When I was going through fertility procedures, I struggled with hating my body. I already had issues of self-loathing to deal with from things that happened to me in my childhood. The last thing I needed was a "defective" body that was preventing me from being able to share a bond with a child.

It is normal to become angry with your body for failing to work the way it is supposed to. When all of the people around you get pregnant after trying to conceive for only a month or two, it is easy to wonder what is so wrong with your body that it cannot do what most people's bodies seem to do with ease. It can be easy to think very negative thoughts about your body and yourself.

It is so important to find a way to love yourself despite your infertility. You might view your body as completely "defective" because it cannot make a baby. However, the truth is that your body is not completely defective. Your body very likely does many things right and is only failing you in this one department. Admittedly, this is an important area of your life in which it is failing you, but the ability to reproduce does not make a body completely worthless.

Try to remember that conceiving a baby is not the only value that you have. We do not live in times of old when a woman's role was solely to bear sons for her husband to carry on the family name. You have value as a woman and as a person, whether you ever give birth to a child or not.

I finally had to face that my body was not capable of conceiving a child. I gave fertility treatments all I had, but it was not enough. I have never carried a child in my body. I have had to find a way to be okay with that. No, this is not what I would have chosen for myself, but it is what it is. I cannot change my body's failings.

However, I am still a worthwhile person. I am still a mother through adoption. I am still a good wife, friend, employee, and volunteer. I still bring value to the world, even if my womb does not work. Being able to bear a child does not define who a woman is.

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Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt