Why I Share

I want to talk about why I share. Truthfully, it started out as a way to update our family and friends, and then it became therapeutic {and still is}, but soon thereafter, I felt this urge to help. Some way, some how. That’s when I decided to volunteer for Resolve and take phone calls for others recently diagnosed with infertility.

But it wasn’t until just recently that I realized I am helping in more ways than one. By simply sharing. I share on Facebook, random stories that come up about celebrities going through IVF, I shared the photo of us after our failed IVF, but I never know if it’s making an impact. Does anyone really even care? Am I just annoying people with my Facebook shares and overly-wordy blog posts?

I’ve continued to sit on this thought for a while. Until the other day.

I was recently introduced to someone by a friend who is also going through infertility right now. When we connected and shared our stories, we found that our paths to parenthood have been almost identical! Sure, this happens a lot in the infertility world, but I mean, we could have just copied and pasted our stories to each other and it would have been the same.

We often check in with each other, see where we’re at with our current treatments, etc. and she left me with a note that really hit home.

She said, “So thanks for telling your story and giving me the courage to share ours. I really appreciate it.”

It’s a simple message, sure, but to think that when I babble on and on about my uterus or shotty eggs, I’m giving someone else courage, just blows me away. No matter what happens, I think I’ll continue to write. Even if she’s the only person who feels courageous enough to share, after I’ve shared, then it’s worth it. It’s worth putting my very vulnerable self out there to give someone else courage in this really difficult journey.

Can I be truthful here? I can, right? It can literally be the most lonely feeling in the world, living with infertility, and there are days that I have to drag myself out of bed to keep going. There are days that all I want to do is curl up in a blanket and cry it out because it literally feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest and I feel sick to my stomach. And it’s not that I don’t realize how blessed I am, or that I’m so unhappy. I have so very much to be thankful for, but it can sometimes be ungodly overwhelming to be in such limbo with your life. It can be indescribably difficult to continue to long for someone you’ve never even met, but know should be a part of your life and already love.

But then someone tells me that I’ve given them the courage to share their story and I know I have to keep going, and that I have to keep sharing.

So, sorry to break it to you, but you’re not going to stop hearing from me. 🙂 Whether it’s to help educate those who haven’t been through it, or whether it’s to give someone else courage who is going through it, I sharing has become a part of my story and I’m ready to embrace it.