Ten Ways to Celebrate (and Help) This Holiday

There’s nothing I hate more than returning gifts.

Last year, I tried to do almost all of my holiday shopping online, which was a tremendous success, until things didn’t fit and I had to shell out for shipping to get it right. This year, I am going to try to embrace the idea of the evergreen as a symbol of fertility, enhance awareness around infertility, and find gifts that I know won’t be returned. Here are ten “gifts” that you can give yourself and others that hopefully meet those three goals:

1. Donate to Resolve, the National Infertility Association.
2. Share Resolve’s Holiday Survival Guide with anyone you know who is having a tough time being childless while surrounded by images of children and families and all that other holiday goodness that can be more sickeningly sweet than the seven layer bars in my kitchen.
3. Share your story, whatever the path or ending might be. Blog. Write. Talk. One in ten couples in America experience infertility. Odds are you know more people than you think who are experiencing at least some of what you are. So why is this subject still so hush hush in so many circles?
4. Read others’ stories. Have you seen Mel’s super huge (in)fertility blog roll which I won’t even attempt to emulate here? Go make some tea, grab your laptop, sit back and start clicking. Laugh, cry, celebrate, mourn, learn, get active, celebrate again. You would not believe the amazing writers who are represented in this list. If you are trying to conceive/waiting to adopt/living life without children and wishing people would stop bugging you about it, there is something here for you.
5. Advocate for what you know is right. Write your Congressperson and tell him/her to support the Family Building Act of 2007.
6. Buy a gift here at the Shop to Make Mom or Pop Store. Textiles, bath and beauty products, stationary, jewelry – all right here! These online stores were created by men and women for the sheer purpose of helping to fund their fertility treatments or adoptions.
7. Volunteer for Project PCOS using this handy online form. There are so many ways to help without even leaving your armchair.
8. Attend a free conference or seminar on Infertility at Second Life. I am not even going to pretend I know how this works. Second Life kind of scares me. But if you’re in there already, why not stop by the Project PCOS virtual office and see how your second self can get involved.
9. Support or volunteer for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. Especially you folks that are handy with a camera.
10. And don’t forget about yourself! Reconsider the beauty products you use and the foods you ingest. Read the labels. Are there plastics, phthalates or other ingredients that act as estrogen mimics or inhibitors? Throw them out! And use that as an excuse to go buy some fabulous new organic goods for yourself. Merry Christmas to you!

So there you have it. Ten ways to learn more and do more about infertility this holiday season. If Santa asks me what I want for Christmas, I can assure him it is nothing that can be wrapped.