When the life you planned may not be the life you get

There can come a point in an infertility journey when the question begins to change.

Instead of What should we try next? it may become: What if there is no next treatment? What if I’m not going to become a parent? Who am I and what does my life look like if this ends differently than I hoped?

Those questions can carry enormous grief. They can also be difficult to talk about in a world that is often quick to suggest another treatment, another doctor, adoption, more prayer, or one more reason to keep hoping.

Building a Full Life Without Children was created for people facing the possibility or reality of life without children after infertility. It does not ask you to minimize how much parenthood mattered, rush toward acceptance, or find a silver lining. And it is not designed to persuade you toward another path to parenthood. Instead, it offers space to acknowledge what has been lost while slowly beginning to turn toward the life that is still yours. 

Inside, the toolkit explores some of the experiences that can make this transition particularly painful: watching other people move forward into parenthood, navigating unsolicited advice and assumptions that you did not “try hard enough,” feeling untethered after years of treatment schedules and next steps, sitting at family and Jewish communal gatherings where children seem to be at the center of everything, grieving a loss that others may not recognize, and figuring out where to find support that actually feels supportive. 

Rather than offering easy answers, the toolkit includes concrete ways to care for yourself within those experiences—from language for responding to unwanted advice and exercises for reconnecting with your identity, to grounding practices, boundaries for difficult gatherings, ideas for personal mourning rituals, and guidance for identifying the kinds of support you actually need.

Because a life without children is not a life without love, connection, purpose, growth, or belonging.

Your story may be turning out differently than you imagined. It is still your story to build.

What You’ll Find Inside

• Support for grieving the family and future you imagined
• Language for responding to unsolicited advice and questions
• Grounding practices for the disorientation that can follow ending fertility treatment
• Reflection prompts for reconnecting with identity beyond parenthood
• Strategies for navigating family gatherings, holidays, and child-centered spaces
• Ideas for creating personal rituals to acknowledge reproductive grief
• Guidance for identifying supportive people, communities, therapists, and peer spaces
• Encouragement for beginning to imagine purpose, connection, and possibility beyond infertility

The toolkit specifically recognizes infertility-related grief as a form of grief that may go largely unwitnessed by others, including within Jewish life where there may be no established ritual for mourning the family someone imagined.

Who This Resource Is For

This resource may be especially helpful if you:

• Are considering ending fertility treatment
• Have ended treatment without having a child
• Are coming to terms with being childless after infertility
• Feel unsure who you are after years of focusing on trying to become a parent
• Feel increasingly isolated from friends, family, or Jewish community
• Are grieving a future that others do not seem to recognize as a loss
• Want support that does not push you toward another family-building path
• Are beginning to wonder what a meaningful and fulfilling life might look like from here

Special Collaboration 

Created with Lana Manikowski

This Tikva Toolkit was co-created with Lana Manikowski, a certified life coach, author, and advocate who supports women in building meaningful lives after infertility. Following her own seven-year fertility journey that ended without children, Lana created the kind of support she had wished existed for her—work that now focuses on shame, body relationships, connection, grief, and building a purposeful life beyond motherhood. You can also watch Yesh Tikva’s interview with Lana.

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