After reading Chapter 3 – Owning Adoption from Justine Brooks Froelker upcoming book Ever Upward: Overcoming the Lifelong Losses of Infertility to Own a Childfree Life, I volunteered to read another chapter. I not so secretly wanted a chance to read more, and I also wanted to do a small part in spreading the news about her upcoming book.

So, this time I read Chapter 4 – Choosing Change.

I really enjoyed this chapter, as I was able to learn about the process Justine went through when she chose to refocus her life on her recovery from her failed IVF journey.

Given my current life situation which is focused on re-balancing and refocusing my life as we deal with recurrent pregnancy loss one of my favourite quotes form this chapter is:

So much of our lives could be helped simply by changing our self care. How we eat, sleep, move and cope.

While, I have been working very hard personally to make small changes (and some pretty massive changes too) to my self-care, it was nice to see how Justine’s experience of making changes has drastically impacted her daily life.

She made simple changes, and some big changes to take control over her life. She talks about her decision to attend therapy herself. She shares her decision to tackle weight issues and mental health issues, and how she chose to tackle them. I really enjoyed her perspective on her night-time routine, and what that looks like for her.

She provides insight and advice from her personal perspective as well as her professional therapist perspective. Her professional therapist perspective particularly shines through when she shares suggestions on simple ways her readers can improve their self care.

She goes to great lengths to explain the changes she made, why she made them and what inspired her.

Most importantly, Justine shares her perspective with heart and compassion.

Again, after reading another chapter, I was left wanting more and so my interest in Ever Upward has only increased. You can pre-order now or purchase the book on October 1, 2014 at www.everupward.org.

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