Beginner’s luck?

Third time’s a charm?

Lucky number seven?

The list goes on and on and, unfortunately, on-again, for every trial of IVF our hopes rose higher and with every failed attempt the crash down was deeper.

Sometimes hope can feel like a cruel joke playing on repeat and so, something had to be done!

Around this time last year, I started seeing a therapist; anxiety attacks had become so dominant in my life that I would lock myself up in my office and feel physically paralyzed and unable to breathe. Something had to be done and fast.

I only saw my amazing therapist for a couple of sessions, but she did wonders to how I saw myself and the world around me. We talked about infertility in ways I have never opened up about before.

During therapy, we came to the realistic conclusion that our IVF journey was not a means to an end; it was simply a journey we had to go through to eliminate the feeling of regret later on. When I’m 37, 40, or 45-years-old, I don’t ever want to regret not taking that one extra step, that “maybe” that could have been the answer. Not feeling any regret was the answer to my inner peace.

Three weeks later, I saw my first positive pregnancy test. I still get goosebumps when I think about that moment. There were no words, absolutely none, to describe our ecstasy.

It was our little secret for a while and two weeks later we heard our baby boy’s first heartbeat. We shared the news with our close families and somehow it seemed like all of the pain, shots, hurt, surgeries and tears were forgotten. Nothing was going to stain this joyful experience.

We ended up having a miscarriage later after my body went into a full shock of inflammation that lasted for a gruelling seven weeks of constant unknown pain in every single cell of my body, with my heart hurting the most…

During those seven weeks, I kept praying that our baby boy was strong enough to get through this chaos but God works in mysterious ways. I had a dream about my baby the night before we lost him, and I saw every single detail of his face all wrapped up in white and in my arms. They say that birth is not about making babies, it’s about making mothers. I respectfully disagree, I may have never given birth to my baby boy but I am every bit of a mother to him as I ever will be.

Sometimes I struggle to prove my humanity to myself. I need to remind myself that I am only human and that feeling disappointment is inevitable at times. The key, however, is to never quit before your miracle happens, and that, my dears, is where the magic starts.