Our Fertility Journey: Forever in My Heart-Waiting for the Day I Can Hold You in My Arms

 I’ve been drafting this in my head for days. It has been 5 days since our second child was born and even typing the word “second” feels surreal and still selfish. The selfishness comes from when I was yearning for just one.  Looking back at my first post, I need to tell that girl that her journey would be long and there would be times she would feel hopeless, lost, and alone. I would also tell her she needs to be strong because each bump on this treacherous road would lead her to exactly where she was meant to be.  I am not going to lie and say I was ever truly confident during this pregnancy. I was terrified  all the time. It was a version of PTSD where I kept waiting for the loss to happen. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy and soak in carrying our second little one. I soaked in every minute, but I just made sure to leave enough of a guard up, just in case.  What I couldn’t have predicted was how successful this pregnancy would be. Every time I was met with a ...

  We all know Dr. Google can be pretty negative when all we really want is to find some reassuring news. This was all I wanted when I found out that the combination of my LEEP procedure (scraping early Cancer off my cervix) and IVF can lead to an incompetent cervix. An incompetent cervix is when your cervix basically can’t handle pregnancy and you deliver early without typical contractions.  My OB informed me they would be monitoring every two weeks from weeks 16 - 24 to measure and make sure no folding occurs. What did I do the minute I got in the car? I searched for any success stories, which ended up being hard to come by. My hope is that my success story will reassure others.  Biweekly Monitoring If you find yourself in this situation, you’ll get to see your little every two weeks with cute ultrasound pics included. It was really nice getting extra face time with our growing peanut. We also got to see his heartbeat  and, after three losses, this was really reassu...

It was March 16th and all of us at the office were told we would be working from home until further notice. The number of Covid-19 numbers were rising and it was evident, we were in the middle of a pandemic. My boss had us each come into his office to discuss what this new work-life would look like and I started crying. It had nothing to do with work, but I had an IVF transfer scheduled that Friday and was terrified this date I’ve prepared for would never happen.  March 20th We were actually one of the fortunate ones and were not turned away. We had to wear masks and were told of the risks, but were allowed to go through with it. I wore my lucky pineapple socks, a pineapple shirt, and listened to catchy tunes the whole way to Grand Rapids. We were greeted right away and had our temperatures checked. Once we passed the screening, we were lead to our room. They showed us a picture of our beautiful embryos and began the transfer. The whole process was so surreal. Here these two b...

I watched 3 YouTube videos on how to give myself an injection on my backside - This is infertility I’ve been injecting my body with hormones and taking pills because it’s broken and doesn’t do it on its own. - This is infertility I gave myself a pity party and cried because after 3 weeks of injections, there was a thicker and longer needle that would soon be part of my daily routine. I was tired of it all and just wanted to not have to do this. - This is infertility I follow a group of women on social media where some are just starting their journey and some have had it far worse than I have. I even have family and coworkers on their and we each know things about one another that those close to us may not. These women inspire me and sadden me because none of them deserve this. -This is infertility I get mad when people who constantly choose other people or things over their children yet continue to procreate. -This is infertility Pregnancy tests give me anxiety. -This is in...