Find Space for Your Heart Here
In the midst of busy lives, uncertainty & so much more, I hope that this blog will be a soft landing space for you. Find some of my heart, stories, and resources below, and please reach-out to me however I can support you. If there are additional topics you’d like to see on the blog, please feel free to email me!
Chronic Endometritis 101
Chronic Endometritis (CE) contributed to my failed IVF transfer and early miscarriage this fall. It’s also preventing me from moving forward with FET prep this holiday season.
I was woefully unfamiliar with this condition before being diagnosed, so I’ve really spent time asking questions and digging into the research. As I expand my expertise and work to make educated decisions about my treatment plan, I wanted to share the answers to many of the questions I’ve gotten about CE!
Let’s start with some basics…
Are We Just Standing Still?
I think Infertility can often feel like a complete and utter stand-still.
Infertility takes away a lot of the control, the planning, the timelines that we dream about. It leaves us feeling overwhelmed, asking questions that have no easy answers, wondering if we have the strength to keep going when all we want to do is quit. Infertility makes me feel like the world is passing me by. That all of the things I wanted are just beyond my reach, all while I watch others seemingly celebrate every milestone I’m still waiting for.
This season, I urge you to acknowledge your feelings about Infertility.
A Letter to my Partner as we Struggle Through Infertility
When I think of our family, of our IVF miracle daughter and the other babies we’re still hoping to have, I think of you first and foremost. I think of the ways that we’ve come together. The things we’ve gone through to get to this point, and the things still ahead on our path. I think about the ways in which my heart can’t make up for the things my body has fallen short on, and the silent frustrations you’ve been forced to carry. I think about the passionate, fierce advocate you are for all things silenced and stigmatized - first, mental health, suicide awareness & prevention, and now infertility and fatherhood too - and I feel a lump in the back of my throat. How did I get so lucky to find a partner so encouraging, so compassionate, so faithful, so strong?
What Not To Say…
It’s really really difficult to live a normal life alongside one with Infertility. What I mean by that is it’s really hard to pretend that everything is okay when it’s not. That it takes increasing amount of energy to move your thoughts of wanting a baby, TTC, doctors appointments, medications, procedures, cycles, waiting, hope and disappointment to the back of your mind to focus on other things and other people’s stories. That it’s continually challenging to hear about anyone who just got pregnant, is pregnant, or is parenting a baby, while not also being acutely aware of the ache in your heart to be further along in your story. To be honest, I’ve even found that it can feel difficult to celebrate with friends after IVF successes while I’m still reeling from my IVF failure.
Starting Again... Questions to Ask After IVF Fails
Our follow up (WTF) appointment with the RE was about a week after our negative test, and that timing gave me some space to feel, and then to strategize. I was torn between taking a break and jumping back into another cycle, and I wanted her advice. I needed a plan. To walk out of that meeting knowing what my next plan was.
One common question I get asked by clients is “What questions should we ask after a failed cycle/failed transfer/cancelled cycle/miscarriage/loss?” and I wanted to talk today about what I asked, and why, and how that impacted my next steps.
Around The Beanstalk
Guest Post: I clearly know the overwhelm of the IVF world. It was a long, hard road for us. I didn’t want other women to feel as overwhelmed as me, so I decided to do something about it. I started up a brand new business called Around the Beanstalk, as a nod to the son we lost, Jack. I wanted to create a legacy for him.
With Around the Beanstalk, I’m creating products to help support anyone going through IVF. I’m providing tools for people to navigate the IVF world – partially in physical products, partially through the development of a community and support system. It's my goal to build a large community of IVF warriors….a place where we can all feel safe to chat, vent and ask questions. A space to lift each other up and get through the crazy IVF world together.
You Will Be Okay
When the nerves 3dp5dt makes you feel like your heart is going to pound out of your chest, you will be okay.
When you can’t sleep at night, wondering if your embaby is snuggled in tight, you will be okay.
When you convince yourself over and over not to POAS, you will be okay.
When you do finally POAS, in the middle of the night eight hours before your beta, you will be okay.
“How do we make a family?”
The answer to this question is no longer as cookie cutter as it might have seemed
once before.
And yet, there are women and men who dread having to explain the answers.
That’s right…I said answers.
But, then again, why?
Infertility, Fertility Treatment & your Career
If you are anything like me, the journey to parenthood isn’t what you expected. I thought the hardest part of balancing my career with growing my family would be negotiating my maternity leave. Little did I know that the journey would start years before I had a baby, and present countless obstacles between getting (and staying) pregnant, and being successful in my career.
![Shots shots shots shots shots - [LMFAO]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e53131e20efa213466e9b29/1600104245901-XO24802QI7JXR3CNGOL2/IMG_8501.JPG)
Shots shots shots shots shots - [LMFAO]
When my daughter and her hopeful siblings are older, I know telling them these stories of their creation will mean so much to them, including the way that our lives changed each time. I know that I’m really proud of and grateful for the ways that we as a family have made room for Infertility, whether or not we thought it was fair or frustrating, and the ways that we fought tooth and nail to get to this moment in time. Building our family is much harder than we ever imagined, but we’re also not people who’ve ever said no to chasing our dreams.
Infertility & Intimacy
How TTC and Fertility Treatments can Change Everything (& what you can do about it!)
Before I started TTC…
I didn’t know that trying to have a baby, really really trying - it wasn’t all fun and games.
It didn’t necessarily mean better or more frequent sex with my partner. I didn’t know that struggling to conceive would impact our intimacy significantly. That failing to get pregnant would challenge the way we connected physically.
Infertility Treatments: A Choice & Also A Challenge
You see, infertility is not a choice. If I am any indication, it seems that those who struggle to conceive want a baby so desperately that the medical diagnosis of Infertility seems cruel and ironic.
What happens next, after that diagnosis, it’s a choice.
A really really hard, really really complicated, really really sh*tty, really really hopeful choice that individuals and couples make every single day on whether to pursue fertility treatments.
Infertility in a Pandemic
Infertility is already unpredictable
Infertility comes with so much unpredictability to start. Then you’re forced to add in these “wildly unprecedented” times, and you’re left with a literal storm of questions. Of unknowns. Of silence.
When and why and how and where become whether and if and what if and even oh no.
It’s exhausting and emotional and so much to process.
Let’s Talk About Sex, {for a} Baby!
I think intimacy is a beautiful thing, much like everyone else, I’d assume.
I also have genuinely enjoyed being intimate with my husband since the start of our relationship. But our sex lives, and our attitudes toward having sex changed drastically over 2+ years of trying to conceive, and it’s not something I ever could’ve predicted.
Why, you ask?
Because NOBODY TALKS ABOUT THAT!
Being Left Behind or Finding Your Tribe: Infertility in the age of Social Media
Two. Pink. Lines.
I’ve never wanted to see anything more in my life than two pink lines.
Two pink lines would mean that I’d succeeded, that I’d been triumphant, that my body did the thing I so desperately hoped, wished and worked for. Two pink lines would mean that I was pregnant. That my dream of motherhood was on its way to becoming a reality.
New Babies & Visitors: How to Navigate Uncomfortable Conversations
Whether you’re preparing to have a baby, you’ve just delivered, or you’re at home with a newborn, the first question many friends, family and loved ones may ask is “When can I come see the baby?”
For me, this was HUGELY overwhelming. I both wanted to soak up the time as a new mother/new family AND to share my new daughter with everyone, and I felt so conflicted on what that looked like. I often said yes when I meant no, and I felt like it was important for me to look presentable and to entertain visitors, both of which added immensely to my new-mom stress and emotions. Had someone, anyone I trusted (my doula, my husband, my parents) said to me that I could put myself and my baby before others, I maybe would’ve had the foresight to worry less about hurting peoples feelings and more about how I actually felt.
Setting up for a Newborn
Like many pregnant individuals, I began daydreaming about my daughters nursery shortly after I heard her heartbeat for the first time. I knew that we’d be moving into a new place before her arrival, so my nesting began on paper and on Pinterest!
As an prenatal and postpartum doula, I have found myself helping clients with this feat often - not just setting up or modifying their nursery space, but helping to make their home functional as new parents, and there are some things I think are really helpful to share!
Postpartum Support 101
So many times, when I introduce myself as a Postpartum Doula, I hear the questions “what do you do?” or “what does a postpartum doula do?” so I thought this would be a great topic for the blog today!
Infertility, A Second Time Around
