FERTILITY FIGHTERS

🌷Infertility brings so much to light. It shows you your strength. One day it brings you to your knees and makes you question everything you have ever known. The next, it makes you grateful for science your ability to push through the absolute worst pain imaginable. You meet your baby, and you realize it was worth every piece of dogshit you went through. You will never take parenthood or your child for granted because you know what it is like to face a dark hole that may not have a baby at the end. Infertility teaches you who your real friends are, the ones that really are simply acquaintances, and it shows you the people you can lean on.

For all the pain that infertility causes, for all the hard truths it brings to light, the one silver lining that seems to reign true of every person I have met in this community, is that it is one of the best women. We are resilient, grateful, passionate, thoughtful, compassionate, loving, and albeit torturned, we are the most accepting and open of any. For some of us, these characteristics were always present, for others, like myself, infertility brought to life some of these aspects that I struggled with in my past.

Although I feel unlucky to have had to fight so goddamn hard just to become a mom, I have been extremely lucky to have met some of my favorite people through this experience. One very special friend was met via a surrogacy social media group. We had transfers 1 day apart (her second transfer, our third). Our babies are now one day apart. We experienced gestational surrogacy together as intended parents and we bonded over that world, but also wanting to do something with this very shared, very unique experience.

It was a month ago we got together for dinner. Both of us taking a breather from motherhood to enjoy a couple glasses of wine and a meal. She brought up wanting to really do something with our fertility message. Help women in a way we were not helped. Provide support and resources that we both wish we would have had when we first entered the dark abyss of infertility. I was immediately all in. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel like this is where I can provide the most value. This is where my passion lies. When I think about Evie, I hope she never has to experience what I have, but if she does, I so hope she doesn’t have to be as isolated and lonely and helpless as I was (and frankly, still am, at times).

My girlfriend and I brainstormed over dinner, set up a follow-up meeting where we put pen to paper and started to make it happen. This week was that meeting.

We sat down for nearly 3 hours to go over our plan. Our purpose is clear. When you go through infertility, it becomes blatantly obvious the holes in our female healthcare system – especially when it comes to infertility. We both want to remove the stigma, open the conversation, and empower women to talk and share it all. After all, we talk about every other hard thing in life – death, cancer, addiction – but for some reason, something as common as infertility is still shrouded. This needs to change, and we want to be a part of it.

I have never felt as excited and motivated for anything (next to getting our daughter here,) and that tells me I’m in the right space. A space I would never know I was meant to be a part of if it wasn’t for being infertile. How ironic.🌷