that narrative the pain can feel isolating and demoralizing. The hetero- and cis-normative imperative that tells us our bodies don’t matter unless we reproduce, in biologically prescribed gender-role-confirming ways, reduces our value to one or two lines on a pregnancy test.

Fertility treatments can be humiliating and physically punishing. Miscarriages are a long-lasting devastation that undermine our entire sense of self. Abortion is riddled with shame on one end of the political spectrum and an expectation that we minimize and “get over it” on the other. Alternative methods of becoming a parent are often treated as somehow less valid and the decision not to have children at all is constantly questioned and not believed by a culture that tells us “You’ll change your mind when you get older”. It seems like any experience other than the image imposed on us by dominant culture is erased, shamed and dismissed.

I have worked to create the help I needed and couldn’t find when I experienced infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, and I’ve been supporting people through reproductive trauma for the past 7 years. My own process has led to happy childlessness – something I like to be up front about because there are so few representations of the experience of trying to have children, not being able to and finding a rich and fulfilling life after deciding to stop trying. But wherever you are in your process, your experience matters, your body matters and you deserve space held for you to talk about it.