Fertility clinics: Home of the brave

News.rooms feel a lot like fertility clinics these days. Lots of sadness, uncertainty, dreams for a better future ... desperation.

People in both places are trying to reinvent themselves into whatever they aspire to become. In news.rooms, writers are learning videography to make them more valuable in a Web-centered world. At fertility clinics, women are using hormones and someone else's gametes to create (or re-create) a fertile self.

During that journalism conference I attended a few weeks ago, I stumbled into a session about how to reshape yourself, your news.room, etc. They wanted us to write our "theme songs." I left before it was over.
But one of the exercises we did stuck with me. We were asked to take out our notebooks, pick up a pen, close our eyes and finish this sentence:

If I was brave, I would .....

Focusing on my career, it was a tough question to answer. In many ways, I think the bravest move in journalism is to stick it out -- continue doing what you love and hope the market continues to support it. To show faith in your organization that they will find new revenue streams to offset the real estate ads lost in the collapse of the housing market. Hope they will find ways to make real money on the Web.

But this exercise is particularly relevant to my infertility journey right now.

If I was brave, I would continue with a new donor. I would set aside the experiences with the last three women -- and write off those situations as oddities. I'd risk it all and move forward.

Here's the question: Am I brave?