Growing up, “sex education” didn’t include discussing infertility awareness. It looked the same for many of us. We sat in a high school classroom, being taught by our high school football coach, and we were all taught the same lesson:
Don’t have sex because you’ll get pregnant. Be careful because it only takes one time. Teen pregnancy will ruin your life.
The message was clear: pregnancy was something you had to actively avoid because it could happen so quickly. No one taught us how our menstrual cycle actually works or what was actually going on inside our bodies. We learned nothing about cycle tracking or how to support our reproductive health.
We were also definitely NOT taught one MAJOR hard truth: Turns out that for many of us, getting pregnant is really F***ing hard.
For many people, it takes months. Or years. Constant appointments, blood draws, procedures, test after test.
Then no answers, just feeling lost and filled with grief.
Infertility Awareness Week matters because it creates space for conversations that should have been happening all along. Infertility is far more common than people realize, and yet so many people walk through it feeling isolated, ashamed, or like they somehow failed.
I know that feeling.
As an acupuncturist specializing in women’s health and fertility, I’ve spent years supporting patients through trying to conceive, pregnancy loss, IVF cycles, unanswered questions, and the emotional weight that comes with all of it.
But long before I was helping patients navigate it professionally, I was learning what it meant personally. There is something uniquely painful about being both the person who understands the medicine and the person still sitting in the waiting room hoping for good news. You can know all the protocols and do everything “right.” You can be the one helping everyone else hold hope, and still find yourself heartbroken.
That experience changed the way I practice. It made me softer. I learned to listen differently and read between the lines. It made me understand that fertility care is never just about ovulation, lab values, or treatment plans. It is about identity, relationships, grief, fear, loss of trust, hope, control, and surrender.
This is why I care so much about creating spaces where women feel safe enough to be honest and vulnerable. Not just clinically supported, but emotionally supported. And not just treated, but understood and validated.
The last thing people need is another generic “just relax” comment. They need someone to say:
I hear you. This is hard. You are not imagining it. You are not behind. You are not broken.
Most importantly: You are not alone.
Infertility Awareness Week is not just about awareness. It is about compassion, better conversations, better education, better support. It is about making sure fewer women feel like they have to carry this quietly.
If this is part of your story too, I hope you know there is no “right” or “wrong” way to move through it.
Whatever season you’re in – trying, waiting, grieving, healing, hoping or maybe just accepting – you deserve support there.
At Verdae Wellness, my work is rooted in that belief.
Fertility care should be collaborative.
Both partners matter.
Eastern and Western medicine can work beautifully together, and women deserve care that sees the whole picture.
This week, and every week, I hope we keep talking about it. Because silence helps no one, and awareness, when paired with compassion, can change everything.
