I have a treat in store for the next #AFEChat.

On February 5 at noon EST I will be joined by my good friend and colleague Michele L. Weiss, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

She just reminded me this past week that I had told her a week before checking into the hospital that I was going to die during childbirth.

Every week more and more of my friends, family members and colleagues come forward to tell me that I expressed this same promotion to them. (“If you SENSE something, SAY something!”)      

In the next #AFEChat, we will discuss Michele’s career focus on couples therapy and infertility, issue with IVF, patient premonitions and the emotional and psychological struggles of surviving an AFE. She specializes in perinatal mood disorders and postpartum anxiety.

I will also cover some of my personal experiences – 7 rounds of IVF, a premonition of death (that very few people took seriously), the AFE and the subsequent survivor’s guilt and emotional struggles that go with it.

After the TweetChat we will post the highlights on this blog, as well as a link to the Storify. Follow me on Twitter at @AFEmom and join the conversation by following the Twitter hashtag #AFEchat.

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I conclude here as I often do, with this personal advice to all. Based in part on the important role that my own self-advocacy, and the incredible support from my husband and my medical team, played in my survival:

If you SENSE something, SAY something.

Until next time, feel free to Follow me on Twitter at @StephArnold37 to learn about upcoming tweetchat summaries, stories from other moms and families, and other resources.  Or just subscribe to this blog.  Thanks!