I had intended to keep up with this blog with an occasional post every month or so, then 2020 happened. It wasn't just 2020 happening though, it was my continued journey towards becoming a single mother by choice that slowed my writing. 

At the time of my last post, I'd just begun the IVF process, and didn't totally know what the timeline would look like over the coming months (news flash: a pandemic hit and skewed my plans a bit). By the time I knew what came next and when, we were a couple of months into our COVID-reality, and writing about my fertility journey no longer seemed worth while. Like many people, my life was still dominated by the pandemic...I just also had an equally huge other thing going on.

In late June, I got the news that my first embryo transfer (just days after my birthday) had been a success. I was pregnant again! However, like many women who have previously experienced pregnancy loss or struggled to get pregnant, this news is more anxiety-inducing than exciting...at least in the beginning. For the weeks and months that followed, I held my secret tight...telling only the few who already knew about what I was doing with IVF. Things kept looking good, though, and suddenly I passed the "scary" phase and made it to the second trimester! Sharing this news felt like such a huge weight off my shoulders... like I'd mentioned in previous posts, this has been a long journey that led me to live a significant portion of my life in secret. As someone who prides myself on being real and authentic, I always felt so trapped having to hide this from so many people for so long. I was finally free and slowly allowing myself to feel the joy of pregnancy (with caution because I'm a bit too paranoid).

One of the advantages of being over 35, having a history of pregnancy loss, having a history of hypertension, and going through IVF is that I got to be labeled as "high-risk." Now, some people would see that as a something scary, but I have loved it...it means more doctors and more appointments, but it also means more opportunities to see ultrasounds of my little dude. I'm going to be such a helicopter parent, and I realize that. 

Anyway, throughout the course of the past 30 weeks of pregnancy, I have thought about writing again, sharing my journey, putting some positivity out there in the world when we need it, but despite having shared my news, I still was hesitant to really live in the hope of this reality. That's one of the things loss can do, I guess... it sticks in the back of your mind like a nagging voice telling you that you're destined to fail. I know better, yet the voice makes me think twice.

Until I got to about the halfway point, I was cautious with my optimism, but here I am now approaching the end. Because of my high-risk status, the big day could arrive in a very scheduled and planned way a couple of weeks earlier than my due date (March 3). The reality is setting in, and I have been doing all the "nesting" things. The third trimester is already kicking my butt though, so I'm still not sure my to-do list will actually be done before the baby comes. If I'm lucky, I'll have decided on a name by then! 

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