I just couldn’t see it.

Now that I can see it, the journey looks so different when looking back. Everyone changes and evolves as life goes on. As our circumstances change, we change.

I just wasn’t ready for who I was becoming, and I think I still am getting used to it.

The thing that changed everything?

Infertility.

The last few years of our lives have completely revolved around trying to have a baby. It consumed our life. We kept going to appointments, changing doctors, changing protocols, changing treatments. Each time, thinking maybe this is finally it, just to be disappointed.

But then we would start the process over and over and over.

It became me.

I never really even stopped to think about what it was doing to me. We were just sitting there in the middle of it, and we’re sharing all of it in real time with the world.

We wouldn’t stop for anything.

We just wanted our happy ending.

The problem is when you’re so deep into it, you can’t even process what’s actually going on. You’re just fighting to get to the other side. You keep pushing through and keep trying everything no matter what, and that was me for years.

After enough time passed, I finally turned around and looked at what I had been through, and holy crap.

I think that’s where I am now.

I’ve shared so much of our fertility journey while we were living it. I was filming all the appointments, treatments, the waiting, good days, some of the bad days, and everything in between. I shared all of it in the moment, and I’m so grateful that I did.

In sharing our story, it connected me to so many of you. Some of the most meaningful messages I’ve ever received came from you guys who were walking through infertility or loss with me. People were telling me things they hadn’t even told their own family or anybody else in their lives, but they knew that I would understand.

This made me feel less alone, and I hope in some small way it did the same thing for you.

If you’ve been here for a little while, you’ve probably noticed I haven’t talked about it very much over the last year. I don’t think I ever consciously decided I’m not gonna share this anymore. I just think that I needed some space to process everything without having to explain it, and it just kind of happened.

For years, I shared everything as it happened, and I did that over and over again for so long that I became numb. I wasn’t even taking the time to process it. I realized I needed time to heal. I needed time to take it all in without just posting it right on the internet.

Honestly, it’s still been a process for me.

It’s definitely not been easy, but I know it was all for a purpose. It’s part of our journey.

Along this journey, I have changed in a lot of ways and am not quite ready to unpack all of that, but I do think I’m finally getting to a place where I can start to talk about it.

I think being able to talk about it now is a result of me being quiet this last year or so. I didn’t have the pressure to share every single moment. I didn’t feel the need to compare myself to everyone else. I would find myself looking at other people’s lives and wondering why it’s so easy for them to have kids, but not us. I started to realize I didn’t have to have an answer every time someone asked what we were going to do next: if we were going to try another round, if we were going to adopt, if we were going to use a surrogate.

I needed less noise around me. I needed to be quiet and still so I could hear God. In this stillness, I started to learn things about myself that I didn’t know before. My prayers started changing.

The things I thought I cared about no longer mattered as much. What I thought was success was no longer what I felt I needed to chase. I had always pictured this life for myself and my family, and even that picture has started to change.

Things were starting to be a little more clear. I could feel God moving and changing in my life.

He was changing me.

How much I was changing? Well, I didn’t know that until now. It was like the scene from Shrek lol peeling back layers of an onion, peeling back layers of myself, and learning what was underneath. It has been super uncomfortable, but I’ve learned we’re probably not supposed to stay the same after going through something like that.

Maybe we’re supposed to change.

Maybe that’s the point.

So many of my prayers used to be asking God to change our circumstances. Please let this round work. Let it be our time. Give us the family we’re praying for. I still do pray for those things.

I still have questions all the time.

There are parts of our story I still don’t understand at all, even after all this time. I haven’t figured it out. But now we’re not in the middle of it. I can see things I didn’t know existed.

I can see how God was slowing me down. I can see how he was changing what I valued and the way I look at life. It’s changed the way I look at myself. It’s made Marky and me so much closer. It’s helped my relationship with God, and it’s made me not just pray only when I need Him.

I have spent so much time asking God to change my circumstances, and I never even noticed how much He was changing me in the middle of those circumstances. I don’t mean to sound like everything happens for a reason, so now I understand it all, because I don’t.

There are parts that hurt, there are things that I’m grieving, questions I may never have answers to. Finally I’m able to just look back and realize that infertility has changed me. I’m not the same person I was a few years ago, but I’m grateful for that.

Now I’m wishing my life would slow down!

I don’t want to wish my days away waiting for the things I want. It’s changed all of my priorities. I’m starting to get more comfortable not having an answer for everything. It’s still so much to process, and I’m still trying to figure out what it means for Marky and I.

Where do we go from here?

Mostly because I wasn’t really sure where to begin. It really doesn’t feel like the beginning anyway. But where I am today doesn’t make sense without everything that came before

So here we are…

I’ve shared so much of my life over the years. So much more than I ever imagined I would…maybe too much. But the funny thing is that people can watch your life for years and years and still never really know your story.

You see the moments. You don’t always get the whole picture. The reality after the camera is off. The prayers that are still being prayed. The questions that didn’t have answers. The little decisions that slowly changed everything. That changed me.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

Because when I look at my life today, nothing happened the way I thought it would. Not my faith. Not my marriage. Not my health. Not the businesses Marky and I have built. Not the dreams we’re still holding onto.

I feel like there are still so many parts of me I’m figuring it out.

Maybe I always will be. Maybe that’s just changing.

But somewhere along the way, I stopped sharing what was on my heart. Maybe because I just didn’t have the answers. And I still don’t.

So maybe that’s what this is. Somewhere to tell more…

The things that changed me.

The things that I’m leaving behind.

The things I’m still figuring out.

Maybe someday this will feel like a book that’s still being written.

For now…

I just wanted a place where this could live because this isn’t the end, it feels like we’re beginning again.