She learned that hope isn’t pretending storms don’t exist, it’s holding an umbrella in one hand, a child in the other, and still saving a spot in her heart for tomorrow’s sun. She calls herself many things: adoptive mom, grieving mother, wife, full-time worker and leader, infertility advocate, IVF fighter, mental-health ally, and a woman who refuses to quit. Life has dealt her more storms than blue skies, but on the bright days she wears sunglasses and counts every bit of light.
At twenty-three, only a year into marriage, she learned how fragile the dream of children could be. Doctors found severe endometriosis and a four-inch cyst strangling her left ovary until blood flow stopped. One ovary remained, cycles kept feeding the endo, and ovulation faltered. Month after month, tests showed her progesterone falling short. They tried medications and supplements. Then came a new scare: she felt pain at her bra line, did a self-exam, and discovered lumps.
Rapid-growing fibroids and hyperplasia, pushed along by hormones, forced a partial mastectomy, especially worrying with a family cancer history and an autoimmune condition she’d carried since childhood. They kept going. In 2017, they packed a truck in Ohio, drove to Charlotte with six dogs, and started over for better jobs and a real shot at treatment. She did every test the clinic ordered. Her tubes were open, good news, but everything else was hard. The endo needed another surgery. Her egg quality looked poor.
Ovulation was unreliable. Testosterone ran high. Estrogen spiked and crashed on meds. Progesterone stayed low. Two IUIs failed. The choices narrowed: no children, IVF, or adoption. She couldn’t trust her body to carry IVF, yet her heart wouldn’t let go of motherhood. By April 2018, they chose adoption, saved fiercely, finished a mountain of paperwork, and waited. An expectant mom chose them in November. In February 2019, their daughter arrived and made her a mother. Joy mingled with a complicated guilt, treasuring firsts that another woman would never have. They leaned into an open adoption and honored the connection that made their family possible.
Time passed, and the endo still spread. She wasn’t done growing their family. In 2021, they returned to a new specialist. Fresh labs pointed to PCOS, explaining the high testosterone and ovulation issues. She also carried an MTHFR clotting variant. This time, her husband’s tests showed zero percent standard sperm shape. Once again: stop, adopt, or try IVF. They chose IVF, and hope rose. Round one: sixteen eggs, thirteen mature, three embryos frozen.
The first transfer brought a positive test, then heartbreak, no heartbeat by six weeks and four days. Genetic testing later showed missing and duplicated chromosomes. Round two was a chemical pregnancy; faint lines vanished in two days. Round three looked perfect. Week by week, they watched a strong heartbeat and a tiny shape become a gummy bear. Then, on April 14, everything stopped. She was supposed to be released to her regular OB that day. Instead, she was scheduling a D&C for her ten-week baby boy.
Pain and heavy bleeding followed. Messages went unanswered. “Everything is normal,” they said. She knew it wasn’t. On April 19, she went into labor. She never expected to endure so early contractions, a tiny body, a large sac, a cervix that wouldn’t open. She hemorrhaged, needed a transfusion, and still couldn’t pass all the tissue. At 2:18 a.m. on April 20, she was rushed into surgery to prevent infection.
Before discharge, the questions came like blows: Did she want his remains released, disposed of, or cremated? Please fill out the fetal death report and stillborn certificate. She held ultrasound photos and a small urn when she should have been entering the second trimester. This was grief in full, paperwork and pain bound together. In the quiet after, she chose purpose. She would speak louder for people facing infertility.
She would fight for safer, kinder care and teach others to trust their bodies. She would say out loud what many whisper, so no one walks this road thinking they are the only one. At home, her brown-eyed daughter climbs into her lap in the sunshine, the living proof that love can arrive by multiple doors. Their family celebrates the child who came through adoption and mourns the children who could not stay. Both truths live side by side. She is still everything she named at the start: mother, wife, worker, advocate, and one more: a survivor who keeps her heart open. The storms may outnumber the sunny days, but she hasn’t stopped looking for light.
