The path that led me here

I remember driving at 5:30 a.m., blasting “Lovely Day” on my way to a day-2 bloodwork and ultrasound appointment. And suddenly, I was hit by a wave of panic, dread and complete darkness.

I arrived at the clinic with bloodshot eyes and, of course, someone asked me if everything was okay. “Everything’s okay,” I said. I wasn’t okay. I was exhausted from going in for the same appointments over and over again and getting the same results. Numb from being told we were ready for transfer, only to end up with another negative.

Almost four years of appointments, bloodwork, ultrasounds, medications, waiting, hoping, starting over… and trying to somehow keep it all together.

And it became too hard to carry alone. I remember telling my therapist — yes, we have therapists, too — my burden and they said to me:

“Maybe it’s best if you adopt. Have you thought about that option?”

I don’t think my body even knew how to process those words. I didn’t need someone to fix this for me. I didn’t need another option thrown at me. I needed someone to understand what it felt like to wake up every day carrying this kind of uncertainty.

Someone to sit with me in the disappointment. Someone to help me navigate the fear, the hope, the grief, the waiting. Someone to tell me, “I see you. I know this is hard. You don’t have to carry it alone.”

I didn’t have that person. And that day, something changed. I chose to become the person I needed back then, the support I wish I had, and the person who could say, “I get it.”

Because sometimes you don’t need someone to fix you, you just need someone who understands.