After the success of World Childless Week 2017 I was faced with the question of how to move forwards. Not with myself but with World Childless Week. I wanted to create a website to enable those who were not on Facebook to have access to all of the articles, posters and blogs that everyone had so generously contributed, but what else should I do? Would it be enough to purely represent our community one week out of fifty two? Would it be enough to focus on seven days a year or was there a need to do more?

In a discussion with Nicci Fletcher last year the subject of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) 2018 came up. We talked about how NIAW had been my inspiration to create World Childless Week and that perhaps there was a need to do something to represent the childless not by choice (cnbc) community during the week. We talked about several different ideas.

I mentioned doing a more in depth discussion on the topic of adoption as it surfaced as the most emotive subject during World Childless Week 2017. I also said about doing more on our worth because it had been the hardest article for me and many others to write. I had struggled to find people to contribute because they themselves struggled with their own self worth. It broke my heart that so many of us felt unworthy. Were either of these ideas the right ideas? 

Fast forward to this year and the start of March and I was still undecided of what to do. Should I focus on adoption or our self worth or should I leave the week alone? Feeling unsure of what to do I went back to the people who supported me the most last year for World Childless Week and posed a question to the members of Childless Path To Acceptance

I asked if I should compete against a week that has value and worth in its own right. I mentioned that I was concerned about diluting World Childless Week. The answers people gave, made me realise that I needed to do something. World Childless Week could show its support of NIAW whilst also reaching out to those at the end of trying to conceive and let them know there were places to go and find support.

Life took a different turn and before I knew it there was less than a week to go before NIAW started and I still didn’t have anything organised. Luckily two events in the space of a day gave me the push that I needed (more about that in Saturdays blog).

I took another look at the NIAW website and discovered that they were asking people to #FlipTheScript

"Resolve wants to change the conversation around infertility so the public, media, insurers, healthcare professionals and lawmakers understand"

So to recognise and support NIAW I will be blogging each day in connection to the subjects covered during last year’s World Childless Week. I hope to #FlipTheScript in a positive way that we can relate to.

Today to start the week off I have realised that sometimes in order to move forwards we have to take a step backwards. We have to look back to those who supported us at the beginning. Back to the people we trust. Back to the people who understand our questions and concerns. So to start this week I want to say "thank you" to the members of Childless Path To Acceptance because they helped me make a positive decision to move forwards.

So today’s #FlipTheScript is #OneStepBackAndTwoStepsForward   

Stephanie Philllips

Founder of World Childless Week