Childlessness

The idea that men might feel less empowered than women to discuss their desire to be parents deserves our attention. However, the Daily Mail piece frames the issue in a completely unproductive way -- blaming "career women" for "denying" their partners children.

Babies are born from the womb. Maternity is born from the soul. There are many ways to mother.

I didn't always want children. I know that's not the typical confession from someone who has dealt with infertility, but I married young, and resisted and resented the almost immediate pressure I felt to have children.

Be honest. You've played this game, haven't you? Someone tells you something awful, and you immediately weigh it against your own experience of loss (even if you do have the good grace to not openly play your tragedy trump card).

A primer on things best not to say to women who have been pumped full of mind-altering hormones and endured an alphabet soup of invasive procedures (ART, IVFs, ICSI's, IUI's), miscarriages and/or had failed adoptions.

Marriage and unions may look different today than they did even a decade ago, but some things never change.

We all know that going through infertility treatments can be incredibly challenging for couples. But single women who yearn to be mothers go through their own heartache.

When a woman is over age 30, single and childless, people want to know why. Just about everyone is just dying to know: What is she waiting for?

The grief hit me in my mid-thirties without warning. By all appearances, my life was fantastic, but there were nights when I would cry for hours. I was in mourning, but I didn't know it.

Childlessness is the state into which a girl is born. But once she reaches her mid thirties, that natural state is suddenly deemed unnatural.

Not long after I got married, I started getting asked The Question. Those of you who have encountered this question in its many forms know that one element is always the same, no matter how it's posed. We are always asked "when," not "if."

I live in a world of Schadenfreud, New York City, where a woman over 40 is often single and childless, as well as powerful, beautiful, and fit -- and where she is picked on by the newspaper she wakes up to every morning.

For women like me, we not only grieve the loss of motherhood, but we also grieve the loss of the dream, the dream of finding love and marriage resulting in that beautiful baby carriage.

I'm 42 and still single and I have come to acknowledge the truth: it's very possible I won't have children of my own.

The federal government's blame-name-calling needs to stop. We're not spinsters. We're not career women. And we're not delayers.