Feeling Peace.

 I will be honest I was really scared of how I was going to feel this holiday season, in a season where I have felt a lot of heart break and loss, and the one thing I REALLY want isn't coming true this holiday season. 

 

 

BUT I feel so grateful right now, grateful might seem like a weird feeling to feel when for 20 months I have been reminded of loss after loss, and trying again with more loss. 

But during this break we have been on, I found myself again, I found so much peace with where we are at. This journey has not been easy and for months I felt like a shell of myself and worried I would never feel the same again. And parts of me won't ever be the same, because going through something like this changes you. But I am feeling so GREAT and at peace. I was talking to a friend the other day about her infertility and she felt bad for complaining to me about her infertility because they haven't been trying as long as we have,  and it's weird to feel so far out from where we started and yet feel so much better. Those first few months of trying and failed cycle after cycle are sooooo hard, and if you are in that place right now, it's weird to say, even without a baby still, things get better.... for me it's that I found peace with how our journey is going. Do I love that we have had to spend THOUSANDS of dollars to try and get pregnant...NO...do I love that we will never have that first surprise pregnancy with all the fun surprises...NO... am I grateful for science that will hopefully be getting us pregnant... YES! 

As soon as I finally said yes to our IVF journey there was this wave of peace that came over me, like this was suppose to be this way, and right now I don't know why that is. I don't know why so much pain had to happen to get us to this point of peace. But I am still weirdly grateful for this place we are in. 

I am grateful for the connections I have made because of this journey, I am grateful for the support of so many friends and family, I am grateful for a husband that supports my biggest desires.

For years I have picked a word for the year, and 2021 was HOPE. And there was a lot of hope, and a lot of pain that went with that hope. But I know that, that hope brought us here to PEACE. So for 2022 my word for the year is peace. I know we could have a long road still in front of us, but I pray that with each step we continue to have an abundant amount of peace through this journey. 

 

And we found out our IVF journey is going to be started a lot early then we thought and we are so excited about that!

Infertility During the Holidays

First off I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has given to our Gofundme for Baby Sears! Every little bit helps in this journey and we are so grateful for the outpouring of love and support! 

 

 

But I won't lie, even feeling the best I have felt all year, maybe since we started this journey, going through infertility during the Holidays is so hard. There are just so many reminders of what we are missing/wanting. I mean the christmas songs alone are so triggering....All I want for christmas, Wish you were here this Christmas, ect ect... 

I was thinking back to last christmas this morning, and it's weird to think that being a year out from that and still not pregnant nor have a baby, I am grateful that I am in a better place mentally than I was last Christmas. Last Christmas I think we were still pretty hush hush about our journey, I might have mentioned it a little, and our close group of friends and some family knew. But for the most part it felt like I was carrying the weight of it all on my own, and it felt like I was living these two lives, the life of trying to have a baby EVERY month and hiding all those feelings, to trying to be happy and not let everyone know the PAIN I was in every month. I was also was holding on to SO MUCH HOPE that we would get a Christmas Miracle and get to share that with Family on Christmas. And of course when that didn't happen, and I knew for sure a few days before Christmas, and it was so hard. 

So this break around the holidays has been the best thing for me, because while Hope is wonderful, month after month of having such high hope to be crushed by the disappointment of it all is something I can't even explain, I think the pain of that isn't talked about a lot. You know people talk about pregnancy loss, and not being able to get pregnant, but the true grief EVERY MONTH of it not happening is truly unbearable sometimes.

And I share my story because there's so many women out there that are going through this, that choose to keep things private, but I know they are suffering so much. And I know personally, just hearing someone else's story about how hard it was for them, made me realize that, okay yes my feelings are very valid! I think as women we want to be strong and say we can do it all! But when you are faced with this journey it's not meant for you to have to carry all the pain and weight, so even if you aren't ready to share with the world, reach out to someone and ask for help. 

I started therapy a few months ago, because this journey is very traumatic, and I knew even if I got pregnant the day I started therapy there was a LOT of trauma I needed to process and talk through to be the best someday Mom I could be. But taking those steps wasn't easy, saying I needed help wasn't easy! But I have learned this about myself through this process that I can only take a one step in front of the other, one step at a time, because with each step you make you don't know how you are going to feel. So when the steps feel like they are getting harder, get some help, or even before they get to that point, 

THE BEST GIFT I GAVE MYSELF THIS YEAR WAS THERAPY! No joke about it. 

I know I still have a lot of hard days ahead of me through the holidays, but I also know I have been through hell and back this year, and have survived. And it wasn't always easy or painless, but I know I can make it through hard things. But that doesn't mean it's easy....

Third time is a charm....right??

 Third time is a charm they say right? 

Well here's to hoping that as we move onto our 3rd IUI treatment. It pains me a little to even have to say that. To think that we are already on to #3 and that 2 IUIs already failed. These last two cycles have been pretty hard to cope with and I have tried so hard to hold on to the hope of it all, but when it feels like everything is "right" and it's still NOT WORKING it's hard to hold on to the hope of it all. 

 

These last few weeks I have definitionally felt more at peace with knowing that God does have a plan in all of this, and even when it's not working out the way I want it to, I know his hand is on this journey. BUT that doesn't mean there isn't pain and that doesn't mean I don't have strong feelings about each cycle failing. But I do have more peace, I just wish the peace helped the sadness go away, or keep me from feeling all the feels. 

 

The hardest part of Infertility is that EVERY month it doesn't work you are grieving this loss, but you never get to fully grieve it and work through it all because you quickly swept up in another cycle that you want to put all your hopes and positivity into. 

 

BUT 18 month of doing this has been A LOT, and if this next IUI doesn't work (but man I am hoping it does!) we are going to take a much needed break from it all. It doesn't mean we are giving up on this dream, but until you have walked in the shoes of infertility you can't imagine the burden it all becomes and the pain you are carrying every month moving on to the next, so a break is what we NEED.

I truly wish this wasn't my story, when this last cycle failed it definitionally felt like this bad dream I was in, like how did this happen to US, and when can it be over...

 

I am hoping that a month or so from now we are getting to share amazing happy news, but if we aren't please keep us in your prayers we we move on to some time of rest and start thinking about what the next best steps are for us to grow our family.

The next steps in our Fertility Journey

Well in the last week some big things happened. We had our first fertility appointment, and everything went good! And after a few test to check things off the list we have decided to start IUI next month!!

I feel like it has been a wild week thinking and reading all about IUI and what next month is going to have in store, but it feels good and we are excited about this next step that will hopefully bring us a little tiny babe!

This journey has felt long, and I know compared to others it hasn't even been the worst, but a year ago thinking about having to go to a fertility doctor to help us get pregnant seemed pretty devastating to me. For me it meant losing out on some of the dreams I had, like surprising my husband and family that we are pregnant, which I know I can still do, it just feels different because we have been very open about this journey. Which I don't regret, sharing life in this way has been something I have always loved to do, and I think even if me talking about our struggles helps one person out, than it's worth it. But now almost 18 months after trying going to see a fertility doctor feels so different, don't get me wrong, I was nervous because there is still so many unknowns. But now that we have a plan in place, some new to try it definitionally gives me a lot more hope. And we are excited to have that renewed hope to lean into. 

 

The biggest downfall of going through infertility is the financial burden it brings, our insurance unfortunately doesn't cover any of our fertility treatments, and we are pretty lucky that we are pretty good savers so we have the funds to support us through a couple of cycles of IUI, and we are praying that we will get our sweet baby after one cycle, but we always know that's not always the case. 

 

I opened this Etsy shop a couple of months ago, kinda on a whim and it's already been super helpful to help pay for testing we have had to get done. BUT if you are looking to help out in the smallest way, all the funds from here until we have our sweet baby will be going towards our infertility treatments! 

(I will be adding a bunch of back to school printable signs the first week of Aug)

 

But we would appreciate all the prayers and positive vibes as we move onto this next journey! 

 

www.etsy.com/shop/SaraGreenCollective

 

HOPE | hope through infertility

 It's another cycle day 1 for me. When the world feels like it's crushing. When ever thing else around me feels like it's moving on and I am stuck in this awful dream I wish I could get out of. It’s always such a weird day, the whole infertility journey is so weird. Because it’s this huge grief you have in your life, but unlike mourning the death of a person that people can somewhat relate to and understand your pain, infertility is something that yes lots of women go through, but it’s still something so many people can’t relate to, which makes you feel very isolated. 

 

 

But the one thing I hold on to is hope. Hope that someday I get to hold my sweet baby, hope that one day we will get to announce and celebrate with family and friends our wonderful news, hope that I get to see my husband become a dad, hope that I will finally get to be called mom, hope that the one thing in life I really wanted will come true.

 

SO MUCH HOPE. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if the hope I have makes things worse, when cycle day 1 comes I think what if I didn't hope for it so much, would hoping less make the pain less. But I don't think that's true, because for me the hope still brings me so much joy, thinking of all the things that will come. Even through this last year of hell I am still joyful of the hope of one day. 

 

 

Sure I HOPE and pray that the day comes sooner rather than later, because sometimes I am not sure how much longer I can keep trying, there are a lot of angry moments that I am like WHY ME GOD, WHY did you give me this desire to just put me through all this pain. And a lot of times it just feels unbearable. 

 

Last 4th of July was the first month that I REALLY felt the weight of trying and it not happening, it was the first month that I cried when my cycle started again which meant we wouldn't get to celebrate the news of a baby. But in my naive thoughts I thought SURELY by next year at this time we will have a baby or a baby on the way, and here we are a year later in more pain and frustration then I can imagine. 

I don’t know what the next year is going to look like, and I still have hope that in 2022 we will have our baby.

 

We finally made the decision after over a year and half of trying to go to a fertility doctor. When we first started trying and things weren’t happening the idea of having to go to a fertility doctor seemed so scary. But now after so much time, I wouldn’t say excited, but I am happy that we have this plan to hopefully get to the end goal of having our baby! Because 1 sweet baby is all we need!