On infertility grief, therapy, and rebuilding life as a woman who is Childfree Not By Choice.
The Women We Celebrate
Every year on March 8, International Women’s Day fills my Instagram feed with messages about strong women. They are about women breaking glass ceilings, living amazing lives, and being mentors to other women. I also see posts honoring mothers. And they all deserve every bit of recognition.
But today I’m thinking about another kind of woman. The kind who helps other women survive. Not with speeches or hashtags, but by logging into Zoom week after week while they help another woman figure out how to keep going.
The Woman Who Helped Me Survive
For the last two years, that woman has been my therapist. I was in a place where my mind felt like it was disintegrating (a change in medication by a male doctor who did not know anything about how anxiety medicines work). I was also facing a major challenge: Should I continue pursuing foster care or adoption to complete my family? I was exhausted from trying every single thing I could after IVF did not work, but I was not ready to look at what stopping would mean.
At first, I was resistant to most everything she suggested. First, breathing. (How was learning to breathe going to help me?) Second, the Miracle Morning (Yeah, right—meditation and journaling?). Third, read Atomic Habits and create habits for myself. (Again, how is creating habits going to help me answer the biggest question I was facing?)
But I reluctantly tried, and I started seeing improvement in my daily life. I was so anxious then that I was doing the breathwork about 10 times per day to reduce anxiety. The Miracle Morning gave me structure to start the day and time for reflection. I read Hal’s book and watched the movie about him. Hmm… if that could help him, then maybe me too.
Lastly, I read Atomic Habits, which at first I blew off, but I recently realized what she was getting at. Creating habits, creating routines, calms anxiety and gives you something to fall back on when you feel your world is unraveling.
After six months, I finally started sharing my story with her about my journey to non-parenthood. I finally felt I could trust her. With her guidance, we explored the questions that led me to finally make my decision.
“Pay attention to your feelings,” was her advice.
A Different Kind of Therapy
Throughout my life, I have had many therapists. Mostly women, but men too. But this therapist is different from all the others. She is not so much about going over your childhood memories every time but more about taking action that pulls you back from hitting the wall. She is very practical, outcome-focused, and she hears me in a way that I have not experienced before with other therapists.
Understanding Infertility Grief
The world tends to see infertility as a medical issue that eventually resolves itself one way or another. You either become a parent or you “move on.” But the truth is far more complicated.
What many people don’t understand is that infertility grief does not end when treatments stop. For many women, it is the beginning of a long process of redefining identity and imagining a different future.
For women who are Childfree Not By Choice (CFNBC) after years of infertility, IVF, fostering, or adoption attempts, the grief doesn’t neatly end. It changes shape. It resurfaces. It asks new questions about identity, purpose, and what the next stage of life might look like.
The Work of Rebuilding
We talked about things that many people never say out loud: the grief of infertility, the exhaustion of trying for decades, the complicated relief of finally letting go, and the disorienting task of figuring out who you are when the identity of “future mother” disappears. Most importantly, for me, we talked about the shame I felt for not being able to have children.
My therapist has listened to all of it. The anger. The sadness. The moments when I felt strong and the ones when I didn’t. She has helped me see patterns I couldn’t see myself. She has challenged me when I needed it. And sometimes she simply held space for the reality that some losses in life don’t resolve cleanly.
For women who are CFNBC, this kind of support can be life-changing. Because much of our culture still struggles to acknowledge infertility grief after the pursuit of parenthood ends. Once you stop trying, people assume the story is over. But the emotional work often begins right there.
Many Childfree Not By Choice women spend years rebuilding their sense of identity. They rethink friendships, careers, relationships, and how they want to move through the world without the role they once expected to hold. It is real work. And survival deserves recognition too.
Rethinking International Women’s Day
So this International Women’s Day, while the world celebrates women leading companies and running countries, I’m also honoring the woman who helped me survive my own turning point. The woman who helped me make sense of grief that didn’t have a script. The woman who helped me imagine a life beyond infertility.
Sometimes the most important woman in your life is the one who helps you rebuild it.
And that, to me, is worth celebrating on International Women’s Day.
