Next month, we will launch a series covering the End of the Childbearing Years. Every woman passes through this transition, whether or not she has given birth to children, and each experiences it in a unique way. Yet although we frequently hear birth stories and pregnancy stories, rarely do we talk about the tenderness, joy, confusion, pain, completion, gratitude, and seeking that often permeate the end of childbearing.

For some women that end comes when their bodies can bear no more children. For some it comes because they feel their families are complete. For some it comes in spite of a yearning for more children. And for some it comes without a child ever being born. For many, unexpected turns delay or hasten the end of the childbearing years.

Embedded in all of these stories, for Mormon women, are questions of faith, revelation, cultural expectation, physical challenges, marriage, mortality and eternity, and choice. Stories of infertility are also relevant and welcome.

We want to share as many stories as we can, in hopes that we may learn from each other and feel assurance in our individual paths. Please submit your own story, or part of your story, with a maximum of 500 words. Email mwpeditor@gmail.com with the subject “End of the Childbearing Years,” or PM our Mormon Women Project facebook page. If you wish, you may request that your story be shared anonymously.

We would rather edit an unpolished piece than not receive it at all! This call is for every woman with a story, and not just for “writers.”

Please share this invitation with as many LDS women as you know! Deadline: November 1, 2017.