I'm BA-ACK!!!!!

I haven’t been blogging for years, but I’m ready to jump back in, rather I’ve been ready, but just could not for various reasons that I’ll likely get into later.  This blog has always been about infertility and I’ve never wanted to share kids on here because well, that can be painful when you are in the trenches; however, life has changed a lot, I’ve changed a lot and I have a ton to say, not just about infertility, though that will always be close to my heart.

Since I last wrote we have adopted a son, fought a two-year battle to have his adoption finalized, and caused me more anxiety than I ever understood.  I’ve had marital ups and downs with lots of crazy growth there.  We have a new dog that we rescued, we have zero cats.  My daughter who was conceived via IVF has not only gone to preschool but is now in Kindergarten.  I started an infertility group that began meeting IRL, but now is all online, though we try to meet up for dinner sometimes, schedules don’t seem to be cooperating with us lately.  The group started with just a few people and is over 200 now, where a lot of babies have been born and some have been lost.  That community has been a life-line to me and I hope it’s giving back as much as it’s giving.  Having that and getting to interact there and share, it's like I always keep a piece of Layla and Michael alive. 

We have moved from Texas back to Louisiana WOO HOO!!!  I have delved into a network marketing business and done something I was always terrified of, which is sales.  I’m with a new company that focuses on clean products and getting chemicals eliminated from our self-care products, which is huge.  I actually found out today that when the company started only 11 chemicals were banned from makeup and skincare and with the help of our company it is now up to 30!!!!  Still such a long way to go, but progress is always good! 

I want to share beauty products here, but that won’t be my main goal.  My main goal will be to share about life and how perhaps what we thought was the fairy tale really wasn’t at all.  I’ve always been real here and life is a beautiful ride, but it is in fact, quite the ride.   I want to share hilarious things my kids say and do because seriously those fools are so funny!  No doubt I’ll talk about marriage, friendship, small groups, and motherhood, life, those are the things I want to talk about, the nitty gritty thing about life and love and loss and struggle and laughter and hope.  All of it. 

I hope you’ll continue to join me here periodically.  Writing is and has always been so cathartic to me, so I hope I can make you laugh, make you think, and make you feel visible in a world where it’s easy to feel invisible!

New Bloggie Friend!!!

I'd like to ask you to go visit my sweet friend, Alisa, who just joined the blogging community! She's a fellow BLM and IF sufferer and a great woman of faith! You'll love her I know! She's currently starting fertility treatment and I'm sure could use some love and support, so head over to The Brogden Report (isn't that cute?!?) and welcome her to this great group of women who have helped me so much over the last year+!

Again, I must say how much this community has meant to me and how much you have helped me this past year!! Thank you all for your love and support!

Lonely

That word seems to penetrate the world of people with fertility issues. We all blog and we share and we comfort each other, but this road is lonely! Each person experiences this differently and though we share experiences, no two cases are exactly the same! In talking to my great friend C that I've been friends with for years now, who is starting the IVF journey, she said it, she feels so lonely!! We talk a lot about how we feel and we share experiences, but it is still lonely! Infertility is lonely. It's so lonely that I hate to write the word even!

Everyone's road is different and I respect them all. One may not be right for me that is right for you, and my journey into adoption may not be right for other people. Adoption is in itself different for everyone. For us, we are super-blessed, very greatful to have found a great birthmother who is sweet, funny, smart, and organized. Those are traits that I think fit well with our family and we are greatful!

I want to share that this journey itself is a lonely one as well. The ins and outs of adoption are so complicated, and you have to travel that road and figure it out as you go. I wish I could tell you that it's simple and cut and dry but it's not. It's lonely to not know how to handle each situation and to have to figure it out. I want to emphasize that it is hard for me, for Sean, for Baby Mama, for our birthfather, for my family and friends, for Baby Mamas family and friends. In our situation it's hard to watch her go through this and hard for us to go through it as well. We are thrilled to be adopting Cala, we know she's meant to be in our family, but I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking this is super easy.

Every step of this infertility is hard and each part of the process has to be navigated, some parts are easier than others, but they all must be taken to reach our baby dreams!

So, here's to those lonely steps that bring us to our babies and to knowing that ultimately, regardless of how lonely we've felt, God never leaves us alone.