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The Wait
It’s been 7 days, 17 hours and 15 minutes since I had my embryo transfer (not that I’m counting or anything). I thought it would be good to share how I’ve been feeling, even if it’s just a reminder to myself someday. In a way, my blog has kinda become my diary…except instead of keeping those intimate thoughts and feelings to myself, I share them with the world. (Yikes!) The embryo transfer on June 30th was so seamless that I started off the week with a lot of hope. The day after the transfer I was super tired, so I barely did anything. I was fortunate to had already made plans…
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Reflections Before My Embryo Transfer
As I sit here and think about my upcoming embryo transfer tomorrow, I can’t help but reflect on where I’ve been. I think that’s why I’ve come to love writing so much…in order to tell a good story, you must reflect. And usually, the story begins long before you think it does. My journey with infertility really began on August 10th, 2019. That was the beautiful, sunny day in Waterloo, Iowa when Rob and I were married. We were both 38 years old when we got married, so we figured there was no point in wasting time…we started trying for a baby right away. We assumed it could be a challenge…
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IVF Update: Round 4, Part 2
Hi friends! I looked back at the last time I provided an IVF update, and it was February 20th, 2022. I’m sure most (all) of you didn’t lay awake at night wondering what is going on with my IVF journey, but I apologize for just leaving you hanging. You know how life gets, right? So, to catch you all up for those who I don’t get the opportunity to talk with in person…. We got 4 embryos from our last egg retrieval in February (I talked about it in this blog post). One was normal (yay!). One was abnormal, so it was immediately discarded. And then 2 were considered mosaic…
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Searching for the Sun
If you have never read my Bio page on my website (…not mad at ya…), you might wonder why I chose My Search for the Sun as the title of my blog. I knew I didn’t want my blog to be completely centered around IVF or infertility because it was just a season I was going through. Instead, I wanted my blog to be about more than just one topic in my life…I wanted it to be about my entire life and the struggles I have faced and will face. I chose My Search for the Sun as the title because, to me, it means choosing to find the good in the bad. I’m sure there are…
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My Year-Long Journey
February 18th, 2021 (The day after my 40th birthday): I will never forget that day. My husband and I were in Sedona, Arizona to celebrate my 40th birthday. We had just spent the previous day (my birthday) doing all the things I love: hiking (or more like walking on a trail, lol), drinking coffee, winery hopping, exploring places we’d never been, seeing beautiful scenery, shopping for art, eating delicious food. My heart was full. We were anxiously waiting on the results from our genetic testing, but we felt pretty positive about it. We had 3 embryos getting tested, so we thought for sure we would at least get one “normal” (euploid) embryo. …
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What I Want You to Know About IVF…
There’s a reason why women (and men) don’t talk about IVF when we are going through it. It’s the most emotional and unpredictable thing you can ever do in your life. You are managing a lot of emotions of your own every day (…anticipation, excitement, fear…), so it feels overwhelming to take on anyone else’s emotions or hear the disappointment in their tone when we share bad news. So we stay silent….maybe forever…or maybe until that little baby is finally born. I was fortunate to know someone who went through IVF before me and was able to talk to her several times before I started IVF for the 1st time. I remember…
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Life Update: 12.6.21
It feels a little foreign to me to type words on my keyboard with the intention of writing a blog post. It’s been awhile. And the thing is, I don’t really know why it’s been so long. Well, that’s not entirely true I guess. I do know I needed a break from it. There was a moment a couple months ago when I stopped enjoying it and started focusing on things that weren’t important. I felt like I always had to put myself on social media because that’s what “they” say you need to do if you want people to see your blog. The problem was it wasn’t necessarily who…
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Find Your Community.
I’ve often mentioned that one of the best things about starting a blog is how much I have been able to connect with other people who are going through (or have gone through) similar things. Sometimes I have previously been aware of their struggles and sometimes I haven’t. Either way, each story that is shared with me inspires me in a new and different way. A few weeks ago, someone I have known for literally almost all of my life reached out to me after I shared a post to my Instagram story about being a childless woman. She shared the struggles that she and her husband had with trying…
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The Desires of Your Heart
I am a dreamer and an idealist. If I have free time, most likely I will be daydreaming about the beautiful Italian countryside or watching a sunrise in Sedona or fantasizing about the next big adventure I can plan for Rob and me. I love to explore this big, beautiful world and I love to dream. I don’t know why I’m like that, I guess it’s just who I am. When I was in college, I dreamed of either moving to Europe or backpacking through it…even if it was just for a few months. The daydreamer in me envisioned myself sitting at a café in Paris, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes…
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Infertility=Grief Part 2
I remember so vividly one summer day in 2013 (one year after my Dad passed away), I was walking down a street in Edina, Minnesota heading to my favorite store, Anthropologie. I was in town briefly on my way up to our family’s cabin in Northern Minnesota. I slowly walked by a restaurant I had eaten at with my parents a couple years prior, remembering that dinner with them. All of a sudden out of nowhere, I couldn’t catch my breath and began crying. Just the simple act of walking by that restaurant reminded me that my Dad was gone forever. He wasn’t coming back. I thought I had already…
