Infertility

It was the summer of 2012 and our family was happy, healthy, and presumably complete. My husband and I had two boys who were 5 and 7 and I was finally starting to feel like I was coming out of the weeds. You know, those early stages of parenting where sleep is elusive, diapers are part of the budget and no one can make their own drink or wipe their own bottom? Those days had passed. I had just lost most of my baby weight and I was excited about getting back to work soon and making future plans with my completed family. For a couple of years prior to that, my husband and I had talked about being a...

I am one in four women who has lost a pregnancy. I have unfortunately gone through this five times. Five. My first pregnancy in 2009 I was expecting twins and my water broke at 20 weeks. I gave birth to my stillborn babies two weeks later. I was fortunate to have my son a little over a year later. Fast forward to 2015. After getting remarried, my husband and I immediately wanted to start a family. In the course of ten months, I had three first-trimester losses. All of these ordeals were heartbreaking and traumatic to say the least. Going through these losses was extremely challenging. Physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally challenging. It’s so unbelievably isolating in ways I never thought...

My pregnancy started like most pregnancies do: with a positive home pregnancy test. As we stared at the little plus sign on the stick in my hand, my husband and I were overjoyed with the idea of adding to our brood. What name will we give this new little one? Do you remember where we stored the bouncy seat? How should we tell everyone? We decided to wait until the proverbial 12 weeks had passed before telling our children the good news. After all, we had already seen our little bean’s heartbeat on ultrasound and knew the odds of a miscarriage were greatly reduced by that time. So, the day we completed Week 12, we announced our pregnancy by handing...

Dear Friend, I have never told you this but I want to let you know that I think about you every time. Every time I post a new picture of my son on Facebook I think about you and hope I haven’t just made your day worse. I hope that when you see his latest antic and the mischievous grin that accompanies it, that it brings a smile to your face. But how can it? I don’t think I could smile if our roles were reversed. I know how badly you want a baby of your own. I know what you and your husband have been going through to try to make it happen; the specialists, the painful IVF shots, the...