Word of the Day
I found a passage in a book my mother-in-law had given me. It is called Pray a Word a Day. As the title eludes, it has one word each day for a year, and with the word comes a piece of scripture that uses the word. Then a guest author writes an excerpt to go along with the verse and word. I was flipping through it the other day and the word I stopped on was honesty. In big, bold letters at the top of the page—HONESTY. I continued reading. The passage went in a different direction than I anticipated. It talked about being vulnerable and honest about your story. That your story, although trying for you, can be strength for someone else. This got me thinking about a quote from an episode of the Ed Mylett Podcast that I recently listened to. His guest in the episode was Dr. Taryn Marie. She discussed the idea of “gratiosity” meaning that you can find gratitude in your experience even if you wouldn’t have chosen it and that you can generously share that experience, your story, with the world. Combining “gratitude” and “generosity” into one word; gratiosity.
The thought of being honest and sharing your vulnerable stories generously can be scary. However, it also doesn’t mean you have to use a platform such as a blog or a podcast to overshare anything. It’s taking the idea that the experience that brought out your resilience could potentially be someone else’s survival guide. This made me realize that I currently have the potential ability to give someone else strength. So, this is me sharing my HONESTY with you all.
As most of you know, my focus with my children’s books and blogging is to positively impact children and their caregivers. To broaden literacy and positive self-talk. I was inspired to do this after becoming a mom. What most of you don’t know is that there was a period of time that my husband and I weren’t sure if we would ever be parents. We struggled with infertility. It’s interesting because “infertility” isn’t something openly discussed as you grow up. Kind of the opposite. But I won’t go down a rabbit hole of what we are taught. I will say that I just assumed it wouldn’t be an issue. I assumed that we would get married, decide to have a family, and then ta-da—a family we would be. That wasn’t our path. Our path brought us closer together as a married couple. Our path included tears of heartache and pain (emotional and physical). Our story made us resilient. And in our vulnerable truth I have found my gratitude through the experience. Like so many families, we had to go through IVF. For those of you not familiar, IVF is in vitro fertilization. It consists of daily shots and medication leading up to an egg retrieval procedure. Then they combine the egg and sperm and after a short period of time (that seems like an eternity), it involves the embryo transfer, more waiting, and then hopefully a positive pregnancy test. This is an expensive and emotionally draining experience. I don’t wish this experience on anyone—but now that I’m on the other side of it, it’s our story and our story is beautiful. Our story has blessed us with two wonderful babies and now I can’t imagine it any other way. Every appointment filled with bad news sending us steps backwards was leading us to this exact spot. And I wouldn’t trade being in this spot for anything.
The incredible part about all of this is that our story and circumstances might be rare, but IVF is not. The CDC reports approximately 4 million births per year in the U.S. are via IVF. (Statistics from Pennmedicine.org) Though when you are going through it, it feels as if you are the only ones. It feels very lonely. Friends seem like they are having babies all around you and no one else could possibly know your pain. The wonderful part about being courageous enough to share your truth is that it helps open others to share theirs. I was very open about our struggles at the time, and it was incredible that once I opened the door, other people started sharing. This helped me heal and realize we weren’t alone. There are millions of other families going through the same thing. I’m not sure what your path might have been to parenthood, whether it was simple or took a little bit of medical intervention—but what I do know is that everyone has had experiences that brought about an amount of resilience they didn’t know they had. Whether you have lost a loved one, been diagnosed with an illness, or struggled with infertility like we did, your experience could be the survival guide someone needs. Will you be honest with yourself and others? Will you be vulnerable enough to share your story and find gratitude in the experience? I hope so because I know how powerful those genuine moments of connection can be. Thank you for reading about our path to parenthood. Whether your experience was similar or completely different I feel honored to have the ability to tell it and maybe let someone out there know that they are not alone.
I hope you have a wonderful weekend and as always, happy reading.
I am not a medical expert, these are opinions strictly based on our own personal experience. Please meet with your own medical professional for information regarding your own fertility journey.
