Hello. my name is Isabel and this blog is all about my experiences dealing with infertility, recurrent pregnancy loss, and our new adventure as intended parents in our surrogacy journey. Also, a little bit of everything else in my life. Welcome!
My story started long ago. With regards to my journey to parenthood, well, that has a date of about 2001. Well, officially anyway. That’s when I had my first visit with a Reproductive Endocrinologist. And that’s when it all began. The endless treatments and the months that turned into years of not getting pregnant, or getting pregnant and having miscarriage after miscarriage.
In 2013, I became pregnant with our much-loved and wanted son Leo. He was the light of our lives. We were excited to meet him, and given my fragile history, he was also the longest-lasting pregnancy to-date. So, why wouldn’t it be *it* this time? My rainbow baby! However, in my second trimester, around 18w5d, we had an ultrasound, required after receiving some iffy blood test results. The ultrasound found the most still baby. A quiet heart. And the tears flowed as our hearts broke wide open. My fifth miscarriage. Our little miracle, gone, just like that.
Having and then losing our son Leo broke my heart wide open. I went through the most transformative experience. Post traumatic growth, if you will. It changed my viewpoint on so many things. It has pushed me to go back to school. It has pushed me to learn more about the grief experience. It has helped me to seek deep and work toward doing my “soul-work” – which is working with others that are facing bereavement, or even their own mortality. I am slowly working toward this, but in the meantime, after much thought and consideration we are ready to continue pursuing our quest toward parenthood. We have chosen to use IVF with PGD along with a Gestational Carrier. If these terms are unfamiliar to you, don’t worry. We’ll walk through this together. And because of this, we have decided to face this part of our journey wide open. To share our story with family, friends, and all members of the Internet. We feel that this story is important. Most of all, in our vulnerability, we hope that we can all find strength as a community.
Thank you for being a part of our compassionate community. Thank you.
Oh, and what’s up with the whole xo thing?
Well, I’m a fan of Elliott Smith. He’s a musician. In 2003, had a couple of miscarriages. Someone close to me lost his Mother. And just while I was really discovering Elliott Smith, he also died that year. It happened all in a row. One of my favorite songs is one called Waltz No. 2 (XO). In this song he has a lyric that says:
I’m never gonna know you now but I’m gonna love you anyhow
And that’s how I feel about all of the babies I made, but never met. And I’ll always carry that in my heart.
XO, Isabel