At least it's worth something...

Last night I was asked to speak at a workshop for individuals who are training to become caregivers. The topic for the evening was all things dealing with reproduction and since I only had about an hour I focused in on a few different areas. I spoke about pregnancy as crisis, infertility, prematurity and postpartum depression. The first area pregnancy as crisis isn't something I've personally experience but I do have training in this area for providing care.

During grad. school I volunteered with Planned Parenthood (which may seem weird to some since I was also going through infertility at the time) but I'm a huge proponent of reproductive justice across the entire spectrum from the ability to choose all the way through infertility treatments and options. So I was able to speak to this group using my past training and experiences.

The other three ares, infertility, prematurity, and postpartum depression all things that I have researched and also experienced. It was empowering for me to use my own struggles in these areas to help educate others. As much as all of those things really sucked to go through I am grateful that I am now in a position where I can bring education and awareness about these things and help instruct and teach some ways that caregivers can be supportive to individuals going through these things.

Everyone was really receptive to the presentation and the leader of the training actually already asked if I would come back in the spring and give my talk again with the new class of trainers. They also asked if Marcus would come and give a male perspective on all these things since he too went through the infertility, prematurity and lived with me during the worst of the PPD.

I would love for him to do that but I laughed and little and let them know that Marcus isn't much for public speaking especially about himself (he's incredibly shy). When I asked him last night his immediate response was "no way". I totally respect him for that and I also appreciate that he's okay with me being so public about some of these things. (Although I didn't mention our IF diagnosis last night).

I would never choose to live any of these experiences but I am grateful that they can now be worth something and I can perhaps in someone help others going through similar situations.