Sandy Langhart Michelet
World Childless Week Ambassador
I just got back from a Go Red for Women event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Great music. Great friends. And stories that hurt but were inspiring. The event was intended to bring awareness to the high number of women who die of heart disease and stroke...and the numbers are staggering.
The energy in the room was incredible....it was a sea of red...and all women had one goal...to educate, share inspiring stories and raise funds for important procedures and research. Fact: More women die of heart disease than breast cancer...but we don't talk about it enough.
As I climbed back into my car, the energy and emotion of the day got me....and I was allllllll in my feelings. What had I just witnessed?! Survivors told emotional stories about their heart disease and recovery, their prognosis and then acceptance of their new normal. The inspiring stories of women who went through something horrible and survived. We already knew the strength of the women as they took the stage to speak....but the crowd of 300+ women did what only women can....they immediately transformed from strangers to a fierce sisterhood with a collective and figurative "girl, we got you". And every person in that room felt it as they saw those same women dance down the runway to Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive". (Oh yea, there was a fashion show at the end.) Everyone was on their feet. And everyone became a stronger advocate for women's heart health in that moment.
Big things happen when we are all going in the same direction.
Heart disease is a leading killer of women, yet it is dismissed, under-researched, and misunderstood. Women’s symptoms were brushed off as anxiety or stress. And when they tried to advocate for themselves, they were often unheard.
Sound familiar?
Childlessness, whether by circumstance or biology, isn’t something most people think about unless they’re living it. It doesn’t come with a built-in support system. There are no automatic moments of collective understanding—no unspoken nods of recognition in a crowded room. Instead, there are baby showers we politely decline, Mother’s Day gatherings we endure with a complicated mix of emotions, and small, daily reminders that the world expects women to be mothers.
And yet, just like the women in red today, we do find each other.
We build our own quiet networks of support. We redefine what fulfillment looks like. We navigate our way through a world that doesn’t always see us, and in doing so, we learn to see ourselves more clearly.
The tagline of my blog is From infertility to acceptance in 147 easy steps. And the truth is, there’s nothing easy about it. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: Acceptance isn’t about making the world understand our experience. It’s about making peace with it ourselves—and finding the people who truly get it along the way.
And just like the song says—we survive.
