While it’s true that men get to have babies well into the golden years, a study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that paternal age matters after all.
For me, it simply validates the undeniable fact that yes, men are people too and as such they age as does everyone else. And since sperm is inseparable from the body, it ages along with the rest of the “holy human loaf.”
Reading the findings of this research, which shows the risks to the children of older fathers, I continue to be grateful for the gorgeous Dads I get to meet and work with who keep walking to meet their children halfway, often in spite of overwhelming odds.
The one thing they have in common? Open hearts, and wide open minds. The willingness to do their own feeling, thinking, choosing. The willingness to consider that in spite of their age, or their sperm counts there is a great deal they can do to tilt the scale toward healthy sperm and healthy babies.
As much as I respect the findings of scientific studies, over the years my faith in the empirical science of direct observation and experience deepens each time I read another report that reflects good old common sense.
I hope this study, as the research that came before and comes after this report, serves to galvanize us all toward claiming whatever power we do have to shape the unfolding of our stories.
Which is equally true for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, or age, or diagnosis.
Happy Father’s Day to the valiant dads in our community and beyond. It would be great to hear about your experience of engaging your partners in your birthing journey.
One of the orphans which has shown up unexpectedly is the one who is afraid not to be physically strong enough to have a child. I usually feel fit and strong and athletic, I move a lot and like it, but I during my periods I often would like to just sleep, sleep and sleep. That goes for about two days. I also was ill two times in the last couple of months, just some minor flus, but they have reminded my orphan of all the times in my life when I didn’t feel physically strong, like at this magnificent journey to India when I also fell ill and just had a hard time keeping up with the group. I have worked with Field of Creation to give birth to a visionary who knows she will be always strong enough to have and then raise a child.
Another morning practice and in the circle of protection the couples there handed me a baby girl. Lovely image to take into my first day back at work for a while. Have a good day everyone x
Hello, I want to share that I still have troubles with Room of Fear, because I usually only sense dark, maybe black room with no objects in it. Last time I thought maybe the color itself is presenting what I am afraid of – the dark? I’m not sure.
After this imagery I tried to do a variation on Mosaic of Revelation, in which I pictured only moments with my old friend from high school, who I later started to dislike. I knew I need to do this imagery especially focused on my relationship with her, because I felt it could be helpful for me. After seeing these moments with her in the mosaic, I imagined myself talking to her and explaining how I felt at those moments. What I realized is, that my behaviour and my feelings to her changed not because she changed during the years at the school (well actually everybody changes), but she was just herself and not like I idealized her. And I felt that was my problem, this disappointment between my imaginary her and her real self. She didn’t do anything bad to me, she only did not fit in my image I created about her. I felt a relief, that maybe when I meet her in some high school reunion I don’t need to continue with my negative feeling towards her.
Hello mornings are best time for me to practice as I have quiet time before the day begins. Thanks Julia for encouraging us to use this to be consistent with our practice. I am using defend and receive and circle of protection
Hello I loved reading this and the comments from other fertile heart people who have come before me.
Managing to do my practice in the mornings. Defend and receive is bringing up a lot of anger about racism. I won’t swear on here but there’s been some serious f-ing and jeffing in the private space of my heart and my bedroom early at 6am!
In the circle of protection none of the couples I’m visualising feel like genuine people. I will keep on and see what unfolds. I realise I only really know black women who have mixed race children so their children will always be seen by others as and the same as them if you know what I mean.
Hope you are all having good weeks. Xxx
Dear Fertile Mamas,
Thank you so much for your comment of appreciation, Freedom.
I appreciate that my husband and I work things out and have been together a long time. He is kind to me in many ways. We are committed to each other. He is willing to try some things with me fertility wise, but I don’t push him too far. In my opinion, he is a really good dad, more present than my dad was able to be.
I have been working with Rock the Baby Fertile Heart body truth and Orchard of Possibilities Fertile Heart Imagery. I have been working with loving myself through some challenging situations to see if I can be more on my own side instead of contributing to critical voices I may be hearing from the outside.
Blessings to all.
Dear Julia and Fertile Mamas and Parents,
What a amazing blog post- thank you, Julia. I am so moved by each person’s response. Wow. Thank you for the inspiration Grateful Mom, Gravid San Doute, and Living Fully!! I am honored to be in this conversation with each of you.
This call to fathers feels like it was written for me as I have realized my visionary work is about committing to my marriage. I have done an excellent job of taking the right supplements, going to acupuncture, having wheat grass shots, eating food that gives me energy, going to Woodstock for the Fertile Heart workshop, healing from 2 traumas I experienced within the last 8 years, and doing my dream and body truth work…and at the same time I have been projecting my issues with my own dad onto my husband and holding back from fully committing. I recently realized that I have a very loud orphan that has been telling me I need to evade my husband in the same way I evaded my dad…This realization makes me really sad. I have not cheated or done anything outright to break our commitment but, in little ways, I have moved away instead of toward my husband. For example, my husband’s love language is acts of service. I have resisted, for years, doing things around the house e.g. mowing the lawn that would make him really happy. Instead, when he has asked me to do things I have let my orphan take the reigns and have reacted in the same way I reacted to my dad when he was dictatorial and controlling growing up. Miraculously my husband continues to be 100% committed to me, continues to attend therapy, and tries, in many ways, to make it work.
Additionally, I have been dealing with more orphans coming out of the woodwork with my sister being pregnant. I have felt ashamed and embarrassed and frustrated with myself. Why am I jealous and acting small and angry?
I do believe that the scenic route to having our second child is providing us with an amazing opportunity to heal our relationship. My most recent orphans have really helped me to see how I have been withholding commitment from my husband. Now my question to myself is “how do I commit in a way that I have never committed before? How do I do my work around my orphans with my own dad so I that I can show up for my husband, our daughter and our next child? And how do I continue to take visionary action, with my husband, to move towards our baby?
Dear Julia,
It’s been quite a journey for me and I am learning and finding new joy and happiness in my current life with our amazing current family of three. (just spent the weekend doing yoga at the beach and learning to surf in Cornwall – so much fun!!) I am so happy that I have been continuing with my practice as a while back I nearly gave up in my sadness about “my situation” – now, I am 47 and the thought that I may not have another baby is of course a very painful one, but the FH practice has given me such a deep source of creating much happiness, allowing myself to feel my truth, and so creating joy and open-heartedness about my life as it is. To recognise the amazingness of my daughter and my loving husband, & my life in general. Julia you have helped me so much with appreciating and loving my current life – and to change it so that it aligns with my truth. Also, now admitting to myself that I am 47 and that I have been trying for a second wee baby for nearly 7 years now is quite heart-wrenching and would very likely be keeping me from happiness, had I not found your first book online!! My husband has been a part of this journey from the beginning, he read your books, came to Woodstock with me and did his own practice for a while (but now he does not do it anymore as I think he has given up hope of a second baby, which I am respecting / accepting as I cannot and would not force him to do anything), but he almost always comes home on time, without a murmur, so that I can participate in the Visionary Moms calls. I talk to him about the FH practice but not in great detail as I am keeping that personal to me at the moment – and he is always supportive, I know how lucky I am that he stands with me and does not make fun of me (as others have done).
Now, I am coming to the new step to admit that my new business of anti-plastics is, indeed, all about my baby journey – the only reason I really noticed plastics so clearly is that they are so intricately weaved into hormone balance, fertility and health (being an environmentalist I had of course realised plastics are no good but, strangely, hadn’t really adapted my life much in that realisation). So, I am ready-ing myself to be open about my journey to others, which sort of fills me with dreadful fear of rejection or ridicule by my friends (have I just found another O?), but I am keen to share now and to empower myself and other mommies & daddies with openness. When and How I do this, I have yet to plan.
Anyway, all these things are on my mind when I think about how my husband has been walking this journey with me. He has supported me so much, I don’t think I would have been able to do the FH practice without him behind me. Btw, he told me that he loves your husband’s book!
Lots of love to you and all the warrior FH ladies, xxx
I am so grateful for help on the last teleconference about not feeling good about me related to work. I have been working with Lifting the Burden Fertile Heart imagery and Rock the Baby Fertile Heart body truth. I have been putting all the words related to feeling bad about me in the burden and then letting it go. I am grateful to say that the universe gave me a wonderful gift of giving me more time of interaction with the person at work, at least in one instance, who was helping me to feel bad about me. There was a large error that turned up the other day that definitely looked like my responsibility. This person and my manager were helping me to try to resolve it if there was a way to do so. It turns out the manager had made the error and this discovery was made in front of the other person. Thank you Julia. I’m also working with supporting myself when I am “learning.”
Blessings to all!
Dear Fertile Mamas,
Thank you so much for sharing your insights and encouragement, Grateful Mom. It sounds like a path of increasing strength for you.
That is wonderful to acknowledge the Dads who have joined on this journey.
I have been working with Rock the Baby Fertile Heart body truth and 9 Hearts Fertile Heart Imagery. At work I noticed an automatic response to an incident inside myself that made me feel bad about myself. I would like to work with that. I, unfortunately , will be missing the first of the next visionary calls, but I hope to join after that.
Blessings to all.
Dear Julia and Fertile Hearted Moms and Dads.
I feel I have been sharing my journey quite consistently with this community through the North America Visionary circles. I am writing this comment first of all, for myself, and then for those who may be not yet on the circles but considering it,, or for the European circles, or who knows, it may provide encouragement to someone, or my future self for birthing my next creation. It is still hard to believe and we are 16 weeks this week.
This is our second ivf transfer after going through grueling nearly 20 rounds of egg retrievals of mostly low stimulation or non stim and two heavily stim cycles with 2 fertility clinics yielding nearly 17 embryos out of which 4 turned out to be genetically normal per the test. Each cycle we would ether get one egg or none, and rarely 2. I think for two cycles – I ovulated just before they could retrieve the egg. We transferred the newest of the genetically tested normal, last year and it didn’t work. This year we transferred the oldest of these and this is our miracle baby. Sometimes I wonder whether it was because It was before I did any high stim protocol, or was it because I had attended by second workshop in Woodstock few weeks before that egg retrieval whose embryo we transferred 3 months ago. I know too well these are all the snowflakes I have been collecting over the last 3+ years, and not just one or a few things.
I am grateful for this practice, for the woman who brought it to the world, for her two daughters, especially the younger one, for her husband. I am grateful for the affection that this compassionate woman showered on me when I visited Woodstock for my third workshop in the middle of heavy snow in December 2017. Who has taught me that I can be so much more. She has helped me discover myself. I could go on and on. I do dream of writing a dedicated blog post when we complete our family. I will also say, that Julia has supported me, even when all knowing where my husband has been on the journey, and his feelings about the practice, and for making me realize that I need to be all the more stronger to keep my belief alive/protect my practice. It’s this practice and Julia that helped me give voice to say when enough was enough, sometimes past the time I should have said it. The break we took between our last retrieval and first transfer and between the two transfers was crucial for me. And being able to articulate why I needed it, and help my husband come on board with it, was not easy. And I see and recognize when I communicate from a visionary place, and when I do, I seem more rational to him, and somehow things flow more smoothly. Some points that I had thought in my head would be very difficult to put across, when I finally expressed them, perhaps my conviction shone through, and it wasn’t a long-winded argument, but him agreeing to what I wanted on the timing for the last 1 year or so, when I really was able to scale back on the ivf rounds and begin to live a normal clinic visit free life after grueling 2-3 years we have had.
Thank you Julia for having faith in me. For helping me realize that it’s not that I needed ivf, and that I needed to heal and make more room within my body, my routine and my life, that helped me make changes in an organic way, and those that I did not think possible 3 years ago. I also am lucky that we could have this opportunity of using ivf as a route with our own eggs and all of it was self-financed, although injectables were covered to most extent and grateful to Julia again, that I somehow managed to resist the stimulation after putting through a few cycles of it.
There are days that I worry and days that this feels like a happy dream. I need to weave my practice back into the day. Writing this comment is a start to this.
My journey would have looked very different had I not discovered Julia. She has kindled the flame of an activist within me and I need her and this community to keep the big picture in mind, and help me do my part in my own way. And to trust that I am a co-creator and co-author of my own life story and it is being written.
Love,
xxxx