I’m a little out of sorts already as I try to get my bearings and plan out my course of storytelling. What’s been so fun for me about this process is that I actually kept a small journal (better at the beginning of my pregnancy and it definitely trailed off but nonetheless) recording the process. I’m basically doing this as a year in review looking back on the days exactly as I remember them and based on pictures and journal notes to remind myself of what I went through.

Because I’m never one to take things slow I also did a prenatal yoga teacher training during my pregnancy. I’ve just wrapped it up and I’ve learned so much about the postpartum process and the emotional healing that needs to take place. So many women don’t get the time or space to make this happen. I luckily am using this space and my time with my newborn to make sure that my mental health is in a good place.

I keep thinking about Covid and the moms that came before me. My sister-in-law and brother had their baby two years before me and Covid affected our ability to visit and spend quality family time together. I saw numerous other women post on social media about their pregnancies and then about their experiences and either the lack of family time or just the toll that Covid took on all facets of their life when there was still so much unknown.

We somehow managed to hunker down; we actually bought and closed on our house the day that everyone really noticed the impact of Covid - we vividly remember all sports shutting down. The first few months of quarantine fast-forwarded our marriage a bit in a positive direction; where we got to spend so much time together doing what we love: playing Jeopardy and making meals, nesting a bit in our new home, and just spending quality time - I think that’s his love language. A year into it and after some vaccines (I’ll never forget driving through COTA for the unreal pandemic mass vaccination site experience)… we made the careful decision to re-quarantine for the summer in Michigan with my in-laws.

Well you might not think that that’s the ideal place to be TTC and to some degree you would be right! But we were doing it anyway; I was monitoring and tracking with apps every day, every week, every temperature change, every ovulation test strip and when it was time to go we did our best. The nuts and bolts of this process are all too obvious to anyone that has been through it before and pretty self-explanatory even if you haven’t. The cycle that you may not realize that you end up on however is the ups and downs of fingers crossed, highs and lows, and waiting for a result that continually doesn’t come. The what if, the not drinking, the casual feeling that maybe you’re sore or tired or swollen or cranky because it happened! But it didn’t. I don’t have the exact count anymore but I would guess that it was maybe two full years of month after month on that roller coaster before we decided that it wasn’t going to happen. Possibly impossible.

One Covid quarantine night back home we had the discussion where I made sure that we were enough for each other. We talked about alternatives. We talked about adoption, about going any further, getting looked at etc. and what our options were. We did both end up getting “checked” so to speak ( I think funnier on the guy side) and both of us had no concerning results, there was no answer to the mystery.

But at the time, we decided we could maybe look into fostering. We would throw away the ovulation kits, delete the tracking app, and live life together, doing our best.

I can only share my lived experience but I did feel a shift pretty quickly. The cliché that things happen when you least expect them is not quite right but it’s more like giving up the stress of being disappointed, giving up the negative tests and giving up the attachment to the idea of being a failure by not being able to become a mom or to keep her pregnancy… letting all of that go let me finally feel free. That weight was lifted. I threw myself into my other hobbies and passions. I got in great shape, joining the gym once they re-opened, I went almost every single day. Together we worked on our health and well-being, ate very clean, gave up a lot of alcohol, all things that sound so easy but can be tumultuous when you’re pressuring yourself into trying for a pregnancy.

When it was safe to travel again we went to Croatia. It was and still is the most amazing trip I’ve ever been on. We came home thinking if it was just going to be the two of us forever it wasn’t going to be so bad.

Photos: Me, date night 100% the day we conceived haha, us on Graeme’s birthday after I told him, us in Croatia at a park and on a hike.