Road to Adoption - infertility and Katy's Story

Numerous blood draws, tests, ALOT of tears, and jokes about sparing the world an evil dictator, and updating who's seen my vagina counts.

Not every fertility journey is the same but this is ours.

I did not want to be one in eight who struggle with fertility. I also assumed that I could balance my career, my life goals, and fertility. I could have a biological family on my terms. I was told since I was a teenager that you did not want to get pregnant. Now when I wanted to, I simply couldn't.

I have ALOT of feelings around sexual health education, ob-gyn health, and maybe that's a future blog post but the summary of my story without getting into the gorey, and very personal medical details is that I thought this would be easier and I thought we had more time.

I've learned so much about my health during this process. I've fallen more in love with my husband in last two years, and I've never been more sad.

Gratitude and humor during fertility treatments

I am deeply grateful to the professionals at CCRM Boston who helped us explore our fertility options, who helped me find out I'm 19% Eastern Mediterranean, who answered all my endless questions on our road to building our family, especially as a vegetarian/nearly vegan who was weirdly pre-occupied with my iron levels.

I am incredibly grateful to my acupuncturist, Mary Egan who legit kept my anxiety to a simmer on acupuncture days. Mary is an fertility acupuncturist who literal walks you through every step of the fertility journey as your advocate. I cannot thank her enough for the peace she gave and continues to provide.

I'm very grateful to my friends and family who not only lifted me up when things became too heavy, who understood when I cancelled Thanksgiving and Christmas because of finances and heartbreak and who tolerated my mood swings as I cut all my favorite foods (coffee (1 cup a day), cheese, and dairy. (no ice cream!). Yes, it is possible to dream about cheese.

I am truly grateful to my husband who has equal share of this fertility journey. He endured testing, difficult decisions, and emotional heart ache. He also continued to lift us up with humor. We started competitions for who could have the most blood vials drawn and joked about saving the world from evil dictators when month after month we did not become pregnant. I joked about how many humans had seen my vagina and we tried to elevate each other the way we have always done so - with humor, with love, and with patience.

It is this village that helped us navigate infertility and the same humans who embraced our decision to adopt a child.. Despite the challenges, I cannot wait to expand our family, meet our child, and build an even strong foundation of love.