#vigilance

#vigilance

Women in fertility treatment often feel they can't catch a break; the issues keep stacking up, cycle after cycle, complication after complication, diagnosis after diagnosis. It can feel like jumping through one hoop only to find three more waiting. Living in a state of fight or flight becomes the norm. What makes it even harder is that this pressure builds quietly over time.

I am a helicopter mom. You bet I am. As the mother of a profoundly autistic man, I have to be. Micromanaging is my life. And because my son Nat is highly vulnerable, I will be that way until I die. Every day, even though Nat does not live with me, and even though he has a truly remarkable group home and day program, a part of me is always circling around him, like smoke from a smouldering fire.