Choice Moms: Building Strong Families Together

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Welcome to the new thematic approach to the website. This month's topic:
TALKING OUT LOUD ABOUT GRIEF.

At the recent Choice Moms networking events in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, we learned firsthand about the importance of being able to share with each other the fears, challenges and blessings of single motherhood by choice. If you are looking for opportunities to share emotions about this path, check out these Choice Mom resources:

1. Overview of the resources available to single women who are thinking about solo motherhood but angry about or grieving the loss of the dream of sharing parenthood with a partner or of not being able to take a traditional route to motherhood.

2. Listen to these popular Choice Chat podcasts

• NEW Episode 16: Talking out loud about grief, about the importance of Choice Moms discussing what makes them angry and sad about this journey, with New York City therapist Joann Paley Galst.
  
• Felicia: Making the leap, miscarriage, and newborn days.
  
• Dealing with the emotions of fertility treatment

3. Join the online discussion group for Choice Moms.

4. Help us pinpoint cities for the next Choice Moms events: We will host 2-3 networking events in 2009. Help us decide which cities we should visit next. Choice Moms have voted on the Top 10 list and helped us boil it down to five. If you haven't already voted, take a look at the one-question survey and give us your vote today.

5. Check out the anecdotal and how-to products specific to Choice Moms: Answering the Daddy Question, featuring four experts and six Choice Moms, in a 50-minute CD. Also: Choice Mom Guide to Fertility and the Choice Mom Guide to Adoption.

6. Check out the blogs, where women like you and me vent, philosophize, respond and share:

• ChoiceMom: are we single by choice or chance?
  
• Being: on reliability, support and independence.
  
• Becoming: feeling alone, and tired, as a new single mom.
  
• Waiting: worrying about miscarriage.
  
• Trying: dating and trying to conceive.
  
• Thinking: coming to terms with grief.

7. Hear voices from the community. Check out the interview about Choice Motherhood on Lifetime's "The Balancing Act" (4 minutes). And the one-hour interview with Choice Moms founder Mikki Morrissette and Single Mothers by Choice founder Jane Mattes on the CreatingAFamily.com online radio show.

8. Stay up-to-date. Our simple RSS feeds enable you to sign up for automatic notification of the newest blog entries, podcasts and topics that interest you, whether you are in the Thinking, Trying, Waiting, Becoming or Being stages of Choice Motherhood. If you need help with this, or downloading the podcast, contact our website developer.

As always, welcome to the discussion and the journey.

Choice Moms is a proud sponsor of CARE, which helps mothers and children worldwide.