Navigating Your Reproductive Story

Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash

Barely a week had passed since our wedding, and we still had reception paraphernalia strewn across our living room when I was accosted by a church member asking when my husband and I planned to have kids.

While her question wasn’t out of character, I was flustered. “We haven’t even fully unpacked after our honeymoon,” I sputtered. “We’re not even close to thinking about having babies.”

Her response? A warm smile and a gentle reminder about blessings, timelines, and the ticking biological clock. She had her story, shaped by early marriage, children in quick succession, and a life she had known. My reproductive story, however, was entirely different—full of questions, uncertainties, and alternative timelines.

This encounter made me reflect on how our internal narratives—what clinician Janet Jaffe calls our reproductive stories—shape our expectations, experiences, and emotional reactions to fertility, parenthood, and reproductive trauma.

Read the rest of this essay on Substack!

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