My journey towards conception has been long, grueling, and at times extremely painful. It’s also been a beautiful journey full of self-exploration and change. It has consisted of twists and turns, ups and downs, and numerous life lessons.

It’s very obvious from past posts that I have been through many phases on this journey. 

After the first year of failing to get pregnant, I went through my first round of assisted fertility. This phase consisted of failed IUI’s, and a major surgery to remove a large fibroid. 

At that time IVF wasn’t an option for several reasons, the main being that I just didn’t feel ready to put my body through it. 

NATURAL OR NOT AT ALL

This began my natural phase. 

 I incorporated a gluten, dairy and sugar free diet into my life. 

I had weekly acupuncture and Mayan abdominal massages. 

I began a daily yoga and meditation practice. 

I did everything right, and it was heartbreaking that it didn’t end in the result I wanted.

Even though I didn’t become pregnant, my body, nervous system and ability to cope with stress improved significantly. 

After each of these stages (that continued for years) I finely came to a period of surrender.

SURRENDER OR SUFFER

To be honest this surrender was influenced by a gut-wrenching experience.  

After all this time I desperately wanted a baby. Because of this desperation, one month I convinced myself that I was finely pregnant.

I had all of the signs. I felt the nausea and all. I even went so far as to call and make an appointment.

A quick pregnancy test would have confirmed either way for me, but by this time I had developed a phobia of pregnancy tests and couldn’t talk myself into taking one. 

When my period finely came (very late) I was heartbroken.

I made a decision that I would never feel that way again. There was nothing in this world that I wanted bad enough to make that much suffering worth it.  

The only thing left for me to do was to let go, and hand this very painful process over to a higher power.

Thankfully, I was able to truly let go for a while. 

THE ANSWER 

A few months later I stumbled upon a post written by Erin Strutland that changed my life.  https://erinstutland.com/my-fertility-journey/

I had some opinions about IVF that changed because of this post.

Up until this point I felt that IVF would be forcing my body to do something it wasn’t ready to do. I believed that I was supposed to conceive naturally, and that IVF would mean failure. 

I also had convinced myself that IVF was a horrible, stressful process that most of the time ended in failure. 

Erin’s story struck me to my core. It was similar in so many ways to my own.

A seed had been planted. 

I discussed IVF with my husband, and to my surprise he was totally on board. 

I decided that if I was going to go through IVF it was going to be an empowering, beautiful, positive experience for me.

The night before we went in for all of our testing, I said to myself that the next day was going to be fun, easy and effortless.

And it was!

Everything looked great, and we were ready to proceed.

ROADBLOCKS

Then… not one but two massive roadblocks hit.  

I received a call from my nurse about a week later saying everything looked wonderful except one of my tests came back showing that my blood platelets were very high.

She said for me to make an appointment with a specialist for some more testing.

I got off the phone and did the one thing that I knew better than to do but did anyway.

I googled.

Of course, the first diagnosis that popped up was Cancer. It always is!

This sent me into a panic, and I called my husband first and then my mom to let them know that I might be dyeing. haha.

I scheduled an appointment with a blood specialist (based out of the Cancer center ugh) and waited as patiently as I could for it to arrive.

During this wait Covid-19 hit with full force.

I was in the middle of major changes and a lot of fears were surfacing. 

surprisingly I was more afraid of my high blood platelets than I was of the dreaded virus.

I had to let some painful emotions from childhood come to the surface.

Since I was a child, I have always had this terrible dread that I would be overcome with a life threatening illness.

I remember watching an old film about the yellow fever epidemic that wiped out thousands of victims in the 1800’s. I must have been 7 or 8, but that evening as I was taking a bath, I swore my belly had a yellow tinge to it. I panicked as I convinced myself that the yellow fever had gotten me. 

As irrational as these fears were and are, they seem very real and can be overwhelming. 

Thankfully, I don’t freak out about getting yellow fever anymore,  but I do have an unhealthy dread of Cancer. 

My appointment arrived, and after a ton of tests, a very painful bone marrow biopsy, and a lot of time, it was over.

I have a high risk for blood clots during pregnancy, but with some medication to help thin my blood I’m going to be just fine.

As uncomfortable and annoying as the whole experience was, I gained a lot of strength and some wisdom from it.

I know that IVF, pregnancy and even parenting is very unpredictable and is going to throw me curve balls. I know that it’s not always going to go exactly the way I want it to or plan for it to. 

I also know that I’m going to get through every single one of those curve balls and that I can choose to do it with a positive attitude and grace if I so choose.  

I knew before but I REALLY know now to stay the hell away from google when it comes to important subjects.

Covid-19 was a different beast. 

My husband and I both lost our jobs because of the virus.

We were already well into the IVF process and felt it was too late to put it on hold. Also, we both felt like a price couldn’t be put on starting our family. 

Iv’e had to face some deep rooted issues I have with money over the last couple of years and the work i’ve put into reprogramming my brain to believe in abundance over lack paid off during this time. 

I was able to come through with a feeling of peace and trust that everything we needed would be provided. 

My IVF schedule was placed on temporary hold because of Covid, but because I was waiting for results about my blood platelets it didn’t really matter. 

In the end it all fell together quite beautifully. 

Both roadblocks passed and before I knew it the first day of IVF was here.